Community Christian Church
Dr. Roger Ray, pastor
May 6, 2012 Easter 5
1 John 4:7-8, 18-21
7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
I titled this sermon "Racism without Racists" but I think there should be a subtitle that says, "the Lamaze sermon" because I need to ask to be aware of the people sitting around you today. If I say something that makes them so mad that they forget to keep breathing, you may need to get into their line of site and give them a firm command, "Breath!"
The scripture passage we just heard read from first John has the potential of being one of those really sweet and nice scripture passages you might see in needle point in your grandmother's living room. "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." But John is not trying to be especially sweet. In fact, he is being quite confrontational because he backs up this injunction by also citing the opposite, that is, "Whoever does not love does not know God."
That's not something many of you would be comfortable hearing me say to anyone and you are all accustomed to hearing me say confrontational and controversial things but you would not applaud me telling someone that they are a fraud. But John is striving to be very clear and he uses a work in this text that even in our starkly partisan times, you won't hear a politician, other than Newt Gingrich, say about a competitor.
John says: 20Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.
We try to get our children not to call people liars. We try to let politicians off with things like, "I mis-spoke." Like last month when Senator John Kyl said that Planned Parenthood spends 90% of their money providing abortions, when, in fact they spend only 3% of their money on abortions and most of their money providing other necessary women's health services. When confronted with this huge "error" he explained, "I did not intend that as a factual statement.".... don't forget to breath ladies.
You see, I would like to be polite and not call people liars and I'm willing to do that, I just need something from the people on the other side of that equation.... I need for them to stop mis-speaking and stop saying things that are not factually true.
But I take the title of the sermon from an incident that took place in March when a federal judge in Montana, Judge Richard Cebull, emailed a racist cartoon from his courthouse email to some friends that depicted president Obama as a child asking his mother why he is black and she is white. In the cartoon Obama's mother tells him that he is the product of a sexual encounter she once had with a dog. The Judge added the line to his friends, "hope this touches your heart like it did mine."
Now, I am not the least bit surprised to find federal judges or anyone in any other high ranking office who is personally dumb enough to say something like this.
But I draw my sermon title from the apology that Judge Cebull issued when he was called on this horrible racist joke. Once it hit the media the judge said that it was stupid and inappropriate but he added that even though the cartoon was clearly racist, that he is not personally bigoted in any way. You see, the cartoon is racist but not the guy who thought it was funny, not the guy who said it touched his heart, not the guy who emailed it from the bench to his friends who, no doubt, are also not racists but who would enjoy a joke that said that our president is half dog. If you are sitting near any of our black members please make certain that they are remembering to breath right now.
The only people who are called racists these days are the people who speak out against racism. And black member of the media or the clergy who makes a public statement about racial discrimination is immediately accused of trying to divide the public along racial lines but this Federal Judge in Montana who is supposed to represent fairness, he should be the example of equal justice, he can call the president the son of a dog because his father was African and then look straight into the TV cameras and claim that he is not personally a bigot. But once you can claim that there is racism but no one is actually a racist then racism becomes socially invisible while it is actually getting worse.
I have not said anything publicly about the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida in February because it seemed like the media was so full of mis-statements and non-factual reports that I wanted to steer clear of it until we had some reliable facts. I do not know who threw the first punch in the confrontation between Trayvon and George Zimmerman. It may be that Zimmerman did find himself in danger.
But what we know for a fact is that a large white man who was armed with a gun chased down an innocent black kid who was trying to get away from him and the black kid ended up dead. And Zimmerman has, through friends and counsel, insisted that this was not about race but you can bet that it was about race from start to bloody finish.
It was about race on both sides of the equation. Forget about both Martin and Zimmerman as individuals.... Think about race, especially in middle class neighborhoods in the south. Young black men run from white men because they have a reason to be afraid. White men are suspicious of black men because they have bought into a racial stereotype and all they every will let themselves see is confirmation of their racist bias.
So, yeah, an overly zealous neighborhood watch volunteer who is a white gun owner, will let his racist fear do the thinking for him when he sees a young black man in the neighborhood whom he does not personally know. I don't need to see Zimmerman on death row but I will not tolerate him telling me that he is not a racist. And you cannot tell me that if the roles had been reversed, if Martin had chased an unarmed Zimmerman down in the neighborhood and shot him that Martin would not have been arrested on sight and not after a two month long national media outcry.
We have wanted to believe that the election of a black president was a sign of the end of racism in America but, while that was a huge step forward that should never be diminished, the fact that the nation took that step forward seems to have poured gasoline on the flames of racist sentiments.
We get one step forward and two steps backwards. As most of you know I raised an Asian daughter here in this 96% Caucasian community and I always went the extra mile to have Asian dolls, coloring books and clothing in our home but when it came to the movies, all the princesses were white... even the ones that were only half human and the other half fish.... The human part was always white.
After she was too old to be interested in Disney movies, we got an American Indian heroine, an Asian, and finally, very recently, a black princess named Tiana in the Princess and the Frog. But when Disney decided to produce Valentine candy for kids this year, they packaged a princess series with the very white princess from Sleeping Beauty on a package of Vanilla candy and Tiana on a package of.... I know you want me to say chocolate, but it wasn't, Tiana's flavor was watermelon. That's not Valentine's Day 1962, that was this year. What I'm telling you is that you don't get racism without racists.... You have to be carefully taught by someone.
Out west we've been overhearing a year-long drum beat out of Arizona about illegal immigration. The media has been full of mis-statements and non-factual accusations about the crime rate caused by illegal immigrants. Here is a fact you are not likely to hear in the news: illegal immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than American citizens. That's right.... If Arizona's governor is sincerely concerned about the crime rate she would do well to have Arizona citizens deported to Mexico and have more illegal immigrants take their place. She would tell you that her concern is about crime and that it is not motivated by race but, folks, math is math, and math is not on her side. I can't say that it is racism but I can say that it looks like racism, and it sounds like racism, and the net effect of the legislation she is pushing is racist..... ah, who am I kidding? This is racism.
Friends, if you will indulge me a moment longer, I would like to tell you about an old Hassidic tradition. There was a rabbi working with some students on definitions of words in their traditional question and answer method. The rabbi asks his students when we can say that the dawn has come. One student ventures that it is when there is enough light to tell the difference between a man and a tree in the distance. Another says that it is when you tell the difference between a grape vine and a thorn bush.
Not satisfied with any of their answers the old rabbi says, "The dawn has come when you can look into the face of any stranger and see that person as your brother or sister. Until you can do that, it is still night."
So, men and women, what I am telling you is that it is still night time in America. There is racism and as long as there is racism, you can know that there are racists and it is not enough for you just to make sure that you are not one of them. It is for us to help the sun to rise.... It is for us to bring the light that makes it clear that no matter whether the strangers face is black or brown, yellow, red or white that it is the face of our beloved sisters and brothers. Keep breathing my friends.
