So, last Friday, at out Friday breakfast, Fr. Brooks and I were talking about a certain seminary book, White Women's Christ, Black Women's Jesus” by Jacquelyn Grant. The feminist thesis, hinted at in the title, is that white women and black women tend to see the incarnation of God differently. And this more or less extends to men, too. Whites, from their position of privilege, Grant goes on to suggest, tend to relate to the image of a heavenly, resurrected Christ the king, sitting up in the clouds on a throne, exercising his power and authority. Somewhat distant, out there somewhere, watching what's going on down here. Occasionally intervening with some judgement if you're bad and some special favors if you're good.
Sort of hands-off the rest of the time. Letting those in charge down here fill in the gaps as to what they think is right or wrong and when they do, well, Christ has got their back.
But black folks tend to see something different in their view of Christianity. They see the image of a lowly Jesus, a fellow traveler. Someone who knows the score, who has seen what they've seen. Who has been part of an oppressed, enslaved people. Who is down in the nitty-gritty. Living around the pimps, the pay-check lenders, running right on the edge of the law. Caring for people who hurt so deep that hurt is the only way they know they are alive. A Jesus who knows what it is to be cold and hungry, to be hunted down by the soldiers, to be turned in for a reward. Who knows what it means to be unjustly found guilty while nobody speaks out. Who is thrown to the dogs along with other criminals because of his race, his people.
Now, neither the author, nor I, think that this is 100% accurate. People are not ethnic monoliths. In fact, I had a woman in Kingsport tell me that in the time I was there, she'd heard more sermons talking about Jesus (instead of Christ) than she'd ever heard before. To her, she preferred the anointed one up on a throne in heaven, the heavenly CEO pulling strings. But I kept preaching about Jesus, and it kept getting under her skin.
The point is NOT that I am some wonderful disciple...far from it. And I'm not saying that there's two beings, a Jesus and a Christ. They are the same person, just different aspects of that person. What I'm saying is that even those of us in our mostly white seminary (myself included), tended to hold the incarnated one at arm's length. Christianity was theoretical, intellectual, theological. It consisted of stories and ideas and arguments that we carry in our head, not our heart. We could quote Bible verses to underscore points, not to bolster our souls. Very heady stuff, very sanitized, very seminary. And most of the time we could compartmentalize God and go on about our lives.
It would never occur to us, for example, that the book of Exodus, as much as we believed it, was nothing more than a sort of history of something that happened long, long ago to some people that we were vaguely, religiously related to. Stories that made for great Sunday school lessons, or fantastic movies. It would never occur to us that this story was the bedrock of African American Christianity. It was never just a story...it was code shared among an enslaved people, telling themselves that freedom is the underpinning of relationship with God, and that someday they would be delivered too.
For me, Exodus was Charlton Heston. To an enslaved people, Exodus was life!
The point of all this meandering is in our breakfast discussion of that book, we started talking about how it seems that lately what our lectionary has had to say to us has been more personal and urgent than before. This is amazing, I think. It's amazing because it's the same lectionary that we've always had. This Sunday is the same reading we heard three years ago, and God willing, we will hear it three years from now. But those sanitized, theoretical, theological readings – readings that are easy to hear with the brain, for an hour or so until we leave here – those readings are hitting home in a way that would probably make our African American Christian neighbors chuckle and say, “Now, you're getting it.”
Three years ago, when I preached this gospel, the Beatitudes from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, I did it at arm's length. I had in mind faceless poor people, shrouded homeless men on the street corner, vague weeping mothers, television, CARE package children with swollen bellies. Shades and spirits of the mind, used to bolster a theological argument.
But Jesus isn't doing that when he speaks. Jesus never does that when he speaks.
Jesus speaks to the rich and powerful that he knows and sees in the temple, and the words of the prophets come out of his mouth. Jesus, with words of love, condemns the mighty in his midst. Just like Micah: “...and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Words that shame the powerful, if they could be shamed, but would bolster the hearts and souls of the poor and the alien.
Jesus speaks to people he lives around who have given up security and livelihoods to follow him, and Paul takes up the cause and gives words to this today: “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
Jesus speaks to those gathered at his feet for just a few crumbs of love and justice:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who mourn, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure in heart, Blessed are the peacemakers, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Jesus speaks to those he sees living in a land of oppression. A country whose leaders have given up their moral authority to serve emperors instead of God, who steal from the poor to line their own pockets, who use the poor against each other to keep them from looking up and seeing where the oppression is coming from. Jesus speaks to people who constantly feel the ground shifting under their feet, who know they are pawns in someone else's game and who struggle now and again to stop it, to rise up make things right for the widow, the orphan, and the alien in their midst.
Jesus speaks to us. Not in the past tense, not in a land far away. Jesus speaks right now, in this place, at this time...Jesus speaks to our very soul. And Jesus commands that we listen. And Jesus commands that we act.
Jesus commands that today we take up the cross. The cross that is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Amen.