{"id":1114,"date":"2015-08-17T15:35:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T15:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/17\/john-wesley-v-race-relations-grace-based\/"},"modified":"2020-02-15T19:33:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T19:33:41","slug":"john-wesley-v-race-relations-grace-based","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/17\/john-wesley-v-race-relations-grace-based\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJohn Wesley v. Race Relations: Grace\u201d based on\u00a0Galatians 3:27-29 and Mark 7:25-30"},"content":{"rendered":"

This
\nweek Target announced its intentions to remove gendered labels from
\nits toy and children’s bedding sections. \u00a0They also intend to remove
\ngender clues \u2013 like the blue or pink background of the shelves.
\nFoxnews.com started their article on this change in this way, \u201cTarget
\nstores are undergoing a sex change of sorts.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a>
\n Many people seemed to respond to the news as Fox covered it – \u00a0as if
\nTarget was attacking gender, and they attacked back. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

They
\ntold Target that they’d take their business elsewhere, because they
\nwere traditional people who loved their children. \u00a0That is, they
\nspoke as if their lives and values were under attack. \u00a0I think, for
\nmany people, they were. \u00a0Now, I don’t think that the concept of
\ngender is particularly fragile, and I have no concerns that it is
\nabout to break. \u00a0So I don’t think it is in need of vigilantes
\ndefending the importance of placing Barbies on shelves with a pink
\nbackground. At the same time, if gender roles are one of the primary
\nways that people make sense of the world, then defending the roles,
\nand defending the ways the roles are formed, would be a way of
\npreserving the world as one knows it and in this mindset, as it
\nshould be.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It
\nis easy enough to understand why people, who are aware of changes
\nhappening all around them, might choose to cling to the social \u00a0norms
\nthat help them make sense of the world. \u00a0The fear that could come
\nwith sensing change and feeling out of control could easily arise
\ninto a desire to maintain the norms you have always known. \u00a0However,
\nit is dangerous.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

People
\nexperienced their values and ways of life under attack with this
\nnews, and they attacked in kind. \u00a0There are all kinds of ways that
\nbehaviors like this happen in our society. \u00a0Most often as a society
\nwe encourage others to behave as we see fit through passive
\naggressive comments, but more extreme measures, including violence,
\nare used as well. \u00a0It amazes me, actually, how strongly people
\nassociate their security and well-being with the maintenance of
\nsocial norms.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\nvalue placed on social norms relates to the high murder rate for
\ntrans women of color. \u00a0In the United States, the murder rate is 4.5
\npeople out of 100,000 people every year2<\/sup><\/a>.
\n \u00a0Or, 1 in 22,222. \u00a0 The murder rate for trans women of color is 1
\nperson out of 8.3<\/sup><\/a>
\n That makes it about 3000x higher than the US average. \u00a03000. \u00a0Times.
\n Higher. \u00a0MURDER. \u00a0Rates. \u00a0The mere existence of trans women of color
\nthreatens people so profoundly that they get killed. \u00a0The combination
\nof racism, sexism, and gender normativity has proven deadly at
\nenormously high rates.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

People
\nwill go to extremes \u2013 including extremes of violence \u2013 to
\nmaintain their world view and the social norms. \u00a0This is also true of
\nthe myths we live by. \u00a0The reasons for slavery were profit, but
\nchurch leaders and theologians used their authority and the authority
\nof the Bible to justify it.4<\/sup><\/a>
\n They were part of the creation of the theory of race.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Yes,
\nthe theory of race was created
\nto justify the money made for slave owners by the labor of slaves.
\nThe myth called race theory has killed millions of people. I have
\nread about this before, but I reviewed my knowledge this week by
\nreading a paper by Audrey Smedley, \u00a0Professor of Anthropology Emerita
\nVirginia Commonwealth University. \u00a0She says,
\n\u201cRace
\noriginated as a folk idea and ideology about human differences; it
\nwas a social invention, not a product of science. Historians have
\ndocumented when, and to a great extent, how race as an ideology came
\ninto our culture and our consciousness.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a>
\n \u201cEnglish laws had terminated all forms of slavery centuries before
\ntheir arrival in the Americas.\u201d6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\ndifferentiation between poor workers in the colonies started because
\nof the fear created by the Bacon rebellion in 1676. \u00a0It was a threat
\nto the social stability of the time. \u00a0Smedley explains, \u201cThe
\ndecisions that the rulers of the colony made during the last decades
\nof the 17th century and the first quarter of the 18th century
\nresulted in the establishment of racial slavery. They began to pass a
\nseries of laws separating out Africans and their descendants,
\nrestricting their rights and mobility, and imposing a condition of
\npermanent slavery on them. \u2026 Some colony leaders began to argue
\nthat Africans had no rights under British laws and therefore could be
\nsubject to forced labor with impunity.\u201d7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

She
\ncontinues, \u201cColonial leaders were … laying the basis for the
\ninvention of race and racial identities. They began to homogenize all
\nEuropeans, regardless of ethnicity, status, or social class, into a
\nnew category. The first time the term \u201cWhite,\u201d rather than
\n\u201cChristian\u201d or their ethnic names (English, Irish, Scots,
\nPortuguese, German, Spanish, Swede) appeared in the public record was
\nseen in a law passed in 1691 that prohibited the marriage of
\nEuropeans with Negroes, Indians, and mulattoes (Smedley 2007, 118). A
\nclearly separated category of Negroes as slaves allowed newly freed
\nEuropean servants opportunities to realize their ambitions and to
\nidentify common interests with the wealthy and powerful. Laws were
\npassed offering material advantages and social privileges to poor
\nwhites. In this way, colony leaders consciously contrived a social
\ncontrol mechanism to prevent the unification of the working poor
\n(Allen 1997).\u201d8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From
\nthis early history, we gained the conception of race. \u00a0A final note
\nby Smedley, \u201cIn the 1860s, slavery ended, but \u201crace\u201d as social
\nstatus and the basis of our human identities remained. Race ideology
\nproclaimed the existence of separate, distinct, and exclusive groups
\nthat were made unequal by God or nature.\u201d9<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\nintentional creation of race, for the purpose of legitimizing the
\nbarbarous act of slavery \u2013 already known to be barbarous for
\ncenturies in British law \u2013 but necessary to turn a profit has
\ndehumanized human beings and legitimized their murders for nearly 400
\nyears. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We
\nsee, almost every day now, the impact of this theory on the lives of
\npeople in our country. The creation of race theory was not only the
\ncreation of a theory about so-called \u201cblacks\u201d but also the
\ncreation of the idea of so-called \u201cwhites.\u201d \u00a0Since then it has
\nexpended to define and separate people into various \u201ccategories\u201d
\nof humanity with associated stereotypes. \u00a0The categories also have
\nassociated murder rates. \u00a0People of color, both men and women, young,
\nmiddle aged and old are being killed in our country, including by our
\npolice forces at atrocious rates. \u00a0The THEORY of RACE is still
\nperpetuating its evil. \u00a0It
\nis time to throw the theory out and replace it with a better one.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A
\nbetter world view comes from a more ancient source. \u00a0 Paul says,
\n\u201cThere is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
\nthere is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ
\nJesus.\u201d \u00a0As followers of Jesus, we are not to buy into social norms
\nabout race, or gender, or any theory \u00a0that some humans have value and
\nothers don’t. \u00a0There is no distinction. \u00a0We are united. \u00a0We are one.
\nA harm to any individual is a harm to us all.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The
\ngospel passage about the Syrophoenician woman comes to the same point
\nas Paul! Ched Myers, author of Binding
\nthe Strong Man,
\npoints out that the woman’s \u201csolicitation is an affront to the
\nhonor status of Jesus: no woman, and especially a gentile, unknown
\nand unrelated to this Jew, would have dared invade his privacy at
\nhome to seek a favor. \u00a0A rebuff by Jesus thus is not only
\nunderstandable but expected.\u201d10<\/sup><\/a>
\n And the dog comment was REALLY insulting. \u00a0But she doesn’t give up!
\nShe argues back with him. \u00a0Which was a further affront to his honor.
\nYet, at that point he concedes the argument, acknowledges her point,
\nand
\nheals her daughter, thereby extending his ministry outside of Jewish
\nboundaries. \u00a0And it is said that he heals her daughter because of her
\nARGUMENT, not her faith!! \u00a0To go back to the words of Myers, \u201cJesus
\nallows himself to be ‘shamed’ (becoming ‘least’) in order to include
\nthis pagan woman in the new community of the kingdom; so too Judaism
\nwill have to suffer the indignity of redefining its group boundaries
\n(collective honor) in order to realize that gentiles are now welcomed
\nas equals.\u201d11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I
\nlove the words. \u00a0\u201cJudaism will have to suffer the indignity of
\nredefining its group boundaries in order to realize that gentiles are
\nnow welcomed as
\nequals.\u201d
\n Doesn’t it sound like the work of transforming race theory? \u00a0It also
\nsounds like the work of grace, the unmerited favor and love of God
\nwhich we all experience whether we realize it or not. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Grace
\nis God’s love for us. \u00a0We are not expected to be up to the standard
\nof offering pure unmerited favor and love to others AND YET it is the
\ngoal of Methodists to put aside the things that keep us from being
\nable to do so until nothing but God’s love lives in us \u2013 that is \u2013
\nuntil grace can shine through us. \u00a0We’re at trying to attain life
\nlived as grace.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By
\nboth of our texts today, we are challenged to extend the love of God
\nbeyond any reasonable boundary \u2013 to all people. \u00a0 In Christ we are
\ncalled beyond the things that separate us, beyond the things that
\ndefine us, into wholeness with God and with each other. \u00a0Social norms
\ndon’t stand in the way of grace. \u00a0We are to throw away anything that
\ngets in the way of living toward grace, including social norms.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Grace
\nis the most defining doctrine of United Methodists, likely based on
\nthe theology of John Wesley which was entirely focused on it. \u00a0It is
\nso our thing that Amazing Grace is our favorite song by a landslide.
\nOf all United Methodists, 39% claim it as their favorite song.12<\/sup><\/a>
\n And grace, it seems, is the essential way to transform the world.
\nIt leads us to compassion. \u00a0It leads us to humanizing other people.
\nIt stretches us beyond our comfort zones and our safe places. \u00a0It
\ntakes our norms and chops them to pieces, and in doing so makes space
\nfor joy and love and wonder to abound.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In
\nthis sermon series, in addition to all the other things that have
\nbeen happening, I’ve been sharing some of the ways I’ve recently felt
\nfree to name and understand the Divine. \u00a0John Shelby Spong in A
\nNew Christianity for a New World
\ndiscusses the idea of God as the ultimate source of love. \u00a0He says,
\n\u201cOne worships this God by loving wastefully, by spreading love
\nfrivolously, by giving love away without stopping to count the
\ncost.\u201d13<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sisters
\nand brothers \u2013 that’s it. \u00a0That’s God. \u00a0That’s the gospel. \u00a0That’s
\nthe Epistle. \u00a0That’s John Wesley’s point in new words. \u00a0That’s the
\nsolution to race theory. \u00a0Love wastefully, and let others see it.
\nWasteful, boundless, ridiculous, wonderful love \u2013 grace – changes
\nthe world. \u00a0Thanks be to God. \u00a0 \u00a0Amen\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1<\/a>\u00a0Cody
\n\tDerespina, \u201cTarget
\n\tgoing gender neutral in some sections\u201d on published on August 13,
\n\t2015 at
\n\thttp:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2015\/08\/13\/target-going-gender-neutral-in-some-sections\/<\/a>
\n\t Accessed August 15, 2015
2<\/a>\u00a0https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/about-us\/cjis\/ucr\/crime-in-the-u.s\/2012\/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012\/tables\/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf\/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1993-2012.xls
3<\/a>\u00a0http:\/\/www.transstudent.org\/transvisibility
4<\/a>\u00a0Summary
\n\tof Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States
\n\tchapter 2: \u201cDrawing the Color Line\u201d (Perennial Classics, USA,
\n\t1980)
5<\/a>\u00a0Audrey
\n\tSmedley \u00a0\u201cTHE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF RACE\u2026 AND WHY IT MATTERS\u201d
\n\ta paper presented at the conference \u201cRace, Human Variation and
\n\tDisease: Consensus and Frontiers,\u201d sponsored by the American
\n\tAnthropological Association (AAA) on \u00a0March 14-17, 2007 in
\n\tWarrenton, Virginia. \u00a0Found at
\n\thttp:\/\/www.understandingrace.org\/resources\/pdf\/disease\/smedley.pdf<\/a>
\n\ton August 15, 2015, page 2.
6<\/a>\u00a0Smedley,
\n\t3.
7<\/a>\u00a0Smedley,
\n\t4
8<\/a>\u00a0Smedley,
\n\t6.
9<\/a>Smedley,
\n\t7.
10<\/a>Ched
\n\tMyers, Binding the Strong Man
\n\t(Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1988, 2008), page 203.
11<\/a>\u00a0Myers,
\n\t204. \u00a0
12<\/a>\u00a0http:\/\/www.kintera.org\/atf\/cf\/%7B3482e846-598f-460a-b9a7-386734470eda%7D\/survey1.pdf
13<\/a>\u00a0John
\n\tShelby Spong A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional
\n\tFaith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born
\n\t(HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) page 72.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/
<\/a>https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/a>\u00a0
on August 16, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week Target announced its intentions to remove gendered labels from its toy and children’s bedding sections. \u00a0They also intend … Continue reading \u201cJohn Wesley v. Race Relations: Grace\u201d based on\u00a0Galatians 3:27-29 and Mark 7:25-30<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[33,946,75,557,1243,940,1252,1254,1253,831,1241],"class_list":["post-1114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-umc","tag-blacklivesmatter","tag-fumcschenectady","tag-grace","tag-johnwesley","tag-progressivechristianity","tag-race","tag-raceandgrace","tag-syrophoecianwoman","tag-thinkingchurch","tag-wouldjohnwesleydriveaprius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1309,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1114\/revisions\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}