Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Known as “The Great Commission,” these words of Jesus has been fundamental to the church’s global missionary outreach. All nations (the word is “ethnos” in Greek and usually referred to Gentiles) are the intended target demographic for disciple-making. The early church struggled with—but ultimately overcame—its hesitancy to include non-Jews without forcing them to be circumcised and obey the Mosaic Law. Unfortunately, in the past 200 years, many missionaries went beyond teaching converts to obey Jesus’s commands and imposed western (ie white) cultural norms on the nations. When you think of the essential teachings of Jesus to be obeyed, what comes to mind? What aspects of culture might be changed by Jesus’ teaching and what aspects should remain unchanged?

Prayer: Ever present God, you called us to be in relationship with one another and promised to dwell wherever two or three are gathered. In our community, we are many different people; we come from many different places, have many different cultures. Open our hearts that we may be bold in finding the riches of inclusion and the treasures of diversity among us. We pray in faith. Amen. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Acts 8:5-8 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.

Jesus met a Samaritan woman in Sychar, healed a Samaritan leper, and made a Samaritan the hero in the story illustrating his definition of “neighbor.” But as we know from the story of James and John’s proposal of genocide, the wall of exclusion of Samaritans was high and thick.  However, in the book of Acts, Philip intentionally went to a city of Samaria to proclaim Christ. The wall crumbled. The Samaritans received the good news with “great joy.” Significantly, when the apostles heard about what was happening, they sent Peter and John – yes, THAT John—to Samaria to investigate (see Acts 8:14ff). When they arrived, they received the Samaritan believers into full fellowship.  If you were to interview John and ask him what changed, how do you think he would answer? As we have gone through this Lent, “Breaking Down Walls,” what changes (if any) have you experienced in regard to your attitudes about race or ethnicity?  

Prayer: Life-changing God, thank you for speaking truth to our hearts and turning us away from the fear, suspicion and mistrust of others that results in walls of exclusion. In your mercy, continue to pour out your Spirit into our lives so that we can turn toward love, respect and acceptance of those that are different from us, but equal in your eyes. And may we, as your witnesses, be intention in breaking down the walls that divide, until we experience the fullness of your new creation. Through Crist we pray. Amen. 

Matthew 15:22-28 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”  Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Ibram X. Kendi defines racist ideas as “an idea suggesting that one racial group is inferior or superior to another racial group in any way.” To be Canaanite was to be part of a wicked people group – marked for destruction as “Gentile dogs.”  Initially, Jesus refused to interact with her because she was not one of the lost sheep of Israel (the superior group), but after she reminded Jesus that dogs eat too, he changed his position and extended the blessing of Israel to her as well. This story challenges the racist ideas deeply embedded in Jesus’s Israelite culture. In the past, our culture has only lifted up the stories of “white success” while erasing (or ignoring) stories of accomplishments by people of color. What is a story that has changed or challenged the dominant story of “White Supremacy?”  How has that story changed or challenged your ideas of race/ethnicity? 

Prayer: God of all peoples of the earth: we pray for an end to racism in all forms, and for an end to the denial that perpetuates white privilege, and for your support for all those who bear the struggle of internalized racism, and for wisdom to recognize and eradicate the institutional racism in the church, and for the strength to stand against the bigotry and suffering that inhabits the world; for all these and all your blessings we pray, O God, Christ Jesus, Holy spirit. Amen.  Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, from Race and Prayer: Collected Voices Many Dreams edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester L. Talton (Morehouse Publishing, 2003), 50.

On St. Patrick’s Day, everybody is Irish! But not too long ago, NOBODY wanted to be Irish–not even people of Irish descent. That’s because the Irish were victims of racist ideas and racist exclusion–first by the English (King James VI sold 30,000 Irish to the New World as indentured servants in 1625) and then by Americans of the colonies. Irish were treated as a ‘sub-human’ species, depicted as apes, compared to dogs in temperament and considered as “negroes turned inside out” or “the missing link” between Europeans and Africans. When millions of poor (and mostly Catholic) Irish flooded into the US following the Great Potato Famine, they faced almost the same treatment as African Americans.

In a fascinating book, How the Irish Became White, author Noel Ignatiev recounts the transformation of Irish from hatred radicalized group to respectable American citizens. In large part, their transition was facilitated by their racist treatment of African-Americans, aligning themselves with a majority of white Americans. Only by becoming as racist as other whites could they become “white” themselves.

Thanks to their skin tone, assimilation occurred quickly, leaving BIPOC at the bottom of the social/racial hierarchy. True, and sad.

Luke 4:25-28 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.

Jesus told two stories from Israelite history to demonstrate that God didn’t recognize the wall between “blessed” Jews and “cursed” Gentiles. In the midst of a famine, God provided for a gentile widow. In the midst of an epidemic, God healed a gentile military official.  God “passed over” deserving Jews to elevate undeserving Gentiles. The audience’s condemnation of Jesus was swift, as they attempted to assassinate him for suggesting that Jews and Gentiles were equal. When have you witnessed this kind of racist anger and hatred? Have you ever felt like you’ve been undeservedly “passed over?”  If so, how did you handle it? As a disciple of Jesus, what would an appropriate response be? 

Prayer: O God, we so frequently divide people into categories of deserving and undeserving, placing ourselves in the “deserving” group by virtue of our religion, race, ethnicity or status. You remind us again to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought, but to think with sound judgment. Forgive us for building walls on the foundation of false ideas, and help us to remember that your blessings are meant for everyone. Amen.