More or less, what follows is the sermon I gave this morning at Druid Hills UMC in Meridian, MS (Lost Gap had a different sermon because they were voting on closure today). I’m sharing this here because I believe this is a message that we all need a reminder of right now. The recent racial unrest has underscored that we have a long way to go in racial equity, much farther than we probably want to admit. I hope you will take my attempt to articulate what has been on my heart and “chew on” these words. Allow God to work on you and what your part may be in breaking the church’s silence on racism and how we can combat this sin.
If you’d like, you can watch the worship service from Druid Hills here.
LUKE 10:24-37 (NLT)
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
27 The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[c]
28 “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
29 The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Parable of the Good Samaritan
30 Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.
31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Temple assistant[d] walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
33 “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. 34 Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. 35 The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins,[e] telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
36 “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.
37 The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
Last week we celebrated the day that the Holy Spirit was sent to this world with a video worship service featuring clergy, laity, and children from all over our Mississippi Annual Conference connection. Did you notice the diversity that was represented? Men, women, white black, and everything in between coming together with but one two-fold goal in mind: To lead us in worship and to give glory to the Lord’s name. As I watched the video with you all last week, the sheer beauty of how wide and deep our own state is in terms of the different people we have in our midst brought tears to my eyes. In my mind, it was truly a reflection of God’s kingdom – the way the kingdom was always intended to be and will be someday when Jesus returns.
We live in a fallen world where diversity is not always celebrated and, in many cases, is discouraged and even ridiculed. The killing of George Floyd sent shockwaves through our nation, just as such an unjust and evil event ought to do. While Mr. Floyd’s death may have been an event that brought our racial tension to a head, this was hardly the first time that we have seen unjust killing of people of color. Another recent example is the shooting death of Breona Taylor, a young black EMT from Louisville, Kentucky, who was killed when police executed a raid at the wrong address – her apartment – looking for a suspect who was already in jail on another charge. I resonate with the cries of our brothers and sisters of color when I say that enough is enough and it’s time for an end to these senseless deaths. As a white man who has family members who are biracial or of another race entirely, I must stand up for my loved ones. As a Christian pastor, I know we are all children of God. The children’s song says, “red or yellow, black or white, we are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” So why are we not doing that for each other now? We are all loved by God. And God taught us to love our neighbor, as we heard a moment ago. So, now above any other time in our existence, God is calling us to love our neighbors. We must love the most threatened among us. We should stand with our black brothers and sisters and protect them, love them, treat them as our equal… because anything less is a sin in front of our Lord and Savior.
Now I say all of this as a pastor among a white congregation. I say this, knowing that this is not the popular belief in this area, but brothers and sisters, Jesus did not preach to what was popular. He preached to what is right.
On Friday, Bishop Swanson sent out a video that was both a rebuke against the church for its long and deafening silence on racism as well as how we can begin to respond. Bishop Swanson is absolutely correct: The church has remained silent for far too long and this needs to change. The reason the church is often silent on racism is because we don’t want to seem to be preaching political topics or we don’t want to make people uncomfortable. The truth about the gospel is that the truths within it often are uncomfortable because we are forced to see ourselves for who and how we truly are. So, today, I do my part to change this trend of silence in the church. Today, I stand here and tell you that we’re going to get uncomfortable. I declare from this pulpit that racism is a sin. Racism is incompatible with Christian faith – you cannot call yourself a follower of Jesus if you are a racist. To remain silent is equally as sinful. Our baptismal vows that we make before God and His people include standing up for the oppressed and to resist evil in whatever form it takes. That starts with us acknowledging the sin of racism.
And that brings us to our scripture today: The Parable of the Good Samaritan. The legal expert who is questioning Jesus is really wanting to justify himself. While I fully admit that I’m using some conjecture here, I would speculate that the man that Jesus was talking to was one of the Jews who really hated Samaritans. Back then, Jews and Samaritans simply did not get along. Jews viewed them as inferior and as beneath them. Perhaps the justification that the man was seeking was really that which would affirm his hatred toward someone simply because that person looked different than he did. And as we see through the rest of the passage, Jesus is not having it. The fact is, a story where the Samaritan was the hero was very scandalous to the Jews who heard it.
The belief back then was that touching certain people or people experiencing certain conditions would make one unclean and this certainly would have included touching a man who was beaten and bloody and left in a ditch to die. The Levite and the priest would have been considered to be ceremonially unclean had they touched him. It was because of those crazy fears that they went so far as to cross the street. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech using the story of the Good Samaritan as an example. He had this to say about it: “The first question the priest and Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But the Good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop and help this man, what will happen to him?’” In other words, the priest and the Levite were putting themselves first. Instead, the Samaritan chose to put the man before him and to in turn take care of him.
One thing I have seen over and over again is that children do not seem to have a racism gene. If you go to a park in most cities, you can see white children playing with children who are black, brown, and everything in between. Comedian Denis Leary says, “Racism isn’t born, folks. It’s taught. I have a two-year old son. You know what he hates—naps.” Children are not born to hate other people. Instead, this behavior is something that is learned. When children are raised in ignorance about other races, that’s how they learn to hate. And simply, this is not ok.
More than anything, racism is not a skin issue, it’s a sin issue. The problem is not the color of one’s skin or their national origin, the problem is that the person who is racist is giving in to sin. James 2:9 says, “But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.” When the command handed down says, “Love the Lord with all you have and love your neighbor as yourself,” there are no qualifiers attached to that. There is no asterisk with a list of who our neighbors are not at the bottom of the page. Our neighbors are all people, period, full stop. There’s a meme that goes around from time to time where Jesus is telling those gathered to love their neighbors as themselves. Someone from the crowd goes, “What about my black neighbor?” Another says, “What about my Jewish neighbor?” And then Jesus says, “I’m going to start over, tell me where I lost you.” When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he’s telling us that we are to love all people no matter what.
So how can we neighbor those who look different than us? Well, it starts by taking a good look at the person in the mirror. We have to confront our prejudices. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute: We all have them. We all have those pre-conceived judgements about other people that are not based on any sound reason or experience (which is the definition of a prejudice, by the way). Some examples might be, “All rich people are snobs.” Or, “Old people are mean.” Or, “Which men can’t jump.” I could go on and on. Or maybe we say things like, “I’m not racist because I have black friends.” Well, that’s great! But do you truly see them as your equal? Are they just as much deserving of the love of Christ as you are? We have to confront those prejudices. We have to get real with ourselves.
Next, we have to see to understand others. This is another hard part because this means we will have to get even further outside of our comfort zones than we did when we took a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror. This means that we have to actually pay attention to our neighbors, take the time to get to know them, really listen to them. This is the one that is the easiest to ignore because it takes real effort on our part, but it’s so vital. We can not simply look at people different from us who are on TV or read some data about what works in one place. We have to know how to love people and help them right where we are. This is where they live as well and it’s vital that we take this seriously enough to truly listen to them in order to find out how we can best show them the love of Christ.
After we listen to them, we have to do the hardst thing of all: We have to love those who are different from us. This is not simply telling someone that we love them, it’s actually doing it. It’s putting our faith and our words into action to show them that we mean it. This is hard becasue it involves a lot of sacrifice. In 1996 in Michigan there was a rally by the Ku Klux Klan and the police in the town were doing their best to keep the Klan and the protesters separated. One of the Klansmen snuck over to the protesters side. Next thign you know, they started to beat on him with shouts of “kill the Nazi” being hurled. 18-year old African American girl named Keisha Thomas threw her body on top of the man’s to stop beating. She put herself at physical risk protect man that likely wanted to harm her.
Who does this? Committed believer. “I knew what it was like to be hurt. The many times that that happened, I wish someone would have stood up for me.”
Crossed the street—protect someone different from her.
Thomas says she tries to do something to break down racial stereotypes every day. No grand gestures. She thinks that small, regular acts of kindness are more important. “The biggest thing you can do is just be kind to another human being. It can come down to eye contact, or a smile. It doesn’t have to be a huge monumental act.”
Radical love is what she showed to that man. The best way to combat racism is with love because racism is not the presence of hate, it’s the absence of love! Paul wrote to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” God loves all people. He loves Americans. But he also loves Nigirians, Cubans, Hondurans, Mexicans, Choctaws, Jamaicans, Turks, Iranians, Russians, and all other people. He loves white people, black people, brown people, and everything in between. Heaven will be the most diverse place you will ever see. If you hate diversity, you are really going to hate Heaven. Ultimately we will all be together and it will be a beautiful sight.
We have to face the sin of racism and combat it head on. Racism is not a Christian value. It is not acceptable to God and racism should therefore not be acceptable to us. Jesus said for us to love our neighbors with no qualifiers attached to that. He told us now to neighbor those who are different than us. We simply love.