What Are We To Do About Racism?
Good Morning Friends,
During Advent, we contemplated the life of John the Baptist and his incarceration. And yesterday we looked at an encouraging letter from Paul, he wrote while he was in jail. And this morning I decided to read a letter from Dr. Martin Luther King written while he was in a Birmingham jail in 1963 and a letter from Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote to his parents from inside of a jail cell in Germany in 1943. And I must admit that Dr. King, the Apostle Paul, John the Baptist and Dietrich Bonhoeffer have some complementary themes. And looking at today’s lectionary selection from the Book of Samuel where King Saul is ousted for not exacting genocide on the Amalekites, I scratch my head even though I realize that the likes of Haman in the book of Esther were Amalekite and that King Saul had chosen earthly goods over spiritual obedience. So today is Martin Luther King Day and as I contemplate his letter and life, and today’s lectionary selection I confess Dr. King was right about the need for a radical non-violent departure from the status quo and that he was right about moderates being worthless to the cause of social change, and that Jesus was right about the need to create something new. So, as we look at today’s lectionary selection from the Gospel of Mark I am intrigued as to how Jesus sandwiches in two parables about the trial of social change that relates to today’s question. What Are We To Do About Racism?
Scripture: Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
Mark 2:18-22 (NRSV)
Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” He replied, “Speak.” Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But from the spoil the people took sheep and cattle, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is no less a sin than divination, and stubbornness is like iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”
1 Samuel 15:16-23 (NRSV)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-48 (NRSV)
Message: Today we look at the problem that happens when people in the name of religion developed practices and certain rituals they expected everyone else to follow so that they might control others. We see it in the behavior of the Pharisees confronting Jesus for not fasting and in the atrocities of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis, and perhaps even in the excessive crime rates and lack of voting rights for incarcerated minorities in our own nation. As a teaching tool in response to this problem Jesus presents two parables, which are similar, that make the same point. The first one, about the fabric of society, says you do not put a new patch on an old garment, and the second says you do not put new wine into an old wineskin. In the first parable, if you put a new patch on an old garment, when the new patch shrinks due to washing, it will tear away from the older garment, making the tear worse. Similarly, new wine needs a new wineskin because as the new wine expands during the fermentation process, it stretches the wineskin. An old wineskin will burst under the pressure of new wine. These two parables illustrate the fact that you cannot mix old religious rituals with new faith in Jesus. Jesus’ disciples were not fasting along with the Pharisees and John’s disciples because they were now under the new covenant of grace and faith in Christ. Now there are things related to this that a prisoner might understand better than other people. John the Baptist, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul, Martin Luther King and Jesus posed a serious threat to the establishment. In calling for those in power to repent they all are saying that peace predicated upon tyranny and maintained by terror is not peace but sin. Therefore, we cannot just sit back and wait on the Prince of Peace to return. We cannot just submit ourselves to the logic of a sin, sick society. We cannot declare that we are preparing the way of the Lord, while accepting the status quo. As we make our way through this post Advent season, on this Martin Luther King Day, I believe we must seek a message for our nation—a nation that might well be unraveling at the thinly stitched seams of law and justice on the divided patched cloth of the rich and the poor. So, let us not put our heads in the sand. The natural consequence of ingrained behavioral patterns that are passed down from one generation to the next, poses a threat to our faith. Sorrow for what has happened is not enough. We must take personal responsibility where we can. Fear and self-protection are not the right motivators to be forgiven. Penance does not work. True repentance and lasting change is a gift from God that requires more than a little mercy.
Pray we awaken from our false sense of comfort, and prepare the way for the one who seeks to deliver and set free. Pray we acknowledge that something has gone awry, and we have a responsibility to confront it by embracing a new way. Pray we choose not to live within the myth that there is always a direct correlation between a person’s social class and their personal character. Pray we find peace, but not a peace predicated upon tyranny and terrorizing others. Pray we not wait to love. Pray we not wait to extend God’s grace. Pray we not wait to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before God. Pray we not wait to repent and prepare the way for the one who has and will give us perfect peace. Pray we not deceive ourselves about the challenge of our society’s addictions.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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