Repenting of Prejudice

When I started seminary in 1998, we went through several days of orientation. Part of the orientation was diversity training, to sensitize us to differences among people. For one of the exercises in the diversity training, we had to break up into pairs. Then you and your partner had to identify a group of which neither of you were a part. If you were both straight, you might choose gay. Or if you were both white, you might choose African American. Or if you were both Christian (which was pretty likely at an Episcopal seminary), you might pick Jewish. Then one partner would repeat the name of that group over and over, while the other person engaged in free association.

The result was deeply disturbing, because all of us have stereotypes and prejudices encoded in our minds. For most of us, these stereotypes are hidden in our unconscious. If we are aware of them, we have probably tried to rid ourselves of them. Nevertheless, they have been deposited there by our culture, and exist in our thoughts even if we reject them entirely with our conscious minds. To take an inoffensive example, (at least to those of us who live on earth), I will repeat the word Martian, and invite you to free associate.

Prejudices, assumptions and stereotypes about "the other" are deeply engrained in all of us. The Episcopal Church now requires anti-racism training for all priests. In my former diocese, they use a program called Racial Sobriety developed by a Roman Catholic priest named Fr. Clarence Williams, from the Archdiocese of Detroit. His thesis is that racism is a culturally transmitted disease-we have to take steps in order to recover from it. He uses the 12-step program as a model for recovery from racism. First we have to acknowledge that we have a problem and that we need God's help in overcoming it. Then we systematically work through the other steps, like making a fearless moral inventory, acknowledging your defects of character, asking God to remove them, making amends etc.

In more traditional Christian terms, what Fr. Williams is advocating is repentance and conversion of heart.

I bring all this up because all the readings for today speak of prejudice against "the other." The readings from Proverbs and the Letter of James address prejudice against poor people. The Letter of James was written to an early church community that was treating people very differently depending on how they were dressed. If they were well-dressed, they were warmly welcomed and given the best seats. But if they were dirty and ragged, they would be invited to sit on the floor or stand for worship. The writer of the letter blasts the community: "My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?" And, "if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." It is clear from the letter that loving your neighbor means welcoming everyone equally, whether they are rich or poor, or by extension, whether they are black or white, gay or straight, etc. etc.

The reading from the Gospel is even more disturbing to me because it shows Jesus himself having to overcome prejudice against an outsider. He is traveling through the region of Tyre which was Gentile territory. A Gentile woman finds out where he is staying and goes to him to beg him to heal his daughter who is possessed by a demon.

His response is shocking: "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." In other words, he came to heal and bless the children of Israel, the Jews, and not the Gentiles, whom he refers to as dogs. But the woman comes right back and challenges him: "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." She doesn't directly challenge his division of the world into insiders and outsiders. Instead she challenges his understanding of God. Even the dogs eat the children's crumbs-in other words, in God's providence, all are provided for-no one is outside the realm of God's care and concern. To his credit, Jesus immediately acknowledges that she has won the argument. "For saying that, you may go-the demon has left your daughter." I believe this is the only time in the gospels that anyone gets the better of Jesus in an argument.

This passage has troubled many people over the years because of Jesus' attitude toward a group of outsiders to Israel. People have tried to soften it by saying that he was just testing her faith, and planned all along to heal her daughter. But I think it is more likely that as a human being, he took in some of the prejudices of his culture. Surely he could have tested her faith without insulting her.

But even though it is troubling to think of Jesus as having some of the prejudices of his culture, it is also encouraging to see him repent and allow his heart to be converted. He had to grow in order to be able to encompass God's radical vision of a world where all are welcome and none are despised. Even though as the Son of God, he embodied the gospel message; as a human, he had to stretch himself in order to grasp that the gospel is for everyone. If anyone is left out, then it isn't the gospel anymore. We are not complete unless all of our brothers and sisters are with us. And God will not be complete until all of us are gathered at God's table, loved, forgiven and free.

The gospel message that all are included, and God's grace is for everyone, poses a constant challenge to all of us. The spiritual journey that we are on requires us to continually repent of our prejudices, and open our hearts to include the other. There is no us and them. There is only us.

The Church has struggled with this from its earliest days, when there was a big debate over whether Gentiles were included in God's plan of salvation. Over the centuries, we have struggled over slavery, colonialism, racism, class prejudice, the role of women and gays and lesbians. We have argued about whether all will be saved or only some, and we have debated about whether people of other faiths are included in God's plan.

This isn't just an issue for the Church-our whole society is still wrestling with the idea of the other. There is a book out by Robert Spencer called Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World's Fastest Growing Religion. In it, he argues that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant, and he warns that Islamic leaders everywhere are planning to take over other cultures and faiths. He cites the Koran extensively as support for his arguments. Of course the Koran has some intolerant passages-so does the Bible. Of course there are violent extremist Muslims, just as there are violent extremist Christians. But to allow prejudice to blind us to the millions of Muslims of good will and to the core of Islam, which teaches many of the same values as Christianity, including caring for the poor and the needy, is wrong. I believe it flies in the face of the gospel message that everyone is a child of God, everyone is included in God's plan of salvation. And it is dangerous, because once you have defined a person as "other," it becomes easier to justify treating them as less than human.

Another prejudice that is common in our culture is the prejudice against poor people. The stereotype of poor people is that they are poor because of the choices they have made-if they had made different choices, they wouldn't be poor. But the truth is that most people are poor because some catastrophe or a series of catastrophes have happened to them. Someone loses their job and is unemployed for an extended period of time. Or there is a divorce, and there are two households to support on the same income that used to support only one. Or, someone dies, or becomes chronically ill or suffers an injury, and can't work. I heard a statistic the other day that 62% of personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills. Despite the fact that at any given moment, most of us are one or two catastrophes away from becoming poor, there is often a troubling lack of compassion for those who are poor.

I believe that we are called as Christians, not only to welcome all people at God's table, but to be bearers of the gospel in the world. Like Jesus, we must be ready to have our assumptions challenged, to repent and allow our hearts to be changed. But like the Syrophoenician woman, we must also be ready to challenge others whose vision of the kingdom is too small. The kingdom will not be complete, and the gospel will not be fulfilled until all are included, loved and cared for, until there is no more "other."