Imagine that you are part of a small church. Imagine that your small church is racially and culturally diverse.
Some people in the church have ancestral roots in the land where you live and the others come from foreign lands.
Some speak one language and the others speak another.
Some come from the dominant religious background and the others come from another.
One group has historically had the upper hand of privilege. The other has historically been looked down upon and denied basic human rights.
I’m talking about the earliest church. It’s their story as much as it is ours.
There were 2 groups in the earliest church. One group was the Hebrews who came from the long ancestry of the Jewish people, who spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, and who had always known themselves to be the chosen people.
The other group was the Hellenists or Greeks. They were the gentiles, the outsiders, the latecomers, the ones looked down upon by Jewish society. They spoke Greek, not Hebrew. In those days, that was like being a Spanish-speaker in Alabama. This group did not have a long history of worshipping the one true God or deep ties to holy scripture.
In the earliest church, both groups were Jews who followed Jesus. Because they followed Jesus, both groups had become the outsiders in society, the looked-down upon, the persecuted, the ones denied basic human rights by the traditional Jewish society.
So when they stood against the world where they lived, it was United We Stand.
However, within the community, the commitment to equality for all people was strained by historic tensions between the two groups.
This new community of faith shared all things so that no one was in need. Those who owned homes and land sold them and gave the money to the leaders to distribute to those who had need.
Wow.
But still. It turns out that the new pristine community of faith was filled with human beings, with all the flaws and prejudice and cultural bias that we have today.
The group that had historically been discriminated against brought a complaint that their needy widows were not being treated fairly. Discrimination was surely not the leaders’ intention, but it was the outcome nonetheless.
The Hebrew-speaking leaders could have reacted defensively and said, No, it’s not about prejudice; it’s just that there are more of our widows than of yours. Or, it’s not about prejudice, it’s just because what we collect each week reflects the dietary practices of our community, and so we give them more to the widows we know we use the food.
I often hear this complaint about food pantries in Birmingham – how slow they are to respond to the food needs of our growing Spanish-speaking populations. They need masa flour, tortillas, beans and rice. And hot sauce, of course!
If you asked the food pantry officials, they would surely tell you that it is not about prejudice.
Our state officials who passed the Voter ID law and closed 31 Drivers license offices in predominantly black counties say it’s not about race. But it is. It is about race. It is about race because most of the people who are hurt are black. The State closed DMV offices in every county where blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters.
So it is most definitely about race.
We can’t say for sure that those decisions were racially motivated. We can’t say for sure that the decisions were politically motivated to chill voting by people who traditionally vote capital –D- Democratic – people who are black, poor and rural.
But we do know that the people most hurt are black, poor and rural.
So while people who have power and privilege may say it isn’t about race, those who seek to follow Jesus need to hear the voices least heard, and care for the ones most often shut down and shut out.
So it was in the earliest church. Widows and orphans were the neediest in that society, so much so that the Old Testament is full of instructions to care for the widow and orphan.
Every week, two people collected money and goods for needy widows by soliciting in the market and door-to-door. Widows who were in temporary need received enough to get by. Widows in constant need received enough for 14 meals –2 meals a day for the week.
Unfortunately, the widows who belonged to the disadvantaged group, the Greek-speaking widows, suffered neglect not only from society but from the distribution by the earliest church as well.
The leaders could have tried to explain their actions or insist on their pure motivations and good intentions. This is what we often hear from public officials! Instead, the leaders heard the cries of their people. They knew that if it was a problem for anyone in the community, it was a problem for everyone
If there is any one thing that is critical to racial and cross-cultural understanding, I believe it is this: When a person or a group of people experiences something as prejudice or bias, that needs to be taken very, very seriously.
You might respond by saying, “But I’m not a racist.”
“I’m not a sexist.”
“I’m not a homophobe.”
That is not the point.
You might say, “But my actions were not motivated by prejudice.”
That is not the point.
You might say, “But we are doing our best to treat everyone equally.”
That is not the point.
The point is that if a black person experiences certain language and actions as racist, the rest of us need to hear that. It doesn’t matter how pure our motivations may be. It doesn’t matter how we feel about it. What matters is that they are hurt and when one in the community is hurt, all are hurt.
If a gay person experiences certain language or acts as homophobic or anti-gay, the rest of us need to hear that. It doesn’t matter how pure our motivations may be or how we feel about it. What matters is that they are hurt and when one in the community is hurt, all are hurt.
If a woman experiences certain language or acts as sexist, the rest of us need to hear that. It doesn’t matter how pure our motivations may be or how we feel about it. What matters is that they are hurt and when one in the community is hurt, all are hurt.
If an immigrant experiences certain language or acts as anti-immigrant, the rest of us need to hear that. Again, it doesn’t matter how pure our motivations may be or how we feel about it. What matters is that they are hurt and when one in the community is hurt, all are hurt.
For example, “illegal alien” is a term that is deeply offensive to immigrants. Do you feel tempted to argue that it is a just a legal or accurate description of their status? I hope not, because that is not the point. The point is that language is hurtful and offensive to our brothers and sisters, and so we shouldn’t use it. When one is hurt, we are all hurt.
We need to have an ongoing conversation about what words and language cause offense, because sometimes we just don’t know the hurt and offense we cause. But we can learn.
We have to listen and trust the other’s experience because we all have implicit bias. Like the early church, we have all been indoctrinated by culture, media and history.
We have been conditioned by society and the media to hold unconscious bias toward other groups, and when a group with power holds implicit bias against another, damage is done.
The leaders of the earliest church operated the mission to the widows with pure hearts and implicit bias. Bias against Greeks ran so deep in their culture and psyches that they probably weren’t even aware of it.
At least they heard the cries of their people and took immediate action in response to their pain.
Unfortunately, in their immediate response to make things right, other implicit bias became obvious. In a community committed to the equality of women, the leadership of only men appointed seven other men to take charge of the distribution to widows. Even though women were the ones in need, and surely the ones who knew best how to serve one another, men were put in charge of their care.
Implicit bias against women’s leadership was automatic and axiomatic in their religion and culture. Jesus had challenged that bias against women at every opportunity. The community attempted to do the same but in this moment, they fell short.
There was even more implicit bias at work. The leaders said that their work of preaching was far too important for them to lower themselves to roles of service. They had the arrogance to believe that their role as preachers was so important to waste their time caring for widows. They delegated that sacred work to seven other men.
I think Jesus would have had something to say about that as well.
Jesus said to follow him, you have to take on the role of the servant. To be first, you must be last. He turned cultural ideas about leadership on their heads.
When I lead workshops, I encourage people to say out loud “aha” when they hear something good and “ouch” when they hear something that hurts. Perhaps we need to try that out more often. When we hear an “aha,” we can smile. When we hear an “ouch,” we can pray that we will have eyes to see and ears to hear.
We can pray that we will have the love and courage we need to change.
