September 8, 2013
Pentecost 16
Philemon 1-21
Jeremiah 18:1-11
(prayer)
A week and a half ago, I went and saw the movie, "TheButler". It is loosely based on the true story of an African-American man who began working on the service staff at the Whitehouse in 1952 during the Eisenhower administration straight through to the 1980s with Ronald Reagan. I say loosely based because that the fact that the movie character Cecil Gaines worked for eight presidents is about the only parallel to the real life Eugene Allen. The details of the movie's plot are largely fictitious, but ‘historically believable’ given the societal events and attitudes that existed over that time period. In that way it is similar to the Titanic storyline of Jack and Rose, set within a historically believable setting.
Both in the movie and in real life, it is fair to say that "The Butler" was around the Whitehouse during the progression of the civil rights movement and the evolution of race relations in the United States in the last half of the 20th century.
A key insight that I got from the movie was… how recent real race equality in the western world is. The equality of the races is a very recent legal reality in the US. I found myself also reflecting on how the practical implications of a diverse population are still a struggle in many places.
I get so bothered when people question whether racism still exists given that the US Civil War ended almost 150 years ago. C’mom Lincoln freed the slaves a long time ago - get over it! The recent US Supreme Court decision to strike down the key provision of the 1960s era Voting Rights Act (as a modern irrelevancy) is a denial of the lingering racism that is alive and well for African Americans today.
The attitudes that justified 400 years of north american slavery had lasting impacts and have not disappeared. That is an unavoidable reality despite the new textbooks out of Texas (which are used throughout the US) that has whitewashed the Slave Trade by renaming it the Atlantic Triangular Trade. Slavery has now been reduced from a moral issue to a historic economic system - ‘people’ were merely one-third of commodities shipped between Europe, Africa and the Americas.
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Slavery had a sad and firm place within human history. Human beings reduced to “commodities” for the pleasure and profit of someone with power is a stain we still live with. Denying that does no one any good.
There are still counties in the US where an interracial couple can’t get married, no matter what the law says.
A fact: Attitudes are stronger than legislation.
Another fact: Followers of the biblical tradition are partly to blame. The fact that the bible does not condemn slavery has perpetuated racial strife in the largely-christian west. In fact, the bible accepts and condones the practice.
Case in point: Paul's letter to Philemon.
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While in a Roman prison, Paul shared the good news of Christ with Onesimus. Obesimus was a runaway slave owned by Philemon, with whom Paul had a previous connection. It is even possible that Paul remembered Onesimus as someone who served him while at Philemon's house sometime.
The context of the letter is that Onesimus was being returned to his master. It was wrong for human property to run away. The society valued the economic property rights of Philemon over any human rights owed to Onesimus. Paul gave the slave a letter to deliver to Philemon. Paul does not take this opportunity to condemn slavery but instead honours Philemon's right as an owner of this human property. The farthest Paul goes is to appeal to Philemon's vanity and good judgment to use his slave's passion for Christ to serve the gospel as part of his service to Philemon.
If Paul's letter to Philemon advances the movement to abolish slavery at all, it is the tiniest of tiny baby steps toward that goal.
But it is fair to say that the letter does advance an idea that is necessary for change: a call to be open to the notion that past practices and attitudes may not be what is needed now and in the future.
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There was a time when The Church was threatened by the human mind’s ability to reason and discover. Copernicus’ and Galileo theories and observations challenged the ego of The Church: namely that God had built the universe around the human experience – that we were at the centre of it all. After all, Psalm 104:5 says that “Yahweh set the earth in its foundations. It can never be moved.”
Biblical literalism (which requires a mind which avoids the wonders of poetry and symbolism) has held The Church back. Ask Charles Darwin.
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“God has created and is creating.” We said these words together earlier. We also heard similar words from Jeremiah in an image of a creating and recreating God. God, the potter.
Personally, I hold to an evolutionary theology – we are an evolving people in an ever-changing universe.
The world I was born into gave me a head start: the wheel was already created – I never had to think up the concept for myself. Electricity was already harnessed. And more…
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I believe that what we find valuable to inform our best attitudes needs to be relevant to the current context. We are (from the beginning) people who grow and mature – not only in body, but in mind and spirit.
This past week, I crossed a threshold in my life. I became the parent of an adult. Patti and I have done what we could – it is his life to live now - free from our legal need try and manage his progress. With or without us, progress he will. And he will learn what works for him. It may not be as grand as moving from living in the water to living on land, but it is an evolution none the less.
As I put on facebook on the first day of school last Tuesday: One down. Three to go.
Cohen and Bentley both have a ways to go before their 18th birthdays. And their futures will involve enormous change from the lives they know now.
On a small and big scale, we are an evolving people in an expanding universe.
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In spite of past patterns and attitudes, thoughts (even theologies) evolve. Jeremiah, Jesus and Paul missed their opportunities to be critical of an economic system built on slavery. Long after them, it was finally largely abolished within the human experience (although not completely even in the 21st century, where slavery is often tied to the sex trade).
AND it is certainly true that the impacts of the Atlantic Triangular Trade (aka 1500-1900 Slave Trade) are a long way from leaving this world.
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The good news is that we can grow out of old attitudes into new ones. Just as the Potter can sit at the wheel with the clay and find a new form and function for a new future.
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God has created and is creating.
We are not done yet.
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Let us pray:
Holy God, centre of life and faith. Ground me in today. Prepare me for tomorrow. Amen.
#12MV “Come Touch Our Hearts”
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