Offered by Mel Prestamo, Elder PCUSA
The year 2020 will no doubt be recorded as one of the most trying, exasperating and difficult tests of survival in our country’s history. But more than that, it is as equally trying a test for American Christians.
The cornerstone of our country’s foundation – the one our nation was built upon – that is the notion of “liberty and justice for all”, is being shaken and tested; no less is our Christian faith and its Cornerstone – Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole mind, and your neighbor as yourself – these are equally under stress.
We are a nation divided. We are Red States. We are Blue States. We are us. They are them. We are Second Amendment advocates, or we are thieves in the night trying to steal away guaranteed rights. We are White churches. We are Black churches. We are strong loving Americans protecting our neighbors by wearing masks; and, we are a people asserting our personal liberties not to wear them and not to care. Some Christian religious leaders have taken sides – applauding Bible thumping stunts – while other pastors are tear-gassed and pushed away from their own houses of worship. We have been divided into a country struggling to return to greatness and a country hoping to still become that great Light shining on the hilltop.
Quoting the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, I ask you the question, “Where Do We Go From Here?”
I apologize for the political over tones of the beginning of this message; however, I must confess to you that I am consumed by the events that have rocked and are rocking our nation as I sit to compose this message to you. So, I beg your forgiveness if my words are off putting. And to answer Rev. King’s question, I have chosen to turn to Scripture.
In Matthew 22, an expert in the Law asked of Jesus the question, “What commandment in the Law is the greatest?”, Jesus replied to him, “ You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and your whole soul, and your whole mind. This is the great and chief commandment; and the second is like it, “You must love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments the whole Law and the prophets depend.”
For the first half of his answer Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 It is the basic and essential creed of Judaism. Theologian William Barclay says of it, “It means that to God we must give total love, a love which dominates our emotions, a love which directs our thoughts, and a love which is the dynamic of our actions.” And I would add, when we rise in the morning, our Love of God should be the single driving force that enriches and motivates our lives.
The second commandment that Jesus refers to is from Leviticus 19:18. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself.” I would suggest to you that our love of God MUST be displayed and evidenced as a love of and for others.
How does this commandment guide and influence us as Christians in America? We might want to say, it is how we meet and treat the people around us – with Love. We might go as far to say, it is the basis in Law upon which we have built this nation. It is what the notion of justice for all is built upon. If I love my God, then I love my neighbor and I treat my neighbor fairly and equally and with respect.
But, yet I wonder.
I am a Face Book user and I follow a number of my church friends. A couple of them have been reposting a statement and perhaps you’ve seen it. It reads:
“I don’t care if you’re Black, White, Straight, Bisexual, gay, lesbian, short, tall, fat, skinny, rich or poor. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Simple as that!
Now this sounds “simple” enough. It sounds “nice” enough. But do you see, do you understand -how perversive it is to the teachings of the Jesus? He taught us that if you love your God then love your neighbor – first. Not after your neighbor is nice to you. Your neighbor does not have to prove their worthiness to you, first. We are called to love our neighbor period. I scream at my Christian friends, Stop posting this! This is NOT how we Christians are supposed to treat people.
But it begs the question, if that is how we approach people – If you are nice to me – are we being Christian? Jesus taught his disciples that any parent can be loving to his child [if your child asked for a fish, would you give him a snake?] NO! Of course not. Any parent is capable of loving their own child. But it is not enough. We, Christians, have to go further. We have to do more.
What is happening in America is an indication that we need to go further. We need to look within ourselves and be critical about the way we treat our fellows.
America is a great and wonderful country; but not for all.
The Federal Reserve has said that the top 1% of Americans control 35% of the nation’s wealth. That means $34 trillion dollars in wealth is in the hands of only 3 million people. The top 20% of households control more wealth than the entire middle class. On average, Black families possess only 9% of the wealth of White families. At the median, Black families have an average wealth of $13,500 in wealth [total wealth] versus the average wealth for White families 10x greater – that is $142,000.
How has that happened?
Our own history tells the story. In the 1800’s our government enacted laws to create a transfer of wealth from the government to the citizens via the Land Rushes. What does that mean? It means that White Americans were given the opportunity to create wealth through the acquisition of land at a time when Black Americans were still in Slavery. Black Americans were not given the opportunity to gain wealth through the acquisition of property until the 1960’s through the Equal Right Act; however, that right is curtailed through the bank lending tactic of Redlining Black neighborhoods – a practice that is still going on today.
What does all this mean within the scope of our message today? It means when people of color say to us that racism in America is “systemic” [that is built into the structures of our banking, economic, educational and the legal systems], they are speaking a truth to us.
Now, that is not to say that we are racists – you and I. I do not believe that. But what it reveals is that privilege in America is decidedly biased toward Whites. Regardless of how hard I have worked to gain the wealth that I possess, I have had the advantage of a White bias. Now believe me I have worked hard for what I possess in wealth. I am a commission salesman and I have not worked a day in the last forty years when I was paid a base salary. Every dollar that I have earned has been hard earned. There were days of no sales that I came home with nothing – no sales, no pay. But still, I enjoyed the privilege of the bias that benefits me as a White. I know there were doors on sales calls that were opened to me because I look the way I do – that would have been shut to people of color. As hard as I have worked, I know that it is true.
Again, what does that mean for us as Christians? How do we step out against the tide of systemic injustice “to love our fellow”? There may be one, but I think I am safe in guessing that no one listening to me today controls the banking and economic system in America; nor is there one that can change the legal & educational systems. So, without that power and authority to make change, what are we American Christians to do?
Again, let’s turn to Scripture.
In John 2:14-16 we can gain an example from Jesus. “14In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
Here we see an example of our Lord that is total out of character to the extreme. It is one that befuddles us. It is hard to balance his actions in the Temple with his teachings; especially those in what we call the Beatitudes. In Matthew 5:5 Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are the “meek”, for they shall inherit the earth.” Or with the Jesus who teaches us in Matthew 5: 39, “I tell you not to resist evil; but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also.”
How are we, “meek, turn the other cheek” Christians, supposed to step out against the systemic injustice that imperils and causes pain to our “fellow” who we are commanded to love as an expression of our love of God?
Well the first step might be to better understand what Jesus meant by blessing the meek. What does it mean to be meek? In our lexicon today, meek has a meaning of being spineless and submissive. But it was not so in the Greek language in which this text was written. In the Greek language, meekness was a virtue that exhibited a balance between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness. It was the balance between knowing when to be angry and when not to be. As a general rule for Christians, it is never right to be angry for ourselves but it often right to be angry about injuries done to other people. William Barclay frames it this way, “Selfish anger is always a sin. Selfless anger can be one of the great moral dynamics of the world.”
That is the anger that Jesus exhibited in the Temple. It was not a rage to avenge an insult to himself. It was a rage to avenge an insult against his Father and his Father’s house. He overturned the tables in order to overturn the abomination that had been sanctioned by the religious authorities who had used the Law to oppress the poorer, disenfranchised “fellows” that Jesus had come to love.
In Matthew 5:9, Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
How do we peacemakers fit in? Do we wave a white flag as call for a truce? Is it enough to simply call for a violence or injustice to stop?
Here we need to understand what the word “Peace” means in this text as Jesus is using it. The word in Hebrew is “Shalom”. Shalom is never simply the absence of trouble. In Hebrew, peace always means everything which provides for a person’s highest good. In the Bible, peace is not only a freedom from trouble but the enjoyment of all that is good.
So, what does that mean? It means peace-making is not simply peace-loving. We are not making peace if we are avoiding reality and piling up more trouble for the future for the sake of a quiet today. This Bible blessing does not come to those who avoid thorny issues; but to those who actively face them and make peace – that is a peace that creates the greater good for our “fellows”. Shalom-making is God’s active role in the cosmos; bringing it together into a oneness with God. We can’t do that with patch work peace – peace for some but not all – a peace that leaves our “fellow” in distress. Shalom calls us to act to bring about a oneness of all God’s creation.
In Matthew 5:39, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. But how does he do it? If you can picture in your mind’s eye how someone would slap your face to insult you. It was traditionally done [in Rome] with the right back hand against the right cheek. Turning the other cheek [the left] to another back-handed slap makes another strike impossible. You can’t slap the left cheek with the back-handed right. So, while Jesus is telling us not to meet violence with violence, he was also telling us how to stand against unjust authority.
So perhaps, this is how Jesus tells us to step out against the injustices that are systemic within our nation. By knowing when it is right to be angry and by making a Shalom that brings everything good thing to everyone. That in being a properly balanced meek Christian, we can be angry against the wrongs done to our fellow and move to make peace – true peace – not just the absence of protests and killings – but true Shalom.
A popular protest phrase of the day is, “Silence is Violence.” When Christians misunderstand how it means that they are called to be meek and to be peace-makers and they don’t take action while witnessing the violence against their fellow – whom we are called to love – then they don’t understand Jesus. Theirs’ is a silence which begets violence.
Remember Jesus’ story of the fellow who was beaten by thieves and left on the side of the road to die. Two believers passed him by and refused to help him because of what the Law demanded of them. The Law demanded that they be clean and undefiled because they were leaders in the Temple. Then came one who without question or qualification went to the injured man got down on his knees to lift him up and care for him. He didn’t ask the man “Have you been nice to me?” He simply saw need and went to help. With meekness, he stepped into a dangerous situation and worked to make peace.
Jesus has shown us how to act when our fellow, our neighbor, is being injured and abused. He has shown us that as his followers and as lovers of God, we need to go out and be meek. We need to actively and proactively engage the issues of the day when we see our fellows being treated unfairly seeking the justice that God requires of us. We need to be peacemakers.
