Kondo Simfukwe of Warsaw spoke accurately and passionately on race in the immediate aftermath of the death of George Floyd. I find his completely biblical focus compelling. Here is my summary of his four talks.
What matters most to God? Diversity with Unity. Racial fault lines in America were exposed for what they are and widened by the murder of George Floyd. It is important to recognize what outraged you. Was it injustice? Cops? Systemic racism? Whites? BLM? Demonstrations? Riots? The President? The silence of the church? The tilted justice system in America? We should wonder if the church will show up or just move on. The most important question is what matters to God?
Using Revelation 7, Kondo explained that God is passionate for diversity and wants people of every tribe and culture to embrace each other under his Son. God is also passionate about unity (not a false colorblindness). Discrimination and division are the enemy’s tools that undermine God’s goals of diversity and unity. Our response is to make no room for discrimination or for diluting the variety of diversity. We will call out injustice, discrimination, bias, and any talk or behavior that resists God’s plan. We must act.
The Sermon on the Mount: No Quick Conclusions. Do not judge. Keep your mouth and Facebook/Twitter feed silent. Shhhhhh. Listen. If we form quick conclusions, we will form quick moral judgments and follow that with quick condemnation. All this is judging, and judging is the basis of bias, prejudice, stereotyping, and racism. We must get the beam of judging ourselves out of our own eyes as individuals and as a church.
The Good Samaritan: Begin with Compassion. We must begin with compassion, as the Samaritan did, even when he came upon a member of an oppressive enemy group. It would have been easy to walk by, as did the priest and Levite, or even to finish him off. The church has been walking by and may yet ignore this moment. “When he saw” is a repeated phrase. When we see a new situation, do we start with context? With theology? With mere observation? With excuses? With past experiences? With suspicion? With defensiveness? Yes, we do. Stop and look with the eyes of compassion and understanding as if you were a mother or father to the one hurting. “When Jesus saw” us, his condemnation would, by contrast, have been accurate and fair, yet he did for us 10,000 times what the Samaritan did. Do not ever forget that.
The Good Samaritan: We must act. We must love the neighbor in our path. We must make no excuses. We must not hold back; we must act. We must not reduce the need to sin and the cure to the gospel alone. We must act; we must remember that Jesus watches us when we see the hungry, the naked, and those in prison. We must act; we must engage without exception. We must close the distance by moving toward people who are not like us, and that involves listening, coffee, silence on our part, asking questions, and not focusing on our own stories. Like the Samaritan, we must relieve pain with help and by expressing our sorrow. We must join in resisting and protesting what is wrong whether it is racism or abortion or child abuse. We must be willing to pay the price in terms of time, convenience, safety, money, and even friends and family relationships.
As for Scripture: We remember that God created us all (Gen 1-3) of one blood (Acts 17:26). In heaven, God celebrates people from every tongue, tribe, and nation (Rev 7), meaning that salvation is for all regardless of tribe or race. Romans 3 emphasizes that Christ died for all mankind, and Paul delights to name the Gentiles who share this grace (Eph 2). The inclusion of Gentiles began with a whisper in Genesis 3 and a promise to Abraham in Genesis 12. The Sermon on the Mount and the Two Great Commandments speak loudly here.
Racism in the OT is exemplified in Jonah, who hated the Assyrians without realizing that God may show them grace even as he showed Grace to Israel and to Jonah himself. Racism in the NT is condemned by James (2:1-5) where it is discussed in terms of distinctions, discrimination, and judging. He writes in terms of rich and poor, but the principle applies to all. This expands on Jesus’ Judge not… ‘Scripture first’ is good.