Racism and Rooftop Experiences

Imagine that you are Simon Peter, the Jewish zealot, on the Day of Pentecost.

Everything you have learned from your religious roots suggests that the covenant between God and humans requires one to become a Jew to experience the acceptance of God. Your culture has engrained within you the privilege of Jewishness. Some of this, you understand about yourself. Some of this is beyond your self-knowledge. For you, all non-Jews, people not-like-you, are in a different category. You call them all “Gentiles”, which is also a synonym for “sinner”. They are outsiders, unclean persons, profane reprobates. Their only path to salvation is to become what you already are, a Jew.

And then, on the Day of Pentecost, a fine Jewish feast, a miracle of speaking and hearing occurs.  You are among your fellow Jews from all over the known world and suddenly, fire falls from heaven. Little shoots of fire rest on human heads. The Jews in the room, including you, begin to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus. But the languages being spoken/heard are not the typical Jewish languages but rather the languages of the Gentiles. The upper room sounds like an assembly of nations with one exception. Interpreters are not needed.

You are the public spokesperson for this strange event. You convince the amazed spectators that these people are not drunk, but rather, are filled with the Holy Spirit. You liken this to the promise of the prophet Joel and connect it to the promise of the crucified, risen Jesus.

And a movement of repentance ensues.  

A while later, on a preaching mission, you find yourself on a rooftop in Joppa praying. You fall into a trance. A divine voice commands you to kill and eat unclean animals, food that you have always religiously avoided. You protest. You have never eaten unclean animals. The voice challenges your characterization of this food: “What God has called clean, you must not call unclean.” You are puzzled as to what this is about. As you sit on the roof contemplating this strange command, three Gentiles show up in front of the house. They are calling your name. The Holy Spirit tells you that these are God-sent messengers and you are to go with them. You learn that these men are servants of a Gentile named Cornelius. God had appeared to him, given him your location in Joppa, and told him to listen to whatever you had to say. So you travel with them to his home, share the message of Jesus, and witness the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles gathered in Cornelius’ home … in the same way that the Spirit had been given to the Jews gathered in the upper room.

Something transforming is happening inside you as you begin to understand these strange experiences—Gentile languages used to declare the resurrection of Jesus, divine voices declaring the unclean food clean, the Holy Spirit given to Gentiles just as the Holy Spirit was given to Jews. Your world, your cultural understandings, your exclusions and inclusions, your prejudices are all turned upside down. You utter the words that you never thought a Jew like you would say, “I now understand that God shows no partiality.”

Imagine that you are white, on the day that George Floyd was murdered.

If it required the miracle of Pentecost to open one of Jesus’ closest followers to the reality that God cherishes every life equally, that Jesus died for every person equally, that the invitation to life is issued to every person equally, and that God is not partial to any race—what is needed for you to become part of the solution to the deeply entrenched sin of racism?

The Holy Spirit reveals to us our sin, our prejudice, our racism, our cultural blind spots, our exclusiveness, and all our stubborn categorizations. Where a lost world hardens us in these practices, God’s Spirit softens us. If we resist the Spirit, our hearts get harder, our eyes get blinder, our ears get deafer, and our categories get smaller.

As the Spirit-filled followers of Jesus, we have work to do in a world of brutality, murder, and racism. To be empowered for this work, sanctification is required. God’s love drives out sin and fills us with the power of reconciling love. The Holy Spirit compels us to go into the world as servants of the humble Jesus.

Observing humans, I have seen very few of us experience deep change because of shame, angry blaming, social media ranting, or even threat. These tactics only harden us in our defensiveness. While we work in the public square for justice, reconciliation, and peace, we believe the human heart is the original site of the racism that takes shape in institutions, policies, and cultures. If we are to be like Jesus, it begins with the work of the Holy Spirit in the core of our being. There, we confess that we are blind to our own blindness, needing the Holy Spirit to show us who we are, and to help us repent, and to forgive us. Only then, are we forgiven, enlightened, and empowered, as was Simon Peter, to become the difference this world needs.

Peter could have taken a defensive, religious posture that day on the roof. And he would have missed the miracle that God was up to. As we reflect on Pentecost, it is right for us to humbly ask, “What is God saying to me in the death of George Floyd?”

Postscript

I have found it hard to write about this. I’m not sure that another white institutional voice is what the world needs. I have tried to amplify other voices. One that I admire is a recent Trevecca graduate, Jeremiah Eliphaz Wright. Another is a reflection by Christine Youn Hung.

And finally, on Facebook, I recently shared an experience written by Deltha Katherine Harbin and a reflection from police officer Bobby Sr Walker.