Race

Transfiguration A, 3/2/14
Matthew 17:1-9

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

So. I don’t know how you’re doing with this long, cold snowy winter. But I know that most people I’ve talked to have had it. They’re ready for spring.

Clearly, my spouse and I picked the wrong year to put off buying a snowblower.

On the plus side, I suppose, we’ve gotten a lot of fresh air and good workouts in this winter with all the shoveling we’ve had to do.

But seriously? Most people around here are ready for the snow to be gone.

The last thing that anyone wants in their life right now is more white.

Yet here we are.

We are stuck at the end of this long winter – at least, I hope it’s the end – and we’re left with Jesus on the mountaintop, turning as white as snow, as bright as the sun, whiter than any detergent could possibly bleach a set of clothes.

The Transfiguration shows up in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and each account describes him a little differently. But all of the accounts emphasize how white Jesus appeared up on that mountain with Moses and Elijah.

What does it mean?

What does whiteness mean?

It’s something that we don’t stop to think about very often.

So much of the imagery we use every day implies that white is good and dark is bad.

When we want to clarify a situation, we shed light on the subject.

When someone is ignorant about a particular topic, we say they are in the dark.

A smart student is brilliant or bright, while a slow learner may be dim-witted.

A quick glance at the dictionary tells us that white equals pure, while black equals dirty, evil, hopeless and dishonorable.

In old westerns – starting in the silent film era, to offer a visual explanation when an audio one was not possible – the good guys wear white and the bad guys wear black.

Angel food cake is white. Devil’s food cake is dark, almost black.

In The Lord of the Rings books and films, the walls of the evil kingdom of Mordor are black, while the walls of the heroic city of Gondor are white.

When a Jedi Knight turns evil in Star Wars, he goes to the Dark Side.

Images of whiteness being good and darkness being bad have plagued our society for generations. A hierarchy of skin tones has led to racism, to violence, to self-hate among some groups and self-righteous superiority among other groups.

We sometimes try to let ourselves off the hook by saying that we’re not really racist any more – we’re nothing like Nazi Germany, throwing people of other races and cultures into execution chambers and mass graves.

Seriously.

If the best we can do is, we’re better than the worst racists ever – we’re not doing very well. We still imprisoned thousands of Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese descent during WWII, for no reason other than their race.

White supremacy has seeped its way even into the mindset other racial communities. Did you know that 77% of women in Nigeria use a skin bleaching product on a regular basis? Across Africa, many women are trying to lighten their skin because they have been taught that “if it’s white, it’s all right.”

(http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/02/24/6-examples-of-the-devaluation-of-dark-skin-around-the-world/5/)

I sent a draft of this sermon to an African-American friend of mine to read over before preaching it today. He helped me understand that this prejudice towards whiteness is alive and well in many communities. My friend’s wife is Haitian, of African descent, and apparently her mother sends her bleach soap all the time.

Really? Since when is white more beautiful than black? What has gone wrong with our perception of the world when a mother thinks her daughter will be better off if her skin is lighter?

White supremacy has led to slavery, to colonization, to oppression, to segregation, to the legalization of shooting a black teenage boy on the street for no reason other than that his blackness makes a white person feel threatened.

The church is as much to blame for persistent racism as anyone else. As Martin Luther King said, eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings is the most segregated hour in Christian America.

Our church doesn’t do much to make things any better than they ever have been.

We have our leaders wear white to lead worship. We pull out the white paraments for celebratory seasons. We hear the story of the whiteness of Jesus’ clothes and the brightness of his face every single year the week before we head into Lent.  

So here we are, on Transfiguration Sunday, with Jesus’ face shining like the sun and his clothes becoming dazzling white.

We do know that Jesus    isn’t    white,    right?

I mean, racially speaking, Jesus was a Jewish man living in Palestine two thousand years ago. He would have had brown skin.

Contrary to the depictions of nearly every nativity set on the market, the baby Jesus did not have blonde hair and blue eyes. 

Contrary to what we see repeatedly on film, most recently with the release of Son of God this past Friday – Jesus is not white. He’s not even a tan white man with brown hair. His skin would have been brown, just like the skin of the Palestinian people who are born in Bethlehem today. According to the book of Revelation, Jesus’ feet were like brass, or bronze. (1:15)

Not black. Jesus wasn’t African. But he sure wasn’t Caucasian either.

For Black History Month, one of our local middle schools had a special celebration. Now, there are some very good reasons to celebrate Black History Month and to talk about the systematic oppression that has plagued Black people over the years, and to learn about the important contributions of Black people to our society.

But there was something a little    off    about this particular celebration of Black History Month.

All of the students and staff were invited to wear black to school that day.

As one African-American student observed, why are we wearing black today? Most Black people are really brown.

Wearing black doesn’t actually help white people understand the nuances of racism    any more than having his clothes shine dazzling white made Jesus Caucasian.

Want a better way to celebrate Black History Month? Talk to a black person. Get to know them. Ask them what it feels like to be the only black person in a room full of white people. You might be surprised at the answers.

Here’s one for you. Did you know that black cancer patients can’t get wigs for when they lose their hair in chemotherapy?

Oh sure, they’re eligible just like anyone else is. But as my dear friend recently found out – no wigs exist with for patients who have chosen to keep their natural, kinky, afro hair.

Do an online search if you don’t believe me. All the wigs for cancer patients of African descent are straight – meaning, they look like a black person has straightened their hair. Any curly afro wigs on the market are sold alongside bright colored bellbottom leisure suits. They are intended to be part of a costume for a black man from the ‘70s with a huge afro.

Every week I participate in a text study group, where other pastors and I discuss the Bible passages for the upcoming Sunday. This week a black pastor joined us.

Race was the first thing that he talked about in relation to this passage from the Gospel of Matthew.

In a story where whiteness is so valued, how can a Black person find meaning or redemption or good news?

For many Black people, the answer is that they can’t. Some people find the undercurrent of racism in American Christianity to be so prevalent that they simply leave religion altogether.

But that’s not good news. The Gospel is supposed to draw people in, not turn them away. So if people are leaving the church because of our emphasis on the goodness of whiteness, we’re not really sharing God’s good news with the world. 

How does the Transfiguration proclaim the Gospel to someone who is not white?

What good news can be found in today’s Bible reading?

For my African-American colleague, the Transfiguration is not necessarily good news. This story that has been used to justify oppression of black people by white people – this story that glorifies whiteness at the expense of blackness – God is not really at the center of this story.

Now, we can take all kinds of theological perspectives on the Transfiguration – and in other years, in other sermons – I’m sure we will.

But at face value, on first reading, this story is problematic for humanity. It has been misused over the years, and our friends and families, other dear sisters and brothers in Christ, are still feeling the effects of racism – racism that is occasionally justified by passages like the Transfiguration story.

Don’t let Jesus’ transfiguration turn you into someone who values whiteness above all other colors.

Another Lutheran pastor – a white woman who pastors a Hispanic congregation in New York City – writes this about images of race and whiteness in the church:

“White privilege is not an illusion. It is not something in the past. It is a log in my eye that I cannot remove by my own power.”

(http://hneumark.com/2014/02/28/fifty-shades-of-changing-the-subject/)

Learn from the missteps of our predecessors.

Don’t let the light of the Transfiguration make you blind to the needs of the rest of the world.

The purpose of Jesus’ transfiguration is not to advance light and white, but to bring the glory of God to the world.

And God’s glory shows up in all kinds of places, in white snow and dark clouds, in bright sunshine and shadowy forests, and in everything in between.

All of humankind was created in God’s image… male and female, white and black, old and young… all people reflect the glory of God.

Sometimes I’ve thought that if we could just take an average of all the faces and personalities of all the people in the world, we would have an idea of what God is actually like. Each of us is created in God’s image, so if we could only combine all ourselves into one, we would come close to understanding the divine.

This week we will enter the 6-week season of Lent, a time to focus on our own sinfulness and our need for redemption and salvation.

As we begin Lent this year, I hope that we can consider all our attitudes and assumptions – those things that separate us from one another.

Sin isn’t just breaking one of the rules that guide our society. Sin is more than going over the speed limit or lying to our spouse.

Sin is anything that separates us from God.

Racism can separate us from God. A glorification of whiteness separates us from all God’s children who are dark-skinned yet are created in the divine image. Racism is a sin.

I’m not preaching about racism today because I think it’s a sin that anyone here commits intentionally. But preference for light and white is so prevalent in our society, that we can practice this sin without even trying.

During Lent this year, I hope that we will try. I hope that we will try to see God’s image in the dark places as well as the light. I hope we will stand up against prejudice and mistreatment of people who look different than we do.

And I hope that we will find the glory of God in all those places.

God help us.      

Amen.