Jonah 4:1-11
Luke 10:25‑37

In light of some things said in the current political campaign, the issue of racism has come more clearly into focus.  Some people in leadership positions in the United Church of Christ recommended that congregations in the United Church of Christ find ways to begin dialogue about racism by launching a “Sacred Conversation on Race.” It was suggested that today, May 18th, be the day to initiate this conversation.  This sermon is my attempt to do that.
           
In the small county seat town where I grew up, there were two schools.  One was known as “The Colored School” and the other was the Monticello City School where I attended.  “The Colored School” was in great need of repair.  Windows were broken and it hadn’t been painted for many years.  I learned years later that this approach to education was common throughout the country, known as separate but equal.  As a young child I could tell that the schools were separate but they were not equal. 
           
When school began in the fall when I was in the fifth grade, there were black students in my classroom.  I don’t recall there being an issue about that.  I learned later that as a result of the Supreme Court ruling on the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education, no longer were there to be separate schools for blacks and whites. 
           
About that time was the bus boycott in Montgomery, AL described by Martin Luther King, Jr. as the time “when Rosa Parks sat down, the world stood up.” There were pictures on television of black students sitting at the lunch counter in Greensboro, NC and being jeered and thrown out of the building. There was the graphic news footage of large numbers of black people: men, women, and children, being sprayed with fire hoses and chased by dogs in Birmingham, AL.  The police were leading the action.  Then, there was civil rights legislation that was passed and signed into law by Lyndon Johnson.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.  The nation was a cauldron of hostility. Resistance to the Vietnam War intensified.  Racial strife seemed to subside.  Life in the United States seemed to calm down.  I graduated from college and went to seminary.
          
In the fall of 1970 in ethics class, Professor Paul Simmons said that racism was the most important ethical issue facing our culture and the world.  My immediate, internal response was, “Where has he been?  We’ve just come through the turbulent ‘60s with segregation outlawed and civil rights legislation passed.” 
           
Now, nearly forty years later, unfortunately Paul Simmons words are still true.  Racism may be more subtle now, but statements are made revealing the evil of racism is alive and destructive in our culture.  Occasionally, it is played out on the public stage as in the comments of Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder that African Americans are naturally superior athletes at least in part because they had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery, or when Don Imus called the Rutgers University Women’s Basketball Team “nappy-headed hos,” or Kelly Tilghman saying that if younger professional golfers want to defeat him they should “lynch Tiger in a back alley . . .” Statements like these made in the public square are only the surface of deep racism that operates below the surface of our lives. On Tuesday I read the statement of a person in Pennsylvania who concluded a conversation about Senator Barack Obama saying, “Hang that darkey from a tree.”
           
I recall the decision by a congregation I served to call an African American woman as a Minister for Christian Education.  Nearly fifty people voted against her, most of them because of the color of her skin.  She was a wonderful minister and a great colleague but hurtful and hateful things were said to her by some of the congregation throughout her service to that congregation.     
           
Words are powerful and just as hurtful as sticks and stones.  Nonverbal messages may be more powerful and hurtful than words.  The use of a noose on the cover of Golfweek Magazine in January of this year is a recent example.  Is it possible to be more insensitive and unaware of history and racism than to use such an inflammable image?
           
How ironic it was that Tilghman’s comment and Golfweek Magazine’s cover occurred at the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday!  Charles Barkley’s comment is as insightful as any, "I don't want to hear that the golf industry's biggest problem is something Kelly Tilghman said. If Golfweek really wanted to examine racism, as the editor said he did, they would look at golf and country clubs excluding Jews and black folks. . . . Look at their restrictive policies and explain why the only black folks you see at most clubs are working in the kitchen . . . just like it was 100 years ago."
           
The observation of Michael Wilbon, sports writer for The Washington Post, dispels the notion that lynching is a forgotten image.   “My father fled Georgia in the early 1940s because he feared he wouldn't move quickly enough (if at all) to the back of a bus to make room for a white person. The punishment for such a crime quite often was lynching -- if not burning then lynching.”
           
It is surprising how deep seated racism is in our lives, in our culture, and in the world.  I have seen it in my own life.  I have observed it in members of congregations I have served.  I saw it in the former Soviet Union when I met with Refuseniks, Russian Jews who were being denied visas to immigrate to Israel.  I’ve seen it at the check points in Israel in how some Israelis treat Palestinians.  I hear it in the question, “Is the United States ready for a black man to be President?” 
           
Just when we think we have moved beyond racism, we discover it tearing at the fabric of our lives, our relationships, our society, and our world.  Events continue to occur that dispel any thoughts that the evil of racism has been conquered and defeated.  There is one race, the human race, and we are called to treat every member of the human race equally, fairly, and lovingly.  This is the message from God from the foundation of the world.  People like Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa and countless unnamed people have modeled for us how to conquer the evil of racism.
           
Rev. Stephen Camp spoke eloquently in our worship services on January 20th about “The Urgency of Now.”  Racism is the most urgent issue of our time. How do we respond to racism in our time?   One way is to let the story of the Samaritan inform our words and deeds. 
           
Nowhere is there evidence that Jesus ever made a decision about a person on the basis of outward appearance.  Quite the contrary, Jesus responded to people as people.  Jesus' approach was upsetting and disturbing in his culture because people had developed methods of relating and had lumped people into groups.   Many of the groups were outcasts.  The lepers were unclean because of disease.  The shepherds and tanners were unclean because of occupation.  The Gentiles and Samaritans were unclean because of race.
           
Jesus’ story of the Samaritan demonstrates how to respond to racism.  Jesus simply told the story, made no moral judgment about the Samaritan, but rather suggested that kindness toward anyone in need is what it means to be a neighbor. 
           
Those who have repeated Jesus’ story have subtly conveyed a prejudiced view of the Samaritans by referring to Jesus’ story as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Using this title suggests that out of all the Samaritans there was one good one.  That is a prejudiced, if not racist statement, and an illustration of how easily and subtly prejudice and racism can be communicated.  The appropriate reference to this story is to identify it as A Parable of a Samaritan. 
           
The characteristics of compassion and hospitality present in the Samaritan are essential for us to respond redemptively to racism.  Compassion is a developed gift that is modeled for us by others.  We experience compassion from those who ministered to us when we were wounded.  Compassion is the ability, willingness, and eagerness to look beyond the external circumstances, see the internal need of a person and put oneself alongside the other person to help carry the burden of another.
           
This story Jesus told indicates three ways to respond to human need:  pity, sympathy, and empathy.  The first two responses enable the walls between people to remain and even be built higher.  To have pity on another person is to feel sorry for him but with contempt for the one who is pitied because he is regarded as weak or indifferent.  The person who has pity says of one who is wounded, "It is a shame that she got hurt.  She should have known better than to go there alone."  Even knowing better does not remove the pain of being wounded.  A person who pities another is unwilling to help the one in need.
           
During World War II my dad was on the front lines in Germany.  An artillery shell exploded near him and many fragments of shrapnel imbedded his flesh, destroying an eye, the muscle in one arm, and causing other, less serious wounds.  After being wounded he called for the assistance of a medic to which he received the reply, "I'm a medic, but I'm not coming out there."   The medic had pity for my dad but his pity was of no value to a wounded man.
           
Sympathy means having the sameness of feeling of another.   Sympathy is an over against attitude.  The sympathizer verbalizes, "I can tell by looking at you that you hurt and I wish you didn't hurt so deeply."  Nonverbally the sympathizer says, "I certainly am glad that is not happening to me."   Sympathy is being grateful there are so many people in a worse condition than I am.
           
The Samaritan empathized with the injured man.  Empathy is the projection of oneself into the life and situation of another in order to understand better what life is like for the other.   The Samaritan could see himself left to die and he knew what he would want.  He would want someone, anyone to stop and help him.   The Samaritan was a compassionate person and was willing to stand by the injured man until he was healed.  Jesus responded to the injustice of racism by telling of one against whom much prejudice was expressed, being the one who showed compassion.   People in and out of the church have labeled this man as the Good Samaritan as a way of saying that out of all the rotten Samaritans there was one good one.  People today concede today of knowing a Hispanic who has done well or some Vietnamese who really are energetic.  What is implied is that all of the others in these groups are worthless, at least worth less than we are.
          
  In addition to being compassionate the Samaritan was a person of hospitality.  Hospitality means to be liberal and generous in disposition and mind.  To be hospitable is to be receptive and open to people and their ideas.  Hospitality creates respect.  Respect for another person enables us to listen, to pay attention, to treat a person with worth and dignity.  Hospitality is a virtue that causes people to break through the narrowness of their fears and open their lives to strangers.
           
Concentration and community are the necessities of hospitality.  Whenever a person walks into our lives he becomes our guest.  We must pay attention to the person and not be preoccupied with our needs.  When our intentions take over we ask, "What can I get from this person?" which turns the person into a thing.  This attitude is at the heart of racism.  The worth of a person is colored by skin pigmentation.  In our convoluted thinking too many of us have determined that the less pigmentation the more worth a person has while those with the darkest pigmentation become the objects of greatest scorn and ridicule.  When our intentions are ruling us we no longer listen to what another is saying.  Rather, we consider what we can do with what she is saying.  Concentration requires that we be open and engaging toward others in order to create the space for another to be herself and come to us on her terms.
 
Hospitality requires community.  When we are hospitable to people we provide a friendly space for them where they may feel free to come and go.  This approach brings healing because it takes away the false illusion that wholeness can be given by one person to another.
           
The Samaritan's hospitality was generous and his compassion was extravagant.  He bound up the man's wounds, set him on his donkey, took him to an inn and stayed with him through the night.   The Samaritan could have stopped much sooner than this and still more than fulfilled any possible rule about obligation to wounded strangers.  But the Samaritan went even further.  He left money and promised that if more were needed he would settle the account upon his return.
           
When Jesus finished his story he asked the lawyer which of the three people acted like a neighbor to the wounded.  Notice the lawyer could not bring himself to say "Samaritan."    Rather than say that the Samaritan had been a neighbor, the lawyer said that the one who had helped the injured man had acted neighborly.  The roots of racism run deep.  I recall being astounded many years ago when the television program Different Strokes was popular to learn there were people who would not watch that program because a black person was cast in a leading role and portrayed in a positive light.
           
I see much hope in the lives of young people today who have a rainbow assortment of friends. We have made progress in dispelling racism.  But we still have work to do.  Paul Simmons was right in 1970 and unfortunately his words remain accurate today that racism is the most important ethical issue facing our culture and the world.
           
Racism cannot be abolished with one story but contained within this parable are the steps necessary to respond redemptively to racism.  Today, racism is a great threat to the world community.  Technology has turned the world into a neighborhood.  The task of the church is to turn the world, starting with our geographical neighborhood, into a community.  How can we do that?  First, we must acknowledge that all people regardless of skin pigmentation or geographical location are human beings created in the image of God and therefore we are more alike than we are different.  Cut us and we bleed, hurt us and we cry.  All of us have been wounded by life and have needed somebody to donkey us back to health.  Second, we must develop the tandem characteristics of compassion and hospitality.  These characteristics enable us to look beyond the externals of people and see them as people rather than objects.   Third, we must seek to enrich our lives by developing relationships with people of other races and engage in conversation about what we can do together to overcome racism.  Fourth, our walk must be consistent with our talk.  We must work for justice demonstrating in our words and deeds that there is no difference in value or worth of people because of the color of their skin or the accent of their language.  According to the writer of the epistle of James, "Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin" (James 4:17).
           
Let us be people of compassion and hospitality who make room in our lives for any and all who cross our paths.  May we say of ourselves individually as we claim for our faith community, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome in my life and I welcome having a relationship with you.”  If we can say and do that with every person who crosses our paths, we will respond redemptively to racism.  May it be so!