Preaching Black Lives (Matter). Gayle Fisher-Stewart

was their way. Their custom. Their spirituality. Now we are still transfixed by the parameters of the “us” and the “not us,” where the colonizers are “not us.”

      When the Tower of Babel fell, humanity was young. It was too soon for uniformity among the people. God had made and remade the earth for God’s children to inhabit. The land was baptized from the Great Flood and refreshed to nourish the surviving children. The children were of the same house, but it was time for them to inherit the Earth and to learn the beauty of God’s gift to them. Babel happened to ensure the children populated the world. It was not time to reach the heavens and lord over all that was. But it seems as though superiority over others and other things never left some.

      In the United States of America, it came to pass that one “race” subjugated all others in order to gain the “riches” of the land. It was never a matter of not knowing what one ethnicity had within its grasp. It was a matter of the spirituality of the people who allowed the “not us” to be welcomed.

      How soon did they forget the “New Commandment”?

      The objective now may be racial reconciliation. The “not us” have to remember Babel, but more importantly, the “not us” need to remember before Babel. What if Babel took place so humanity could learn about a colorful world, a world that defined beauty in all of its manifestations?

      The resulting beauty would fill and decorate God’s house with many rooms of colorful design where Jesus prepared your room, and his room, and her room, even their rooms. But it was never said that the room Jesus prepared was a closed-off space. What if the room allowed others to see in and to visit and to share the love? The “not us” need to remember the love that existed after the Great Flood and before the confusion at the Tower of Babel. Once recalled, perhaps racial reconciliation may commence.

      [Jesus said,] “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35, NAB)

11

       Samaritan Sunday

      LUKE 16:19–31

       Gene Robinson

      If you were coming to church to hear some good news this morning, this might not have been a great morning to come. We’ve got Amos, one of the great prophets, reading the riot act to the Jews because of their unfaithfulness to God. And then the first letter to Timothy, which is probably not written by Paul but by one of his protégés or associates, is also talking about being comfortable and wealthy and still being a person of God. And then if that wasn’t enough, we have the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Where is the good news in all that? We aren’t given a whole lot of details about either the rich man or Lazarus, but the writer, Luke, tells us, gives us a little hint about where he’s going because the rich man never has a name in this story, but the beggar at the gate with sores on himself and looking for scraps from the rich man’s table, he’s named. And Abraham calls him by his name. This rich man, whose name was probably known far and wide because he was rich and, therefore, probably powerful, doesn’t even rate a name in the afterlife. But Lazarus, who got the short end of the stick in real life, has been taken to the bosom of Abraham.

      The sin of the rich man was not that he was rich or not even his attitude toward Lazarus; it was the disconnectedness he chose from Lazarus. I wonder out loud, did he really even want to see Lazarus at his gate? Occasionally he might have thrown some change his way or some scraps of food, but honestly, he just didn’t care all that much. Now, it’s entirely possible this rich man was really a nice guy. Maybe he worked hard; maybe he had an entrepreneurial spirit. Maybe he gave generously to his synagogue. Maybe he was really on ok guy; maybe he just didn’t connect to this man sitting at his gate.

      On the other hand, he might have been awful. We’re told that he was neither awful nor good, just that he was rich. Now, Lazarus, maybe he was a good guy. Maybe he was a poor man’s hero; maybe he was poor and generous in spite of the misery he lived in. He might have been a drunk or an addict or both or worse. We are not told. We are just told he was poor. I’m going to do a side bar, so I’m going to the side. So, this story is about privilege—all kinds of privilege—though it seems to be about the privilege of wealth. As we go through the story, I want you to think about all those kinds of privilege. It’s about White people who have privilege and, as a result, benefit from a culture set up to favor them at the expense of people of color. Or it’s the privilege of being male, which comes at the expense of women. Or it’s about being able bodied, or being documented, or being—you fill in the blank. Whatever the privilege is, it’s about what the privileged person does. If we as White people are not working to undo the systemic racism that is America, then we are a part of it; we are racists unless we are working day and night to dismantle it.

      If you are a man and you are talking to and about women in a way that doesn’t respect them as a human being and a child of God, if you’re not trying to dismantle the system that benefits men at the expense of women, then you are a misogynist. And so on and so on.