Roger Ray, pastor
March 10, 2013 Lent 4
2 Corinthians 5:16-20
16From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
We have recently crossed a racial line in the United States. Now there are more children born of non-European white decent than are born of other racial heritages.
Of course, such categories are, at the same time, becoming increasingly meaningless. I am occasionally reminded of the fact that President Obama had a white mother and a black father and was largely raised by white grandparents. And yet we say, rather matter-of-factly, that he is black. You could, just as accurately say that he is white and yet no one does say that. The fact that no one ever says that hearkens back to a centuries old prejudice that says you can only be white if you are all white but there is no logical context in which that can be true.
When I was a kid, we registered ourselves on government forms as being black, white or other. Slowly, other categories were introduced.... Asian, or Pacific and one of my favorites: Latino. Latino means that you speak Spanish and are not directly from Spain but there are people in Central and South America who speak Spanish and are blond and blue eyed and there are others who are dark skinned Africans. So what does "Latino" mean.... or "Anglo" for that matter since every color of American speaks English..... and don't even try that word in Great Britain.
There are people who are now trying to say that race does not exist and even though you can make a pretty good case for that genetically and as the races mix and intermarry we will have less and less obvious racial differences, I don't want to deny that race is real because that would imply that the burden of minority is not real and that the history of oppression is not real. There is such a thing as race and it does matter in terms of self understanding and life experience but the lines are fuzzy and they will be more so.
My daughter was born to Korean parents 24 years ago but spent only 4 months in Korea and has been in the USA her entire life. MSU offered her a "diversity" scholarship when she graduated from High School and I refused to even consider accepting it because she wouldn't bring any meaningful diversity to the university beyond mere appearance. She has lived in Texas long enough now that she can do a very impressive Forrest Gump impersonation but I don't think that counts for diversity....and yes, I know Forrest Gump wasn't from Texas but you know how we lump everything south of the Ohio together.
My recent column in the Springfield NewsLeader compared the employment practices of the two retail giants, Walmart and Costco. My argument was that because Costco pays higher salaries that they have better employee retention and worker satisfaction so they are more productive, making Costco spend less on salaries related to their retail volume than the more conservative Walmart. My argument being that if Walmart were a more generous employer they would not only improve the communities where they do business but they would also fatten their bottom line.
When I went on line to look at my reader comments, every single critic was writing in to complain about President Obama..... who, to my knowledge, is not in management of either Costco or Walmart.
After 22 years of writing for the NewsLeader, I am aware that just seeing my picture in the paper is to conservatives approximately what it is to show a torch to Frankenstein, "Ugh FIRE". So that when they see that I have published on any topic, their only response is, "Obama BAD."
I have to conclude, that for these people, the black appearance of Barack Obama trumps any record set on the Dow Jones, employment numbers or defense record. As a liberal, I have not a few bones to pick with our President but conservatives really don't have much to complain about and yet they hate him with a passion that seems in my eyes to be inescapably fueled by ignorant racism. I could be wrong about this...... no, no, on later thought, there really is no way that I could be wrong about that..... it's racism.
Even some of my best friends were surprisingly ebullient about Hugo Chavez's declining health and recent death. They tell me about how he controlled the media and arrested dissidents and when I pointed out that his media was less controlled than ours is and that he had not jailed a tenth as many dissidents as we jailed Occupy Wall Street protestors they look at me like I'm the one whose crazy..... and even if I am.... accusing Chavez of controlling the media and dissent in Venezuela and not screaming about it here.... well, is Obama white or black? It is all a matter of perspective isn't it?
I know that when Chavez nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela and severed military ties to the US and snuggled up to Cuba that it upset a lot of people in the business world in the US but I can tell you that by making Venezuela's natural resources a national resource, infant mortality was cut in half. They grew to being number 5 in the world for per capita college graduates.
They cut poverty by 40% and they built power generating plants in Nicaragua, paved roads through Central America, provided food to preschools in Venezuela and many other impoverished nations. My friends in Nicaragua are terrified about the prospects of the corporate powers taking over the government in Venezuela again and not a few corporate Americans want to make sure that we never know how much can be done for the poor by claiming natural resources for the national interests.
Yes, Chavez was a socialist.... a socialist who raised the standard of living of the poor, fed the hungry and even subsidized heating oil for the poor in the USA. Was he egotistical, manipulative and self promoting? Yes he was and if you don't see every Republican and every Democrat that you have ever known as being egotistical, manipulative and self promoting then, I'm pretty sure that you are kidding yourself.... and not all of them are even trying to elevate the standard of living of the poor, provide food to the hungry or electricity and heating oil to the poor. So give me an insincere socialist any day if they can run a better railroad than a sincere capitalist. Can I get an "amen" out of you folks or are you afraid to exhale?
The Apostle Paul lived and traveled in a world that was divided by who was a Roman citizen and who was not. It was divided between slave owners and slaves. It was divided by Greek speakers and Jews and other Aramaic speakers. They were aware of racial divides that we would not even be able to tell apart any more than Paul could appear in this room and tell who was Latino and who was Anglo.
But even in that world that, if such a thing is possible, the people were even more divided by race and politics than we are, he wrote to the church in Corinth:
But we no longer see one another from a human point of view. Is Barack Obama black? Yes he is. Is Barack Obama white? Well, yes he is. Will we all one day be totally embarrassed about having ever cared if anyone is white or black, socialist or capitalist, Democrat or Republican, Latino or Anglo..... God I sure do hope so.
I'm not saying that all people are the same or that all of politics is equal because people are different and politics matters. What I'm saying is that what does not matter is skin color, language, nomenclature or even what name you call the God that you pray to. What matters is a life lived in compassion with a passion for justice. It was the Dali Llama who defined love simply as being the absence of judgment.
If Hugo Chavez decreased human suffering and gave hope to more people in Central and South America through socialism than his predecessors had through capitalism then he is golden in my eyes. If Barack Obama can end this stupid defense of marriage act we have and decrease gun violence in our streets and increase employment in this nation then he isn't black or white he is red, white and blue so far as I am concerned.
Some of the most wonderful people I know aren't much to look at and some of the most attractive have ugly characters. Some of the most educated people I know are embarrassingly simple and some of the most humble folks are astonishingly wise. Some young people can't program your DVR and your DVR was invented by an old person. Your prejudices are just a weight you have carried for years that has done nothing but limit how far you can go spiritually and limited how many friends you can have and how happy you can be. You officially have my permission to lay that burden down right now.
