March 16, 2025 First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA
The Virginia Slave Code of 1705 fully consolidated the system of racial and hereditary bondage. The story that said people with darker skin are essentially different from people with lighter skin was codified in law and turned into a myth that would tell white people in a new land who they really were. . . . When we take race as a given, it’s possible to bemoan the death machine of the Atlantic slave trade … in the same way we mourn a tornado—without a twinge of remorse. White Poverty, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, p 46
James 2:1-13 — My brothers and sisters, do not claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory while showing partiality. 2 For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3 and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here in a good place, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit by my footstool,” 4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor person. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into the courts? 7 Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. 9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. 11 For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Have you noticed? Have you noticed how quick we all are to be angry these days? And angry over things that don’t really matter?
The store is out of fudge ripple ice cream, and people yell at the stocking clerk, as if the world will come to an end for them if they can’t have their preferred flavor.
Or — More seriously, someone writes into Dear Abby (or one of the thousand versions) and every commenter asserts angrily that the writer doesn’t know what he’s talking about, that he’s totally misunderstood the situation, and they know the right answer… I’m right, you’re wrong.
Or – more painfully, your son finally gathers himself and tells you he’s gay, and the response is to be angry at him that he didn’t tell you sooner.
Over and over and over, I see people jumping right into anger, deep criticism, dismissal, as the first (and often, last) step in a conversation, whether it’s in person or online or some other media.
We don’t trust each other right now.
And I’m going to suggest that not only is that mistrust evil in the sight of God, but it is the deliberate and inevitable end of choices that have been made over the centuries right here in our land.
Our opening quote today marks the starting minute when we began to be separated. In some ways, it’s the American version of the story of Cain and Abel, which was the original “farmers versus cattle ranchers” story…. Who’s more loved by God, the man who plants or the man who hunts?
In this case, tho, the underlying question is financial. It seems pretty clear that the reason people invented chattel slavery – holding another human being in perpetual servitude – was to get cheap labor. Slaves don’t need to be paid. And the easiest way to do that was to say there was something so terrible about Black people that they owed white folks their lives, their labor. And the lie went further – it said that it was ok to enslave Black people because that meant that the poor white people would remain free.
It turns out that if you really push this you can divide people six ways from Sunday, and when they’re divided, they’re also powerless.
Not just by race, whatever that is, but also by gender (who gets to decide, men or women?), nationality – aren’t people whose ancestors came from England better than those whose ancestors came from, say, France or Hungary? Or even by what they do – whose more respected in the town – the farmer or the accountant, who doesn’t smell of cow manure?
The people who invented this mockery may not have realize that they were laying the groundwork for poisonous relationships, but that they did. It turns out that while the politicians worked to establish our land on the basis of e pluribus unum, the planters and manufacturers were building on the basis of divide and conquer. And those two theories, two ideas, are still at war with one another, still grappling like Cain and Abel, to control the direction of our community.
It’s no wonder we struggle to trust one another. It’s no wonder we fail.
Here’s the thing, though. James says it’s all wrong. How did today’s lesson begin? My brothers and sisters, do not claim the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory while showing partiality… James claims that Jesus calls us to be a community of equality, mutual welcome, universal acceptance.
Right now, it’s clear that we’re in a world where acceptance is conditional. If you come from “somewhere else”, you’re not going to be accepted easily. If you look like you come “from away”… you’re not welcome.
Last week, the US Army removed the history of the World War II unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team from its web site. The 442nd was the most decorated combat unity in history, for its size and length of service. And it was mostly made up of second generation Japanese-Americans, many of whom had family in American internment camps for fear they were secret Japanese spies. US Senator Daniel Inouye, of Hawaii, served in that unit, losing an arm in combat.
Lest you think this a one-off, maybe a mistake, the Washington Post reports that Arlington Cemetery has removed links from their web site that pointed visitors to famous Black people, famous women, famous Hispanic folks who are buried there. Yes, the bios are still there, but if you are a Black person, wanting to visit and show your children famous Black veterans, you’re out of luck. The bios don’t mention race, so you’d have to know all that before you visited.
It looks like it doesn’t matter how brave you are, how willing to die that democracy might survive, if you are not a white man, you don’t count.
James says that’s wrong. We all matter.
When you try to pretend that some of us are more acceptable than others, a life of endless competition is created. It’s competition not just for a blue ribbon, but for a decent life for you and your children, and so it’s no wonder that it leads to anger, hatred, and – eventually – physical harm.
And James says, clearly, that it is not God’s way, not the Jesus way. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom… he writes. Is it not the rich who oppress you?, thus proving that some things have not changed in the last 2000 years. Those who have, want to hold on to what they have, want to get more, because they never have enough. And those who don’t have, they scrap among one another for survival.
But that’s not who we are. We are committed to working together, to creating community where all are welcome. We believe that whoever you are, wherever you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here. We live that out within this building, by our acceptance of the Open and Affirming Covenant. We live it out in the world by the way we interact with those whom we meet.
We stand up against this constant battle with love.
We stand up against this constant battle with kindness, generosity, welcome.
We stand up against this constant battle with all the patience we can muster.
It’s not easy; sometimes it may not even be safe, but it is our calling, to live out the love and justice of Jesus Christ, here and wherever we may go.
May it be so. Amen.
© 2025, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 