The following is a guest post by my good friend and brother, Brian Foulks.
The constant rehearsing of the trauma of racism has placed an indelible chasm in the soul of black folks. As we wrestle to understand and try to reconcile, how other Christians can stand around as such heinous crimes were/are being done to black and brown folks. How can Christians care so little about the poor and alienated while condoning the evil rhetoric of a Donald Trump? Yes, I applaud Donald Trump for at least [being] honest about his politics but he is an evil man. How do Christians even justify that black and brown lives are not vehemently abused by society? If you call yourself a believer in Jesus and live out the tenants of the Christian faith, how do you reconcile with such evil?
Racism kills the very essence of love and confines perspectives; there is no growth or progression. You can’t say you’re not racist but sit idly by and not combat racism. You can’t say you’re not racist and think that it is ok to allow poor education and poor healthcare to ravage through black and brown communities.
Racism sucks the life out of organization. It demeans in order to tear down. There is no redeemable quality within racism. Racisms presents a subtle approach but it comes with obvious and intentional outcomes –keep black and brown people poverty. There is nothing accidental about racism. It is an intentional weapon used when the majority finds its status sleeping away.
The mere thought of racial reconciliation is laughable at best. What exactly would this reconciliation mean? Here the words of James Cone,
Reconciliation does not transcend color, thus making us all white. The problem of values is not that white people need to instill values in the ghetto; but white society itself needs values so that it will no longer need a ghetto. Black values did not create a ghetto; white values did. Therefore God’s Word of reconciliation makes us all black. Through this radical change, we become identified totally with the suffering of the black masses. It is this fact that makes all white churches anti-Christian churches in their essence. To be Christian is to be one of those whom God has chosen. God has chosen black people.
Now these words can be easily misconstrued if read through the eyes of racism. But Cone is very simply stating that God is on the side of the” least of these.” Black is not a color but a place where “your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body are where the dispossessed are.” To be Christian in to know what the underside looks like and to feel the pain of the margins. Reconciliation is not just a pathological response of forgiveness but it is a deep intrinsic reframing of one’s authentic God-self.
I love the words that introduce Dr. Yolanda Pierce’s website,
“I am not interested in most conversations about equality. To whom would you like to be equal, given a broken and morally bankrupt system? Do you want to be equal to the persons, forces, and systems which generate the very terms of your oppression? I am, however, interested in the weightier matters of law: justice and freedom. How can we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly?"
These words echo the sentiments of a generation that’s been disproportionately jailed, harassed, overlooked and abused for the sheer nature of their skin. Honestly, the system is not broken, it is working exactly how it was programed to work. When corrupt people build a system, you can rest assured that the system is corrupt. America was established through corruption, theft and racism and those sins continue to wreak havoc on all people locked “in these yet to be united states.” Maybe KRS-One was right when he rapped, “There can never be justice on stolen land.” There is no simple strategy or words that can make things better overnight. But a collective sorry that is entrenched in justice is a good place to start.
“How can we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly?- Pierce
If you want to know more about Brian, you can check out his blog or follow him on Twitter. Brian is currently a STM student at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC. His insights have always been important in shaping my understandings of race and Christianity (like above).
These two guys walk in to a church, ok. And the one guy is dressed in a sharp suit, smells good, looks good. He’s got a short, neat haircut with a perfectly groomed beard. On his left wrist, he’s got a Rolex the size of a pocket watch with a wedding band to match. You can almost smell the money oozing off of him. The other guy is obviously homeless. As soon as he walks in you can tell it’s been awhile since he’s used deodorant. If you were to get close, but you probably wouldn’t, you’d notice the outline of dog tags under his shirt.
Which one do you say hello to first?
Honestly, which one do you smile at? Which one do you kindly ask how his weekend is going? Which one do you try to get to know and be extra friendly with? And then which one do you kindly ignore and hope they go away?
I’ll tell you which one I choose. As much as I hate to admit it, especially considering what James just wrote to us this morning, I spend more time with the guy in the suit and tie. I naturally gravitate to him. I want him to like me, I want him to like this church, and I want him to continue coming here. I don’t think I’d make this decision consciously, but if I’m going to be truly and deeply honest with myself, of the two, he’s the one I go to.
And then I need to hear these words from James and I need to ask myself why? Why am I avoiding the person that looks probably a lot like Jesus did during his ministry? Why am I avoiding the very person that Jesus would have sought out on his travels? Why am I gravitating towards the person that would likely have shunned Jesus’ message to “sell all that he has and give it to the poor?”
And if I’m going to be honest, it’s because going to the richer person is easier. It’s more comfortable. It’s not going to result in me getting dirty. It’s not going to result in me risking my social standing. It’s what the world expects me to do, and I feel absolutely no qualms about doing it. It’s more acceptable for me to ignore the homeless person and hope he goes away than it is for me to treat him like a person, welcome him into the building, offer him some money, and sit and talk to him for a while. It’s more acceptable for me to ignore him than it is for me to love him.
And if I’m not loving him, if I’m not loving my neighbor, then what am I doing calling myself a Christian? Isn’t that part of the greatest commandment? That I love God with all my heart, soul, and mind AND love my neighbor as myself? At best by ignoring him I am apathetic towards him, which feels so much worse than outright hating him. At worst, by ignoring him, I am causing him harm.
Either way I’m breaking God’s commandments and living in sin. I’m living into a broken relationship with this person that I’m not particularly interested in mending. And if I’m doing that, I might as well have killed him - I’ve broken the relationship and refused to repair it or restore it. That’s why James says, perhaps counterintuitively, that there are no gradients of sin. Sin doesn’t operate like our legal system. There are no 1st degree or 2nd degree offenses. All sin is a break in a relationship. And all sin that is unrepented of is considered to be murder - because you’ve killed that relationship with that person: their life is cut off from yours.
Bear with me, I know this sounds counterintuitive. Trust me, I was a philosophy major who loved his ethics classes. I really want one evil to be lesser than another because it makes the world a better place. I want to say well of course lying is better than killing - it just makes sense, according to this world. But what if we looked at sin in a way that was different from our current legal system? What if we looked at sin the way we look at cutting string?
Once you make a cut of thread, you can’t undo it. No cut can be any less thorough than any other cut. I can’t half-cut a piece of thread, once I start that whole thing is cut into two pieces. Sin is kind of like that. Each sin cuts the thread of our relationships. Now sin can cut the relationship in lots of places. But certain sins can’t cut more or less than other sins.
Especially for God. Because God doesn’t see sins as individual acts that we do, God sees all sin as something that breaks relationships between the Trinity and between humanity. That’s part of why we word our confession the way that we do. We’re not confessing to this sin, this sin, and this sin, but for all the complete breaks in relationships that we need God to help us mend.
It’s confusing, I know. It doesn’t quite make sense, I know. It’s not how the world views things, I know. But bear with me. Because it only gets weirder. Remember how I said God’s weird? Well, here’s a piece of that.
So we’re a part of God’s world, and when we play by God’s rules, our sins aren’t any better or worse than say, Hitler’s sins. Because, remember, God doesn’t qualify or quantify sin. For God, it’s all a break. This sounds bad, I know. We like to think that we’re at least a little better than Hitler, but remember sin is sin. It’s all equally bad. But wait, there’s more. Because God isn’t content to let us sit here in our sin. Instead of judging us, God offers another way. Instead of divinely punishing everybody, God chooses mercy. To quote James, mercy triumphs over judgement. And Lutherans say James doesn’t have good news!
God chooses to redeem us in our sin. God chooses to offer us mercy and grace time and time again even when we make mistakes and love ourselves more than our neighbors. And because God doesn’t qualify or quantify sin, that offer of love and mercy and grace goes to every single person on earth. Even Hitler. To each and every person, which means each and every person is worthy of being welcomed into the kingdom of God. Every one. Rich and poor. Black and white. Republican and Democrat. Liberal and conservative. Male and female. These binaries aren’t exclusive, instead all are brought into the church.
Which is to say, James isn’t saying kick the rich person out of the church. Instead, he’s saying to welcome the poor person in. The rich person gets treated well 24/7/365, so they can wait a little bit to be welcomed into conversation, instead start with the person who is mistreated and abused. Let them know that they are welcome and that there is nothing they have done, are doing, or could do that would keep them out of the kingdom of God. Thanks be to God! Amen.
This sermon was delivered on September 22, 2013 for the people of Nativity Lutheran Church. It is from the Genesis 27-28 text about Jacob and Esau - I encourage you to read over those two chapters before listening/reading the sermon.
There was a man whose name was Isaac. Isaac's one great passion was his 1967 Chevy Impala. This black beauty was the fourth love of Isaac's life, after his wife Becky, and his two sons Esau, and Jake. And there were certainly times when the car was in first or second place, even before his family. Isaac had saved and saved for almost ten years to buy this car, and he was finally able to sign the deed when his two sons were born. Now, even though Esau and Jake were twins, they were as different as the black paint and the chrome finish of Isaac's Impala.
Esau, who went by E, was down to earth, not terribly bright, but could fix anything when he put his mind to it. E just had an intuitive feel for how machines worked, and so naturally E and Isaac were extremely close. They spent hours and hours working on the Impala, making adjustments, keeping her running - they lived to hear the purr of her engine.
Jake was the complete opposite. He was definitely his mother's favorite, because he was extremely bright, had a passion for puzzles and games, and could work magic with his pen and pencil in school. Becky knew that Jake was going to do great things, if only he could afford college - see, with Isaac pouring all of their spare money into keeping up his Impala, college was not on the horizon for either of his sons. This wasn't a problem for E, because he was going to follow into his father's footsteps and work at the garage, but Becky wanted more than that for Jake.
Now, as Jake and E were about to graduate from high school, Isaac had a stroke. It caused him to go blind, and left him mostly paralyzed. E immediately dropped out of high school to take charge of the shop - the position he was groomed for since he was six years old. But Becky knew that Jake was never going to be able to work there, and she worked to find a way to get Jake the money for college.
After his stroke, Isaac's health kept getting worse and worse. He knew that he didn't have a whole lot of time left, so he went to his wife Becky and said, "Becky, I know that I'm not going to live much longer. I want to write up a Will so that the boys know what's theirs after I'm gone." And when he said that to her, Becky saw her chance to give Jake a shot at a future. Becky and Isaac sat down and started to write up a Will, Isaac spoke and Becky wrote it down. Things went well enough until they got to the Impala. Becky knew that Isaac's pride and joy was worth thousands of dollars - certainly enough to get Jake through college. She saw her opportunity and she took it. Instead of writing down E's name, she put in Jake's - knowing Isaac wouldn't be able to notice that she had written the wrong name down. After they had finished, she and Isaac got his will notarized - Becky's plan hadn't been noticed.
Not long after Isaac's will was signed and sealed, he died. Becky knew that E was not going to be happy that Jake got the car, so she snatched the car keys and gave them to Jake saying, "Take this, I made sure you got the Impala after your father died. Take it and sell it so that you can go to college and have a better life than your father and I did." Jake was understandable confused, but realized that E would be furious when he found out that Jake had gotten the Impala. He hopped in the car and drove off, as far away as he could go - leaving all of his other possessions behind. All Jake knew was that he was going anywhere-but-here, thoughts of college were gone he was so afraid of his life.
After a few days though, Jake realized what his mother meant. He realized that he could sell his father's Impala, and pay for college. He realized that he could sell this artifact of his father's time, and make his own legacy for himself. He realized that if he was going to do this, he better do it quickly. So Jake started to drive to a used car lot, but something happened to him when he was on the road. He suddenly got a whiff of his father's cologne, Old Spice, wafting up from within the leather seats. He was transported back to his childhood, about when he was six or seven and his father took the whole family on long drives on Sunday afternoons. He saw his father, his mother, and his brother all sitting together in the car as the radio played something by Kansas, he thought it was "Dust in the Wind," and Jake realized something else. He realized that if he sold this car, he wasn't just selling an artifact from his father's time, but was selling the love and devotion that his father had put in, not just to this well worn Impala, but also his family. The last thing Jake heard before his flashback faded was his father saying, "I love you, I will take care of you, cause you are my family." Jake snapped back to the steering wheel, and he thought to himself, "I can't sell this car. I can find another way to pay for college and make my own way that still honors everything my father has done for me."
Now I know all the older siblings in the room are going to be with me, when I say, "This story really ticks me off!" Both of these stories, the one we heard in Genesis and the one I just told. I sit there and go, "that's not fair!" I instinctively take up the roll of Esau and say I'm the good son. I'm the one who did everything my father asked of me, and what do I get? I get the short end of the stick...again. It seems to be the curse of the oldest, our parents try so hard to not make any mistakes, to make sure we turn out perfectly. They try to shelter us as a way of showing us that they love us. And they do a good job. We turn out ok, we think that's the best way of parenting, because they are our parents and they love us. At least until kid number 2 comes along. And then they're the baby, they get the special treatment, or worse, they get a little more freedom than we got when we were their age.
The biggest thing I remember about this was the first time my brother got to see a PG-13 movie. I couldn't tell you what the movie even was, but I remember being sooo mad. See, I had only been 13 for a few months, and it was a big deal for me that I got to see this movie. And along comes my 8 year old brother to the movies with us. I thought, "This isn't fair. I had to wait and wait. Why doesn't he have to wait?" And of course, the answer was, "Well this movie isn't as bad as we thought it was going to be." Like that made sense to my 13 year old mind.
Now, I know that's not as big of a deal as the birthright, or inheriting a '67 Impala from your dad, but it's just another instance where the bigger brother gets the short end of the stick. And you know what really rubs me about Jacob and Esau? Its that God still goes to the younger brother, the cheater, and promises to make a great nation out of him.
I think, really God? Really? You're going to pick him? He failed the test. He cheated his brother, he lied to his father, and then he ran away because his actions had consequences. You're going to pick him? Look at Esau, he's the mighty hunter, he's the strong man, he's the one who's faithful to his family. All he did was what his father told him to do. Why couldn't you have gone to him after all this and said, "Don't worry that your brother took everything, I'm going to give it back to you a hundred times over." That'd be a much better story, right older siblings out there?
And then after I've cooled down a little bit after this story. I start thinking about why it makes me so angry. And it's not just because my brother got, at least from my perspective, "special treatment." No, I think what makes me the maddest about this text is what it says about me and my relationship with God that I get mad about Jacob's special visitation by God.
I want God to have the back of the older brother. I want God to smite Jacob for lying to his father. I want God to uplift Esau and give him the blessing anyways. I want God to play by the rules. I don't want God to go to Jacob. So what does God do? He goes to Jacob.
How often does this happen to us, though? We see people lie, steal, and cheat to the top. And we want them to get their just deserts. We want to see them fail. We want to see them fall. We want God to lift us up. We want God to give us what we think we deserve. We don't want to see God offer those who have wronged us forgiveness. So what does God do when the Word becomes flesh? He goes to those whom we do not want him to go.
Jesus goes to the tax collectors, the embezzlers, and tells them of God's forgiveness and God's presence and God's grace. Not exactly the smiting we think they deserve. God does the same for the beggars, the lepers, the prostitutes, those who are "outside" of God's promises and reminds them that even in their sin, God is there, forever and ever.
And even this makes us mad. We want justice. We want those who break the law to be punished by the law. We want embezzlers, prostitutes, thieves, murderers to go to jail. We don't want to forgive them. And so what does God ask of us? To grant God's justice, rooted in mercy. To forgive. To reform the social order that turns people into embezzlers, prostitutes, thieves, murderers. To help those who struggle with addictions, to show people a better way. To stop the vicious cycle that they are in, to show them that God loves them even in the midst of their sin. To remind them that God's Word became flesh to bridge the gap between God's kingdom and our fallen world. To let them know that no matter their crime, no matter their sin, the cross changes everything.
And God comes to us, and he shows us time and time again that we shouldn't be mad when God goes to the liar, the cheater, or the thief. God goes to them, not because he loves us any less, but because God desires us to love them as much as God loves them. God reminds us that our call to love neighbor extends to those who have wronged us. And God reminds us that if Jesus can forgive those who killed him while he was on the cross, we can offer forgiveness to our younger siblings that have wronged us in some way. God reminds us that we are all his family, that we have all done things to upset God. God reminds us that even in those sins, those mistakes, the offenses, God's going to come to us too. We are reminded that this is God's good news above everything else. Amen.
