In this week’s chapters from our companion book, BJ, the manager of HomeMarket, has a breakthrough in her wrestling career. We learn about BJ’s ambition to transcend her daily life, and how the world often responds to such efforts when her performance falls flat and she gets booed by the crowd.
Meanwhile, Hai reflects on how things might have turned out as he considers the choices that brought him to this point, blending the past and the present. The author highlights a contrast between BJ’s public performance and Hai’s internal reflections as both attempt to reshape their lives or craft their own stories.
Vuong takes us on a flashback to Hai’s childhood with Sony. The scene opens at a McDonald’s in Virginia, when we discover that Sony prefers things to be “real” and dislikes some of Hai’s imaginative stories. But when the families visit the Stonewall Jackson Museum, they discover that the word “slaves” is avoided. Instead, saying “servants,” drawing attention to historical erasure and how narratives are shaped or muted.
The Museum’s omission of the word “slaves” is a subtle reminder that history, as presented, is often incomplete and whitewashed. This idea applies to Hai’s family history. Some stories are told, and some are not. Even Grazina’s memories of Lithuania and World War II stand in contrast to how American history is presented. Both serve as a reminder that how institutions handle the stories of our shared past and identity have come under recent scrutiny.
But regardless of whether the stories we craft match reality or the chances we take pay off, life goes on, and history is made and recorded in various ways. Some moments can be rightfully remembered as benefiting the community both then and in the future. Many, however, leave a stain.
And stains bleed and spread beyond their original spot, seeping into surrounding areas and making the stained area larger and more challenging to clean. And a stain bleeds through history. Its effects spread and remain visible long after its making.
In many ways, the most horrible stains of all are left when humankind finds ways to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion. Scripture wrestles with these challenges to God’s plan for abundance for all of creation.
The terms “clean” and “unclean” are categories of belonging and exclusion illuminated in the Laws of Moses. For example, only foods considered clean were eaten. However, the term “clean” was also used to label who could enter the temple, who could worship, and who was considered acceptable. Over time, these categories become tools of control by changing the narrative and obscuring the truth of God’s intentions.
Instead of helping people follow God faithfully, the designations provided a way to exclude some individuals, while declaring others “pure.”
However, God’s insistence on inclusion challenges us to tell the truth about history. Even though diversity reflects the true nature of God’s intent for creation, humankind is prone to changing the narrative told by history, covering the stains of past injustices, and setting us up to return and repeat practices that God sees as atrocities.
Clean refers to who is an ally, a neighbor, and worthy to sit in the pew next to us. The setup offered in the Old Testament, both in the Laws of Moses and illustrated in the stories that follow, undergirds the teachings of Jesus on the criticality of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is reinforced in the letters of Paul and others.
The ideal of substituting “servant” for “slave” is, in a sense, declaring, “The word slave is unclean, so let’s make it presentable.” But in doing so, the narrative changes and tries to cover up the truth about the stain left from oppression. To deny or alter language about injustice is to rob the oppressed of voice.
Jesus confronted this kind of sanitizing head-on. He touched lepers, spoke to the “unclean,” and even declared, “It is not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but what comes out of their heart” (Mark 7:15).
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are about breaking down false boundaries of what is considered clean and unclean, and creating space for those who have been excluded. But when DEI is reduced to superficial wordplay, it turns into a new “purity code” that focuses more on managing discomfort than facing reality.
Our current president signed an Executive Order in March aimed at “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” It orders Smithsonian museums, educational/research centers, and the National Zoo to eliminate what the administration chooses to label as “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
The order was followed by a directive calling for a “comprehensive internal review” of certain museums, potentially revising how history is told in Smithsonian exhibits to align with a narrative that replaces “divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions.”
While there is a policy framework and a directive to review all public-facing materials and revise language considered “divisive or ideologically driven,” it does not specify which words must be changed. However, it is possible that replacing “servant” with “slave” could be targeted if seen as less “divisive” or more “constructive.” The directive aims for completion within 120 days from the date of the letter, so some changes may already be in progress.
This process is part of a larger effort to remake U.S. history and culture by trying to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion. These ideas were initially introduced into policy starting in 1961 when President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required government contractors to “take affirmative action” to ensure equal employment opportunities.
DEI policies aimed to highlight marginalized voices, ensure representation, and prevent injustice. However, the current administration’s rhetoric claims that inclusion and equity are distractions and liabilities.
This past week, hundreds of generals and admirals were summoned at short notice to a meeting of the U.S. military’s top leaders, where they listened in silence to highly partisan speeches from our current president and defense secretary. Each criticized their predecessors harshly, promoted their political objectives, and railed against diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, calling them part of “decades of decay.”
Some observers see this meeting not just as a personnel or morale event, but as a symbolic pivot—a way to reshape institutional culture and memory. Instead of focusing on national security and alliances, they were bombarded with new ideas of what is clean and what is unclean. That is, who belongs in the circle of trust, who is excluded, who is “ally,” and who is “enemy.”
Just as the museum replaced “slave” with “servant,” this meeting signals an attempt to reframe institutional identity and history. By calling DEI policies destructive or decay-makers, it positions them as part of a “wrong narrative” that must be corrected. The new narrative deems them “unclean.”
Just as illustrated in scripture, the temptation is to define purity (clean) by power, by strength, or by image. But the gospel insists that true cleanness is found in truth, justice, and mercy.
When a powerful institution begins to suppress or delegitimize specific histories or policies (e.g. casting DEI as a “virus”), there’s a risk of erasure—of displacing collective memory about discrimination, marginalization, or structural inequality.
Regardless of how we choose to clean the stain left by the institution of slavery, this stain still bleeds. The wounds can be dressed, but the pain remains. Covered stains still bleed. By replacing “slave” with “servant,” the museum in our companion book hid the harsh reality of human bondage. It is a reminder of how societies and even religious communities mask sin instead of confronting it directly.
We can try to soften a hard truth. “Servant” sounds gentler, less offensive, and easier to read aloud to children on a school trip. But a terrible truth is covered by wrapping a wound with a polite bandage. The pain of slavery, the chains, the loss of dignity, and the forced labor were swept under the rug with a safer word.
Scripture confronts enslavement. In Exodus, God liberates Israel from Pharaoh’s oppressive rule. And failing to name slavery honestly in history is a refusal to honor God’s liberating work. God urges people to remember. “Do not forget that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out” (Deuteronomy 5:15). Forgetting distorts both justice and identity.
The Prophet Jeremiah said of his generation, “They bandage the wounds of my people as if they were not very deep… Are they ashamed of their hateful actions? They feel no shame at all. They do not even know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:14). And Jesus tells us plainly in John 8:32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
God never calls us to rewrite our past. He calls us to remember it truthfully. This point is intentionally reinforced in the ritual we call Communion. On the night of His arrest, Jesus told His followers, “As often as you do this, remember Me!” So it is our practice to list examples of God’s grace.
They bandage the wounds of my people as if they were not very deep… Are they ashamed of their hateful actions? They feel no shame at all. They do not even know how to blush.
Jeremiah 6:13-15
The good news is that while we cannot make the world clean by covering its stains, God makes the world clean by naming them, bearing them, and washing them in the blood of Christ. Because of what Christ has done, we can face history with honesty, face each other with humility, and face the future with ho pe.
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Pastor Tommy
Our companion book for this series is Ocean Vuong. The Emperor of Gladness. NY: Penguin Press, 2025.
Janay Kingsberry and Kelsey Ables. “Trump says Smithsonian is too focused on slavery. Scholars see sanitizing.” © Washington Post, August 21, 2025. Retrieved from: Link
Tara Copp, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton, Ellen Nakashima and Noah Robertson. “Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals.” © Washington Post, September 25, 2025.. Retrieved from: link