On Racism; Sermon, August 20, 2017

Isaiah 56:1, 6-8

Psalm 133

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

Sermon: On Racism

So… today we hear an uncomfortable scripture and, honestly, it might be an uncomfortable sermon.  But it’s been an uncomfortable week since last Saturday.

This Gospel scripture is the story of the Canaanite woman, who is also called Syrophoenician in the book of Mark.  While Syrophoenician likely means she is from the Phoenician Seaboard, and Greek, speaking Greek language, and embracing Greek religion…Matthew takes pains to point out she is from Canaanite descent.  The very word ‘Canaanite’ is charged with theological significance.  It stirs up memories of ancient foes – idol worshipping enemies over against whom the people of Israel defined themselves.  It is, again like Samaria in the story of the Good Samaritan, an ancient rival tribe that Israel has long been given permission to hate.

So for someone like me… someone for whom the primary message of the gospel is about Jesus, God Incarnate, who walked on earth to tell us that our divisions, our pre-requisites, our circles of inclusion, our tribalism and our discriminatory tendencies are not only wrong, but un-Godly… Jesus who ate with the sinner and the tax collector; recruited prostitutes and ne’er do wells to join him in his ministry on earth, who cared nothing for our delusions of inferiority and supremacy taught by the rules and reaches of the human world … for someone like me... there is not a more confusing gospel passage than this one.

There is a woman who has traveled far from her land to find the one she believes holds the power to cure her daughter.  Make no mistake, she is very unwelcome.  Besides the usual cultural differences – her culture and ethnicity, her differing heritage and religion, and her gender…  there’s also this issue of demonic possession that she mentions right off the bat.  Great, there’s a demon involved. Nothing makes people want to steer clear of you more than having a demon in the family.  And then, to make matters worse, there’s her behavior. She’s shouting. She’s alone…and she’s shouting.  Very uncouth.  Remember the way the disciples treated the woman at the well… Women are to be reserved in public, and accompanied by a man at all times.  If there is no man, there shouldn’t be conversation happening between that woman and any man.  But this woman will NOT LET UP.  She just keeps shouting. 

At first, Jesus clearly just ignores her.  Exasperated, the disciples then ask Jesus to send her away.  She is a nuisance and an irritation.  So Jesus goes to speak to her and very clearly draws a division between her and the ‘lost of Israel’.  She begs for his help, and then he makes a metaphor in which she would be considered a dog.  And she accepts it begging for the generosity that a dog might get.

We like to make apologies for Jesus. Perhaps, Jesus was really overly tired, worn down, not up to one more healing and looking for an excuse.  Perhaps it is merely an illustration of the conversation he had just had. Perhaps Jesus, being a masterful teacher, was using a sort of reverse psychology – forcing the woman to name that she absolutely is worthy of the Mercy of God.  Maybe the woman had to remind Jesus that – Canaanite or Syro-Phroenician – despite being a sworn enemy of the people of Israel, God’s mercy overflows the intended basin and encompasses all that come for it.  Maybe she needed to work for her grace.

But it’s hard to deny, at least at first take… in this passage – and contrary to all other passages in the bible -   in this one Jesus is racist.

…

I would expect there are few here over the age of 10 who are unaware of what happened in our country last weekend, and the turmoil and tumult that has roiled and raged in the days since.  And I could make this like a tale of two cities; the White Supremacist Rally in Charlotteville last Saturday, in which people were armed, tempers were high, street fights broke out repeatedly, police were scarce, and a driver intentionally drove into a crowd – versus the picture of Boston yesterday, where thousands of people gathered to repudiate a second gathering of White Supremacists – which this time were unarmed, numbered only in the low 100s, and police escorted them in and out of their permitted gathering.  It looks like Love Won. 

Or I might tell the story of our town, how the police did an excellent job finding the man who's putting up hate flyers, the Mayor issued a strong statement denouncing it, and faith leaders stood together to repudiate any white supremacy in Hastings.

But the problem with that picture is, that’s not usually the way racism shows up in our modern society.  A White Supremacists rally is, thankfully, extremely rare. But racism is consistent and persistent in subtler ways.  It’s in the shuttered schools across Chicago’s south side – communities that have suffered decades of disinvestment in funding for schools, roads, public parks, public programming, youth programming, and economic incentives and jobs. It is in the legacy of our federal government’s lending policy of the 50’s, that would grant home loans to white applicants but not black applicants, making the dream of home ownership – the single best way to accumulate wealth and pass it down through generations - only possible for certain people in this country.  It is in our media portrayals of who looks like a criminal on TV drama and in the airwaves when an innocent black person is accidentally killed by police and news commentators rush to find evidence the person was a ‘thug’.  It is evident in our system of Mass Incarceration, where African Americans represent only 12.5% of illicit drug users, but are 29% of those arrested for drug offenses and 33% of those incarcerated in state facilities for drug offenses. African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites – and that shows up in where cities like Chicago choose to disperse their police patrols.  And it shows up in the way we think about one another, talk about one another, and treat one another.

The events over the last week, and indeed over the last several years, are simply eruptions of molten lava that runs beneath the surface in our country.  It is an open, gaping wound that we have not dealt with.  I thought, rather than make excuses for Jesus in today’s scripture, it was an opportunity to see this as a moment where Jesus is forced to confront his own prejudice… and to think a little bit about our own.  Because the truth is, race, racism and racial injustice is an ongoing struggle in our country.  And I think it has something to do with the way we talk about it… or don’t talk about it.

Two years ago, in an article entitled, “Go Ahead, admit you’re a racist,” writer John Blake discussed a rash of celebrity faux pas on race where it became necessary for them to apologize for something they said or posted on social media. However, no matter how egregious or blatant the racial statement was, every apology also included the vehement denial, “I am not a racist.”  Because we’ve taken the word racist and made it libel instead of correctable.  It’s a zero sum label: you either are or you aren’t.  Being accused of being racist must mean you are certified torch-waving, hood-wearing – or in the case of last weekend, no hood – member of the Ku Klux Klan or local white supremacist group.  It has become a label that is all-condemning.  Blake, who is African American, goes on to ask, ‘what if it wasn’t’? 

“No one is ever a racist, judging by the parade of apologies from celebrities, politicians and even police officers caught acting in apparently racially offensive ways. But here's a thought: What if a white person called out for such behavior instead said, "What I did was racist, and there's no other excuse. I was wrong."”

What if rather than treat it like an all-condemning label, we could think of it as something people do – rather than something that they are?  In that way, it would be a lot easier to correct, says Brit Bennett, another African American journalist. "You could challenge someone's racist speech, for example, or action, without condemning them as a person but in hopes of encouraging them to think more carefully about their language and actions, and its implications."

There’s a song from a musical that I know… It’s a musical that I doubt you’ll ever see performed at Hastings High or College, and kind of entirely inappropriate to be addressed in church.  It’s called Avenue Q, and this song is sung by a puppet called Kate Monster:

Everyone's a little bit Racist, sometimes.
Doesn't mean we go around committing Hate crimes.
Look around and You will find,
No one's really Color-blind.
Maybe it's a fact We all should face.
Everyone makes Judgments...
Based on race.

I want to be clear, I'm not trying to say it doesn't matter.  The song is funny because it gets at a truth that we are all afraid to say in public: that race, racism and racial injustice is present in many ways in our lives.  If racism is a disease, white people are the carriers and people of color are the ones who experience the symptoms.  That makes it odd, in that the people suffering from the disease are not the ones who need treatment, and the ones who need treatment don’t realize it – unless we listen to those suffering from it.  Friends, as the last week’s events have revealed, we desperately need to take the sting out of discussing race because the undercurrents of this problem are not going to heal themselves. 

As we see in scripture, even Jesus can make a mistake.  The paradox of these two incidents read in sequence is striking.  First, we see people who are socially accepted and privileged whom emphasize external differences – that going in and out of the body - and miss matters of the heart.  In the second, a woman who is socially marginalized, outcast, hated and spoken to as a slur, breaks through the many external differences to compel the Son of God to see her as deserving of God’s Mercy – something he has already said is open to all.  The respected teacher learns from an outsider the need to broaden his ministry of hospitality to those outside the house of Israel. As uncomfortable as it is to listen to the truth of other peoples’ lives that are vastly different than our own, we all need a reminder from time to time.  Because other people’s lives are at stake.

Tribalism, Racism, Division and Strife are as old as the Old Testament.  But we have Bible full of instructions on how to approach our very human mistakes.  In today’s Old Testament reading, the Prophet Isaiah addresses a community that is struggling with letting people back into Jerusalem after the exile.  Now they have the exiled wealthy and educated, returning to homes where those who were left scavenged for food and shelter and took over vacant homes.  And, in the midst of all that, foreigners from other tribes have infiltrated the community in their absence. 

But the prophet says – do not focus on vengeance, or exclusion.  For those who can live amongst you and follow the Sabbath, simply do what is right regardless of where they come from.  This is the first place in the Old Testament where a prophet suggests that those who are not from the house of Israel may be accepted into God’s chosen people and also be servants of God.  And from that, we get the beautiful statement;  my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples, says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel and others besides them.  Without regard to race, religion, heritage or ethnicity.

So that we shall do the same, continue to work on our own prejudices by listening to God through others’ lives, experiences and truth.

Amen.