Stop Racism!

Have you ever heard yourself saying, “these dogs …”, or “this bitch”, to those whom you do not like, or tolerate? I have heard my self, saying that several times! It looks like Jesus too was trapped in such emotional display that a Canaanite woman once challenged.

Christian scriptures have recorded one of Jesus’ encounters with a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28). Here is a woman who does not belong to the caste, class, or creed of Jesus, or his disciples. Jesus was a Jew. This woman was a Canaanite. Jews of Jesus’ time, I learn from my readings, frequently looked down on the Canaanites and considered them as dogs! So, naturally when the Canaanite woman approached Jesus for some favor – here she wants Jesus to heal her daughter (Matthew 15:22) - Jesus spontaneously tells her that it is wrong “to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs” (Matthew 15:26). It is too obvious that Jesus considered his people, the Jews as children and the Canaanites as dogs!

Jesus went further to justify his “gut level feelings” with sophisticated theological arguments. He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). Jesus covers his own prejudices by implicating God, and God’s “sent-ness”. Neat argument! Isn’t it? Now, who comes to back Jesus? His own followers! They say: “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (Matthew 15:23). Here, I notice, that their support to Jesus comes even before he makes a request from them.

Jews of Jesus’ time was a very exclusive, insulated community. They built strong walls of separation from other communities. Jesus and his disciples belonged to this exclusive community.

I am quite aware of those who would argue that Jesus was not an exclusivist but evolved a program to break this exclusivist attitude among his contemporaries. Yes, there is supportive materiel in the Gospel for this particular stance.

My point however is, this specific incident reveals the spirit of exclusivist attitude that this woman challenged and Jesus gives in by adopting a more inclusive spirit towards this foreign, alien, strange woman. At the end Jesus commends her “spirit of inclusivism”. Hence, Jesus said: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (Matthew 15:28)

I wonder if Jesus were to look at the present attitudes of bulk of the Canadian Christians towards people who are not their “caste, color, class, or creed”, will he discern and identify this inclusive spirit and say: “Great is your Christianity”, or “Great is your spirituality”, or “Great is your religion”? Do contemporary Canadian Christians through their thoughts, words and deeds promote passionately an inclusive, global, one world community that transcends color, caste, class, and creed? These are, I know, very difficult and sometimes very embarrassing questions. But they are exceedingly essential to establish faith and incredibly crucial to all faith communities.

The table that most practicing Christians walk to on a Sunday morning – I refer here to the Eucharistic table – is an inclusive table. And it demands similar attitude in the participants of that banquet the Lord of the Church has prepared.

I believe if we increase the spirit of inclusivism in the church community and the wider community and become more accepting towards people who are not our color, caste, class, or creed, the world we live in will have less conflicts and wars. Do you think I am very naïve in advocating a more inclusive world in order to stop conflicts and wars?

The Psalm 133, one of the shortest psalms, a poem, points to a beautiful vision of an “inclusive community”. It does not tell us how to establish this. But gives a taste; it inspires. A piece of poem like Psalm 133 tries to move, or persuade human emotions towards the vision that it carries within. But with those emotions, I believe, we must pull our will together to realize that vision here and now in our lives!

In the Bible I discover that our love for God and our love for humans are one and the same. In rejecting one you reject the other! When I look down on a black or a brown man or a native woman I am looking down on God. When I name him with that “derogatory” name “Negro” I am rejecting God who created him in his image.

Life in abundance for Jacob’s children who were divided depended very much on their coming together. The graphic reminder of this truth we are able to read and reflect in the story recorded in Genesis 45.

We will, I strongly believe, either live together, or die together! The future choice of the world is not between those living an abundant life and those living a life of scarcity! No! Either we all live a life of abundance and peace, or all live a life of scarcity and war with all its consequences!

Paul, a Jew, after his conversion to God, on his part, have always argued that in God’s vision both the Jews and the Gentiles are included, no matter even if they have done very badly. (For examples I read Romans 11:1-2, Galatians 3:28 and other passages!) All people in the world are “people of God”, with no distinction of color, caste, class, or creed.

God’s world is inclusive. Heaven and hell are all inclusive. The Lord’s Table is inclusive. And I am invited to build within me an inclusive mind, heart and will that eventually will pave way to an inclusive community, community where racism is only a past history and a Canada that sternly stops both overt and covert racisms.

Walking to the Beat of a Distant Drum

Paul wrote: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds …” (Romans 12:3). Paul’s dual concern expressed in this quote – “not be conformed” and “be transformed”, continue to fascinate me. “Transformed Non-conformist” is the title Martin Luther King, the slain American Black Leader, gave for the sermon he preached on Romans 12:2 in the 1960’s!

Martin Luther King, in that sermon, said: “We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds? Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul saving music of eternity?” (Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love, Fortress Press, 1981, p. 29.)

The two midwives mentioned in the beginning of the Book of Exodus (Chapter 1), Shiphrah and Puah provide, for me, examples of non-conformity. They refused to march to the music of the King of Egypt. The two women by choosing “non-conformity” as their life style perhaps missed much awards and accolades and actually risked imprisonment and possibly death from the powerful Pharaoh. Many today may think this as imprudence and utter foolishness, a kind of psychological and social maladjustment!

Elsewhere in the Christian scriptures, I read, Jesus patting Peter for his “not conforming” to the views of the people of his time! There was this question: “how do you see this Jesus, the Son of the carpenter Joseph and his wife Mary?” From the text I learn some of the popular views suggested that people considered Jesus was “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, and one of the prophets”! But Peter did not walk to that beat when he confessed Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the living God”. (Cf. Matthew 16:14-16)

I believe there is definitely a need today for “holy disobedience”, as during the time of Shiphrah, Puah, Peter, and Paul. I need to stop being “a parrot” that repeats the easy popular slogans and conforms to dominant creedal and cultural mould in imitating its values in preference to those values of God’s Rule! During the time of Shiprah and Puah they had the Pharaoh to disobey; for Peter and Paul they had the Jewish religious authorities and the Roman secular authorities to disobey! Don’t I have in my own times the need to disobey the “Multinational Corporations”, the “Mass Media”, and all other paraphernalia that supports these structures. These, I see, as the present day Emperors and the High Priests, promising personal progress and prosperity, distorting our humanity and dictating our living style.

I cannot be a non-conformist if I am not willing to let go the faith and religion of “profit” and “progress” that ignores the humanity of the masses! This would mean I should make the right choice. Shiprah and Puah had to choose between “obeying the King’s command” on one hand and “God’s command” on the other! These women chose in favour of God’s rule! I can’t please both God and the Mammon! I cannot compromise!

For me as a Minister under God’s rule, to become a non-conformist in the Pauline sense, I must choose between “actively serving and dining with those in the center” and be rewarded by the powers on one hand and on the other, “committed to those in the margin” and being marginalized even by the institutional Church! For me as a preacher of the Gospel my non-conformist stance provokes me to challenge the traditional wisdom that I may become a partner with God in making all things new.

Likewise, each one of us will have to find our little corner and the manner in which we are going to be a “non-conformist”. It is then you and I will “shine” for Jesus but you in your small corner and I in mine! For Jesus is the non-conformist par excellence. Without that “maladjustment” to the world “opposed to godly values” you and I can’t be Jesus people, “authentic Christians”.

I am aware that Buddha before Jesus and Muhammad after Jesus also presented this, very same, call of “non-conformity” and “maladjustment” to the ever present “rat race” to their respective followers!

That “maladjustment” to the world in Pauline sense is an important component to that “well adjustment” to the authentic life, the Kingdom of God! The poem titled “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” by that American non-conformist poetess Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) provides me further inspiration for the path of “no-conformity”. She said:
“Much madness is divinest
To a discerning eye,
Much sense, the starkest madness.
It is the majority
In this, as all, prevail:
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, you’re straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain”

Non-conformity is a costly way, a way of the cross and crucifixion! And non-conformity is not possible unless I am transformed within. Or, I may put it this way: “non-conformity” without “transformation of the inner self” is irrelevant to the Gospel cause that comes to tame my “ego” and will have nothing to do with the Kingdom of God! I will not adjust to “non-conformity” in the authentic sense until I am transformed inside my soul! In a sense, transformation of the soul and not conforming to the world go together. They are like the two sides of the same coin. When I do one the other follows; and when I refuse one the other I consciously reject!

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” is a call that comes to all. But only a few will respond. For the path of Jesus is not the path the majority chooses, it is the way for remnants, the little flock – not for masses, not for religious experts, but simple minded disciples of Jesus! Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it (Matthew 7:14). For the majority in the Church always chose “conformity” so much so the Church with her leadership always appears fully conformed to the world! But I, member of this little “flock” can be different, and should be different!