Black Lives Matter: Ending systemic racism
I’ve never understood Matthew’s pairing of the two parts of this
morning’s gospel reading.[1].
If another Christian sins against you, confront that person directly. If that
fails to fix things, take another one or two Christians with you as witnesses
and again confront the person. If that fails, then treat the sinner as a tax
collector or Gentile, i.e., love the person from afar, no longer accepting them
as a member of Christ's family. Frequently, this latter course of action becomes
a hurtful shunning or shaming, whether formalized as the Roman Catholics and Amish
do or informally practiced, as we Episcopalians and others have done. The
passage begs multiple questions. Who defines sin? What if the alleged sinner is
innocent? How serious must a sin be to trigger this process? How can we avoid politicizing
or otherwise distorting the process? And, most decisively, if anytime two or three
agree in prayer, God will grant their request, why not simply pray for the sinner
to repent?
Thankfully, this morning’s first reading is simpler to grasp.[2]
When I was the senior chaplain for a Naval Air Station in Alaska, a
petty officer asked me to lead a Passover Seder, the annual commemoration of
the event chronicled in this morning’s first reading. I explained that if I led
the Seder, the event would be Christian. If he, a Jew, led the Seder, then the
event would be Jewish. I offered to obtain the necessary supplies, to find the
required minimum number of attendees, and to coach him on his role. We enjoyed
a great Seder.
Contemporary Jewish understanding of Passover differs substantially from
how most Christians understand Passover. Christians unhelpfully tend to
emphasize blood smeared on the doorposts of each house. Jews emphasize that
repeating the ritual meal, annually reenacting the narrative, incorporates each
successive generation into the Jewish community. The emphasis is on incorporation.
Indeed, Jewish theology – in sharp contrast to Christian theology – offers no
evaluative judgment about non-Jews or other religions.
Twenty-first century American Christians need to hear a similar message
of incorporation. For example, our society is polarized between supporters and
opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement. Well-intentioned but misguided
interpretations of Christianity have substantially contributed to this
polarization. The seventeenth-and eighteenth-century preachers whose attempt to
revitalize Christianity birthed evangelicalism – Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley,
George Whitefield, and others – overemphasized individual commitment to Jesus
and interpersonal forgiveness. They largely ignored Christianity’s inherent
communal nature. Never forget, we collectively are the body of Christ; no piece
of the body exists independently. Recent sociological research demonstrates
that evangelicalism’s individualistic focus allows white evangelicals to feel
warmly toward individual Blacks while blinding those same evangelicals to
systemic racism. Evangelicals thus do not perceive a systemic problem in police
killing Blacks at two and a half times the rate that police kill whites, or the
hurt Blacks experience in displays of Confederate flags and others symbols.[3] Restoring
a consistent Christian emphasis on community and social responsibility is vital
to ending systemic racism and social polarization.
Pray that the blind have their eyes opened to the systemic and social
forces of racism and injustice; Go to the sinner and say, See, your warm
feelings toward individuals mean little while our social systems and structures
oppress people of color. Amen.
Sermon preached in
the Parish of St. Clement, Honolulu, HI
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 6, 2020
[1]
Matthew18:15-20.
[2] Exodus
12:1-14.
[3] Michael
Luo, “American
Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem,” The New Yorker, September
2, 2020.
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