By Rev. Chris Jorgensen
February 28, 2021
Video of Entire Service: https://www.facebook.com/hanscomparkchurch/videos/776041700002688
Scripture: Mark 7:24-30
This sermon is not finished. It’s not because I haven’t been thinking about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about it even before this week, and I’ve been working on it all week long. In fact, on Monday I talked to my friend the Rev. Debra McKnight.
I said, “Debra, what scripture would you use if you were preaching on racism?”
Debra did not hesitate. Immediately, she said, “I would definitely preach about the Syrophoenician Woman.”
To which I responded, “Is that the one where Jesus calls the woman a dog?”
Yep.
It’s a bold choice, and I knew right away that my wise friend Debra was right.
See, I remember Debra’s sermon about the Syrophoenician woman and so does my partner Matt…from when we heard it eleven years ago. I mean, I don’t even remember my own sermons from last month sometimes. But this story is powerful.
So I will start this the same way Debra did. Here’s how she started that sermon eleven years ago. “He calls her a dog. A woman approaches Jesus, her child is sick; she asks him for help, and he calls her a dog.”
There are not many scriptures in which Jesus messes up. In fact, this scripture only exists in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. John’s Jesus would have never done something like this. But in Mark, we find the most human Jesus…which I think is pretty helpful for those of us who are, in fact, human. Mark does still call Jesus the Son of God, so even the Son of God can make mistakes in the Gospel of Mark.
Jesus calls this woman a dog. That is what is happening here. Rev. Debra, following a scholar named Mary Ann Tolbert points out that Jesus actually calls her a “little dog.” A “doglet” if you will. In this comparison, Jesus’ Jewish friends are the “children of God,” and the Gentiles, non-Jews, these people of different ethnicity…they are the doglets. It is a minimizing, de-humanizing slur. Jesus tells this woman she doesn’t deserve God’s gifts.
Wow.
But. But. This woman is persistent. Perhaps she knows her own value, and she is not accepting this answer because she loves her daughter and wants her daughter healed…and she challenges Jesus! She says, “Sure, sir, but even the dogs get a crumb sometimes, right?”
Jesus affirms her. Her words change Jesus’ mind and his actions. He honors her cleverness and her persistence, and he heals her daughter. He sees that maybe he didn’t respond how he should have the first time. He hears this correction, this challenge from the person he discriminated against…and he changes.
Even Jesus can make mistakes, hear about it from the person he hurt, and do better. Even Jesus can make a mistake in the way he treats people, talks about people…and upon receiving some learning, he can do better.
So do we think we are better than Jesus? Do we need to feel like we know everything, like we’ve hit the pinnacle of inclusion because we have had a few sermons where Pastor Chris mentioned racism? We have not. I have not. We have more to learn. We have more “doing better” to do. I have more “doing better” to do.
In twenty-first-century America, like at all times and in all places, we are swimming in our culture. In our culture, there is racism and white supremacy. It is in the systems we participate in. Vestiges of it remain in our law. It is in our language. It’s in our television shows and movies. It is in our churches. We cannot escape it. But we can do something about it, starting with being honest and aware of our own biases.
You probably know this already, but there’s this thing called implicit bias. I love the way Scientific American describes it here: The authors write: “When is the last time a stereotype popped into your mind? If you are like most people, the authors included, it happens all the time. That doesn’t make you a racist, sexist or whatever-ist. It just means your brain is working properly, noticing patterns and making generalizations. But the same thought processes that make people smart can also make them biased. This tendency for stereotype-confirming thoughts to pass spontaneously through our minds is what psychologists call implicit bias. It sets people up to overgeneralize, sometimes leading to discrimination even when people feel they are being fair.”( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-think-about-implicit-bias/)
So I have this. I have implicit bias. We all have this implicit bias thing going on in our heads all the time. I know that I have internalized racism, I know I have gotten better being aware of my own biases over the years, and I am still working on it.
I want to us look at this image again. When I first saw this woman, grabbing Jesus’ arm, I was like “Oh heck no, you cannot grab Jesus that way.” Like, “How dare this woman put her hands on Jesus?!”
Now, would I react that way to any woman grabbing Jesus’ arm? Maybe. But maybe not. Or maybe I wouldn’t have been so quick to react that way.
Let’s imagine if Jesus was a white man in this picture. How might that change your reaction to what’s going on here?
Am I proud of the possibility that my reaction to this woman might have been made more quickly and more judgmentally because she was a person of color? Absolutely not. It horrifies me…and I am going to do something about it by interrogating it, and educating myself, and fighting against it.
The reason I will do that is not to make myself feel better. That is not the point. The reason I’m doing that is that racism is harmful, even dangerous, to people of color, to some of us in this church community, to some of us in this Omaha community, to some of us in whatever community you are in. That is so much more important than my feelings.
Racism harms people of color, harms us, in so many ways. Let’s just look at a few facts.
Racism results in disproportionate punishment of students of color in schools (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/17/8255). One example: black children are three times more likely to be suspended from preschool (preschool!) than their white classmates (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/11/26/new-federal-data-shows-black-preschoolers-still-disciplined-far-higher-rates-than-whites/).
Racism results in health disparities (differences between how healthy people are and how long they live). Another example, just one: black women are three-to-four times more likely to experience a pregnancy-related death than white women (https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/health/reports/black-womens-maternal-health.html).
Racism results in disproportionate incarceration of black people. Black people more often get sent to prison and for longer times that white people who commit the same crimes. Just one example of that: “In 2000, black people were imprisoned for drug crimes at 15 times the rate of whites.” Now, there has been improvement. “By 2016, that ratio was just under 5-to-1.” (https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/trends-key-findings/key-findings-2/). Friends, when being black makes you 5 times more likely to get sent to prison when you are arrested on a drug charge than a white person, it is still a huge problem.
A quick sidebar: I want to recognize that I used examples of just black and white people here, rather than trying to include all people of color. I did this because the examples are easier to understand in a sermon format. But I mention it because our world, and in fact this church, includes people of many races and ethnicities. We are a community that includes black people and white people and Asian American people and indigenous/Native American people and Latino/a/x people. It’s important to note that racism doesn’t affect people of all races in the same way. That’s one of the reasons why I invite you go look at the links to the places I found that information that I’m going to post when I put this sermon on the church website. So you can start to learn more.
Because these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. These are just a few examples about how racism and white supremacy affects the reality of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colors’ actual experiences in the world.
So what can we do about it? Well, we have to start by taking a page out of Jesus’ book. We have to listen to each other and believe what they have to say. We have to look at the research (the statistics) and believe it. We have to take the time to try to understand. Besides the citations I am going to post with this sermon, you can look up more yourself. You can read a book. If you are not sure if you are looking at a reliable source, ask a librarian. I’ll even put a link in this sermon for a place you can go to learn how to identify reliable sources yourself (https://libguides.unomaha.edu/c.php?g=791101&p=5660643).
Along with believing the statistics, we are called to listen to people’s stories and believe them. That’s what our anti-racist book group is doing while we read Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar’s stories about racism that Lacey experienced here in Omaha, Nebraska. Not only do we believe that the stories happened, we believe Amber Ruffin when she writes this: “There are going to be a lot of times while you are reading this book when you think, ‘There is no motivation for this action. It seems like this story is missing a part because people just aren’t this nonsensically cruel.’ But where you see no motivation, you understand racism a little more. It’s the weird, unprovoked lashing-out, and it never makes any sense. It’s why it’s so easy for people to believe the police when they beat someone up – because no one would be that cruel just because the person is Black. But they are! So as you read this book, when you see there’s no motivation, know that there is: [and it is] racism.” (p. xxiii).
In summary, we are swimming in racism and white supremacy. It is not okay. Here’s how we are going to start to deal with it. 1) We are going to be fearlessly honest and work super hard to be aware of our own implicit biases and internalized racism – even if it makes us feel bad – because our feeling bad is totally inconsequential compared to the immense harm that racism inflicts on those of us who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. 2) We are going to believe the research. And 3) We are going to believe the stories that people of color tell us about their experiences of racism.
We are going to do that until we root white supremacy out of ourselves and out of this church. Because in order for us to be a safe place for the amazing and wonderful diverse folks we welcome here, we can’t just be (poof!) magically inclusive. We have to be actively anti-racist. As we continue to increase our racial and ethnic diversity, we will continue this work. In fact, soon I will be introducing you to the Rev. Kathy Williams who works with all the clergy in cross-racial and cross-cultural appointments in our conference. She and others will help us continue to welcome new people with love and justice.
The justice part of that means sharing power. It means not just welcoming people of color. It means making sure everyone has a seat at the table where decisions are made. It means not expecting people who join the church to conform to the dominate white culture. It means being willing to change so that everyone’s perspective and identity shapes who we are. It is a great opportunity for us to grow and reflect the fabulously diverse image of God even better.
Ultimately, this is how we resist and end racism. You know how in our baptismal vows, we commit to resisting evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves? Well, racism is one of those, and we are going to resist. We are going to resist: word by word, action by action, day by day. If Jesus could learn and change, we can too.
This sermon is not finished. My learning about how to be an anti-racist human is not finished. Our work to becoming an anti-racist community is not finished. We still have a lot to learn, and a lot to do.
Friends, that is good news. Because God is not finished with us yet.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Questions for Discussion
[1] How did you react to the image that Pastor Chris used in the sermon? Do you think the fact that the characters were people of color affected your reaction? Did your reaction change when you imagined Jesus as a white man?
[2] Which statistic about the harm that racism does to people of color that Pastor Chris shared surprised you the most?
[3] Have you ever talked to someone of a different race than yours who shared one/some of their experiences of racism with you? If yes, how did that make you see the world differently? If no, how do you think that influences the way you see the world?
[4] What is one thing that you are going to do in order to understand racism and white supremacy better?