Who am I to speak on the topic of racial
justice? As a white, middle aged,
middle-class man, I really don’t have the right. And that’s because I lack the personal
context from which to speak. My family
have never been sold as slaves. I’ve
never had to survive on a dollar a day digging lithium out of the ground for
western people to drive electric cars that are practically free to run. My child has never had to dig cobalt for
Western smart-phones. My home is not about to be swamped by rising floodwaters,
caused by the output of the Western power stations and traffic.
I do, however, have some personal experience from which to draw, when I think about the
topic of racial justice. I recall, for example, the day 10 years ago when I
visited a former slave castle in Cape Coast.
I was shown the entrance to the old slave pit. Above the entrance – literally built on top
of it – was a small chapel. That chapel,
I was told to my shame, was the first Anglican church to be built in the old
Gold Coast.
Across the road from the slave castle is the
Cathedral of the Diocese of Cape Coast. The
Cathedral was built by the British Army.
It was a garrison church for the soldiers who worked in the slave castle,
when the little chapel became too small.
It was an immensely humbling experience to be invited to be a Canon of
that Cathedral. On the day of my
installation, I addressed a sea of African faces in a church that once was stocked
with smug, white, slave-trader smiles.
Today is not the day to debate the slave trade,
however. No, today, we’re being asked to think about Justice, and specifically racial justice. The focus is our reading
of the Sermon on the Mount, which we heard, just now (Luke 6.17-26). Let’s unpack some of what that great Sermon
has to teach us.
The first thing we note is that it was a Sermon to a
diverse group of people. According to
the text, people came to hear Jesus from all over the area, including Tyre and
Sidon, which were areas inhabited predominantly by non-Jews. Among the crowd
would have been representatives from all sections of society – rich, poor,
powerful, powerless, and famously (according to the Gospel of Monty Python)
cheese-makers too!
To such a varied, diverse, multi-racial section of
humanity; what does Jesus say? He speaks
of Justice. In the new Kingdom of Heaven
he is inaugurating, there will be justice for the poor, and woe for the
rich. The hungry will be filled, and the
full will be hungry. Those who mourn
will laugh, and those who laugh now will mourn and weep.
Jesus’ words are powerful. They predict the consequences of what will
happen when those with power to effect change fail to live up to their sacred
duty. A time is coming, according to
Jesus’ Mother Mary, when the mighty will fall from their thrones, and the
humble and poor will be lifted up.
This is a picture of the topsy-turvy Kingdom of
Heaven. Everything gets turned upside
down when the Kingdom comes into full effect.
And we know this to be true, even as amateur students of history. Over and over again, the mighty Empires of
Humanity collapse under the weight of their own greed and corruption, and
because of their lack of attention to justice; especially justice for the
people under their rule, or their influence.
In this sense, the Bible doesn’t so much teach us
what will take place. It shows us what is taking place, all the time, all around us. It is not so much that we read the Bible, but
that the Bible reads us – we find ourselves reflected in its stories, and
warned by its prophets. In that sense, the
Bible is a commentary on the world we
live in, as much as the world of the past.
Societies which fail to look after the poor, of
whatever race, ultimately collapse. The
Eqyptians exploited the Hebrews, and paid a heavy price at the time of
Moses. The Romans exploited every
country they conquered, and kept other nations outside with walls. For all its
greatness, their great City fell – conquered by those it had kept outside its
borders. The British Empire exploited
the lands of millions, taking their natural resources, as well as enslaving
their peoples. Today, the Empire of the G7 exploits every
other nation on earth. Their poorest
people dig in the earth for our lithium, our precious metals, our coffee beans,
our sugar – while living in the most impoverished conditions.
So, when the Bible tells us to take care of the poor
of other nations, we do well to listen. Many
great Empires have come and gone. Our present Empire goes under many
names. We call it the G7 or the Western
Hegemony. But it is an Empire like all
those of the past. It lives off the
backs of other nations, other races, of those who live outside its apparently
impregnable borders, and military might, longing to get inside.
But what can you and I do about this? What can we
do to live out the principles of the Kingdom?
How can we sow living seeds of racial
justice. Bringing about real change means changing
our buying habits – making sure, for example, that nothing we buy (from our cars
to our clothes) has come from a sweat-shop, a slave-market, or has been dug out
of the ground by work-slaves. It means fighting for the voices of other
races, with other experiences, to be heard in our board-rooms and in our
decision-making bodies. Bringing about
real change means engaging in the political process – lobbying our politicians,
protesting, and making it impossible for those with the real power to ignore
the message of the Kingdom. This is a
call to prophecy…to the task of calling the people to God’s way of living, and
warning them of the consequences if they do not.
So let me leave you with this challenge. How can we become a racial justice action
centre? What will you do today? What
change will you make to the things you buy?
What will you do to increase the pace of positive change in our
political structures? Who will you write
to? Where and how will you protest? Who will you bind together to make real and
meaningful change?
And…how much of your personal income will you give
to charities that help the poor of other countries, other races? If that’s a thought which challenges you, then
why not talk to Sue Tinney, a World Vision ambassador, after the service? (Other development agencies are available!).
And when you meet a person of another race outside
the walls of this church, will you smile, will you welcome them in and invite
them to taste the new wine of the Kingdom?
For all God’s children are welcome here! Amen
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