Brown Privilege ...

These days there is a good deal made about “white privilege”, at least if you tune in to the democratic party from time to time.  Being a member of that privileged category myself, I tend to think I am immune to seeing it in my life.  What I do see, is the transference of legacy from one generation to another.  If your great grandfather, and grandfather, and father all went to Harvard – chances are much better you will be joining them in attending that institution.  But if no one did, your odds at getting in fall as far as your wallet’s emptiness will permit.  I seem to remember applying to Harvard when I was graduating high school back in the days of covered wagon travel 😊.  I don’t remember being accepted.  But even if I were, my single mother’s finances permitted food on the table, not attendance at a school that even back then cost more than two fortunes to attend.  It would have been a privilege to be admitted, it also would have been a life sentence to the debt that would have gone with it.  Me being white, seems to have little to do with it.  Unless you think that “to dream” in my younger years, was the privilege after all.

But when you think about it.  We seem to measure privilege in monetary terms.  Harvard is a steppingstone to a better job, with higher pay.  It is a steppingstone to introductions to the elite of our nation.  To having friends that serve in the white house, or the senate, etc.  Money, power, influence – mostly all boil back down to money again.  If my grandfather had been rich, he would have passed that wealth to my father.  My father would have passed it to me.  I would pass it on to my children.  That kind of legacy, where wealth is transferred from one generation to the next, I have seen up close and personal in others.  That is real.  That is a privilege I understand.  Don’t get to participate in it mind you, but I understand it.  When someone from that legacy in motion of wealth falls on hard times – they are given special attention to rectify their problems.  Think about it.  When the rich get in trouble with the law, it is an entirely different experience than when the poor do.  Lawyers like Alan Dershowitz can talk his client out of nearly anything.  The lawyer you get at the public defender’s office is a 50/50 bet at best.  When the rich get sick – they fly in experts, or to experts at hospitals all over the world to seek treatment.  When you or I get sick – we go to whatever facility is closest that takes our version of insurance (if we have it).  That is two entirely different experiences based on privilege.

If we were however to lift our eyes from the things of this world that so demand our attention for a moment.  And begin to measure true privilege in spiritual matters we might have to turn our thinking on its head.  At least from a racial basis anyway.  Jews, Arabs, and people who in the days of Jesus originated from the middle east, in that specific geography – where not white – they were brown.  Various degrees of brown.  This means Jesus was not the Lilly white bread picture painted by most renaissance artists (who came from whiter countries).  Jesus too was middle eastern.  He was brown.  His disciples, men or women, were also brown.  Those tagged from Ethiopia, or perhaps Egypt, or areas to the south of there were likely black.  White folks were entirely absent from the hero list of these times.  They may well have been present as the enemies of the day in the form of Romans.  Yikes.  Not only were white folks not privileged to share lineage with Jesus, but instead were the ones helping to wipe out that lineage.  Sound typical, at least in a historical context?  Seems it takes us white folks a long time to get on the right side of history in any age.  That is not privilege, it is the willful lack of it.

When Jesus however looks at privilege (and He does), He does not define it based along racial lines either.  In fact He sort of bucks the norms of catering to the intelligentsia of His day.  And He does not look to the lineage of kings and the dynasties they fight to maintain.  He skips right past the “smart folks” from the Harvard’s of His day; and then wizzes right by the Kings of it, and settles in on His target.  Or rather His Father’s target – the babies.  Luke talks about just this very thing in his gospel letter, in chapter ten, picking up in verse 21 saying … “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.”  Wow!  You will note Jesus does not mention that the revelations of wisdom regarding Himself and His Father were given specifically to brown people (even if that was the statistical result).  Nor did brown, or white, or black have any mention in the revelations being revealed.  But babies did.

There were Hebrew schools of the day, that prepared students by studying the Torah and the prophets every day.  But none of their attendees were gifted with these revelations.  Instead, relative babies were handed out the knowledge.  Fishermen.  Perhaps nearly illiterate.  Tradesmen.  People of the masses.  A women of former disrepute, and definitive demonic possession.  The blind, the lame, the healed, all considered blessed.  People who consistently knew they were not educated, or the smartest folks in the room.  People who knew their need where it comes to wisdom.  Babies.  The Father and the Son seem to always zero in on babies.  Babies are fully dependent.  They don’t carry out arguments about who is going to go to work today and earn the living for the family.  They don’t speak.  They don’t walk.  So none of their kind is prepared for providing anything.  They are instead blessed to be provided for.  That is supposed to be us.  Is it?

Jesus continues in verse 22 saying … “All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.”  And here is the entire Bible summed up in two sentences.  “All things”.  Not some of them.  Are already known by the Father, including the most important thing, the identity of the Son.  It is that knowledge that is shared by the Father God, with those babies standing around following Jesus, both men and women.  And as far as who the Father God is; that is a portrait only the Son Jesus Christ can truly reveal.  To know Jesus is to know the Father God.  To reject Jesus is to reject the Father who sent Him.  For most of us the picture of who the Father is, is a complete shrouded mystery.  We think of Him in terms of retribution, revenge, punishment, and judgment.  But the Father is NO DIFFERENT than the Son in “who” He is, or what He is like.  He loves.  He loves so hard, He was willing to give up His only Son for you or me.  Take Jesus out of the equation and the Father goes back to sheer mystery.  Don’t count on your intellect to reason you a definition – cause only babies truly get it.  You can forget your legacy of wealth to help you here, cause again, only the fully dependent even begin to understand.  The folks who think they “can take care of themselves” have no idea who God really is.

This kind of truth, was Truth for the ages.  Since Adam, mankind had longed to see it up close and in person.  But Adam would die before it came.  Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samson, David, and all the OT prophets would pass away before Jesus enters the scene.  Even Biblical heroes were not so blessed as to see Jesus for 4000+ years.  Jesus recognizes this as he continues in verse 23 saying … “And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: [verse 24] For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”  Here Jesus lays out what real privilege is.  It has nothing to do with status.  No riches, or smarts, or even faith of the patriarchs gone by – it has to do with being babies who see their need, and cling to God to meet it.  Harvard would have netted me nothing with Jesus.  It might have even done damage to my faith in Him.  Legacy of wealth would have done nothing to recommend me to Jesus, it might have instead done damage to my ideas of self-reliance and kept me away from Jesus.  After all, why do the rich need anything from a Santa-clause God when they already have everything they want.  But Santa, is not who Jesus really is.

Babies however, are first in line at the privilege counter.  In times past brown babies had the advantage for many years, but eventually white babies were able to get in line when they finally started wanting to.  At this point in time however, we should not be thinking about this in racial terms at all.  But we should be thinking about it in the terms Jesus outlined for the favor of God the Father.  Are we self-aware enough to know our need?  Or have we determined we know everything we need to know, and have everything (even if only spiritual) we need to have.  As it turns out, I would love to be granted the privilege of knowing the identity of God the Father, and the Son.  If that means relinquishing all my acquired human wisdom for the doo-doo that it is; I am fine with that.  I understand that this wisdom is not a legacy I can pass on to my children, or have gifted to me by my parents.  It takes a one-on-one connection with Jesus – something that is just between Him and me.  My parents can point me to that, just like I hope to point my children to it.  But to grasp it, requires getting in baby mode, and submitting the core of who I am, to the One who is the source of all this Love and wisdom.  So much for Harvard, please enroll me in the cradle roll that Jesus leads.

 

Lacking All Sense of Judgment ...

How does that guy end up with that girl?  Men think these questions to themselves, as from looking at the external beauty of the woman, and the relative comeliness of the man, the pairing just does not seem to make sense.  Could this beautiful woman truly not understand just how beautiful she really is?  Or could she truly not understand just how homely her partner is?  Does she just lack all sense of judgment or perhaps is her eyesight just that impaired?  Even the series of questions reveals a thinking about the judgment of men, that it is based in the appearance and little else.  Perhaps the judgment of the woman is based in something deeper, something more meaningful, something that will last.  But then …

Does this dress make me look fat?  I can’t wear that dress to the event because “she” is wearing one just like it.  The reasoning of women often seems grounded in insuring their own appearance remains at its peak condition, and cannot be confused with any other woman.  Having two women show up at the same event wearing the same dress is only acceptable if both are bride’s maids, and even then, both resent it.  Something about wearing the exact same dress is simply intolerable for women.  Yet as they examine the sea of men that accompany them to these events, they fail to realize that tuxedo’s, and even most formal suits, are so close in look and feel, that only designers can easily tell them apart.  Men are content to wear the same formalwear, without a second thought.  Women are content to allow them out of the house this way, in fact, most prefer it.  But two identical dresses require one women to go home and try again.  A self-imposed rule, but one as solid as any printed in a book of law.

Why a man questions the happiness of a couple where the woman is stunning and the man is at best “normal”; and why a woman constantly questions her own appearance; are questions of judgment Angels find great mystery in.  Would, that our lack of judgment only extended to our appearance.  But it does not.  Humans have a nasty way of taking what we have learned, and instead of building one brick of knowledge upon another, until we form a magnificent structure of understanding, we pick up our brick and run with it.  We ignore all other truth, even the question about how other truth might fit with our own to form greater truth.  Instead we grab the nugget of truth that makes up our brick … and we immediately proceed to slam someone else in the head with it.

We make our brick, the sole basis of our gospel.  We push aside any attempts at greater understanding, and we make our brick the determining criteria of whether others will find themselves in hell, or not.  Should they accept what we say, and how we see things, then they are fine for now.  Otherwise, hell and damnation are surely the punishment coming to anyone who would ignore the plain truth of our brick.  And since that is the eventual outcome they must face, slamming them in the head with our brick now, seems like the right thing to do.  And so, even in spiritual matters, we find ourselves lacking all sense of judgment.  We find our core doctrines as rigid as those of our Pharisee forefathers.  We find our propensity to curse any who refuse our beliefs, as natural and rigid as any zealot who ever walked the earth before us.  We may not kill others who disagree.  But we are comfortable condemning them in the afterlife to eternal death, believing they must convert or be eternally punished for their lack of insight.

But the truth of Jesus Christ is not found in the eye alone.  Nor is it found in the ear alone.  The eye and ear have radically different functions and perspectives and BOTH are correct.  The foot moves us to a better place.  The hand reaches out in comfort and affection.  The arms hold.  The brain discerns.  It takes every part of the body to even begin to understand the Truth of Jesus Christ.  Thinking the eye’s alone have it, makes the body deaf, and mute, and crippled.  Thinking the brain alone has it, makes the body cold, unfeeling, and unable to move at all.  But this kind of body analogy forces believers to begin to accept the reality that “their” brick is not the ONLY brick, that makes up a picture of truth.  It reveals that even in spiritual matters, we are ill equipped to judge.  And so Matthew continues recording the Sermon on the Mount in chapter seven of his gospel.

Jesus continues in verse 1 saying … “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”  When we judge others, we reveal something about ourselves.  It is automatic.  It is unavoidable.  No matter the subject, from bad fashion, to bad doctrine, what we use to judge others says MORE about us, than it will ever say about them.  And so, our Lord, the One we claim to follow, gives us a simple instruction that we should just not judge.  He continues in verse 2 saying … “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”  The brick of truth we use to slam others in the head, will eventually be the same brick that slams us.  As our insight into truth deepens we will come to realize the using truth to slam others is the wrong use of truth at all.  Truth without love, is “truth” outside of Jesus, and therefore less about truth and more about opinion.  Doctrines are meant to point people to Jesus, not divide people who claim His name from truly loving each other.

Jesus continues in verse 3 saying ... “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? [verse 4] Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? [verse 5] Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”  This analogy is not just about fashion, or about whether a couple is evenly matched in beauty and physique.  It is about something deeper than this.  It is about doctrine.  The mote that is in our brother’s eye represents some misunderstanding our brother has in related to scripture, that we think we know better about.  The condition of our brother is not even made in dispute, Jesus does not even argue it.  But, the beam that is in our own eye, represents a FAR greater error by orders of magnitude than the little misunderstanding our brother has.  I dare say, it is the beam of doctrines, rigid and large and all-encompassing that have no sense of love within them.

While we take an unusual interest in the small error of our brother, we reveal our complete misunderstanding of love at all.  Love is not meant as an excuse to sin, it is meant as a motive to seek Jesus who can change our very desires to want sin no more.  Love does not destroy doctrine, it becomes the foundation for them.  For if doctrine cannot be forged in love, it is merely opinion, not truth.  Truth is unafraid of new thinking, of questions, of growing larger than it is today, because our understanding grows larger.  We begin to incorporate other perspectives of the body, the eyes, the ears, the fingers.  And instead of shrinking, our truth becomes greater and more beautiful.  The man sees himself through the lens of Christ and sees that love reflected and true, is a great attractive quality that any woman would cherish.  The woman sees herself through the lens of Christ, and realizes that perfection is not brought about by Maybelline, but by submission to Jesus who makes her of infinite value to His Kingdom and the heart of any man.  Families are formed, with Jesus as the foundation, and nothing Satan can throw can rip them apart.

We learn to obey the simple edict of our Lord, to judge not.  Then the strangest of things happens.  Jesus proceeds with a text that is nearly the exact opposite of the entire lesson He just lays out.  Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”  Yikes.  We just went through the entire idea of Judging Not, His exact words, but now dogs and pigs are introduced.  How can we know who a dog or pig is?  Isn’t the point of the gospel to be shared with those who do not know Jesus?  If we begin by thinking they are all dogs and pigs, who would ever get to hear the gospel.  It makes no sense, or does it?

Take a closer look at the preceding texts.  The beams and motes, are in your “brother’s” eye and your own.  It would seem as though these verses are specifically targeted at members, at believers in Jesus.  We should be avoiding the doctrinal brick in the head between those who claim the name of Jesus, of those who believe in Him.  The generic admonition not to judge, allows us to spread the gospel of love to everyone without judgment.  Where the dogs and pigs begin to emerge is where love of others is rejected in favor of love of self.  Those who would twist the gospel of love, into blanket excuse and permission to love themselves with abandon, without limits, and at the expense of others.  Those who claim forgiveness is their get out of jail free card, while having no intention of change, or desire to change.  Those who would twist the life and sacrifice of Jesus as a way to sin and claim forgiveness, never even attempting to see if the sin itself might be transformed away from them, removed from their desires, and replaced by something more holy.

The pigs who would turn and rend you, cut you with sharp teeth and no concern, can easily be those whose version of life and philosophy is self-centric and do not want it disturbed.  They can certainly be out of the church, but they can populate it as well.  Those who do not understand love, may not want you to upset their perception of love for others.  They may be greedily feasting on doctrines who do not require them to love, only to obey the lists of do’s and don’ts outlined in the traditional interpretations of men.  It is not up to us to pre-determine who the dogs and pigs are.  It is up to us to be careful when we encounter them.  And to take heed not to become them.  The latter the far more dangerous outcome of our embrace of the rigidity of doctrine than the former.  To keep our pearls, and keep what is holy, we must center our love in Jesus Christ, and insure it always turns outward, away from ourselves, to those in need.  When our love is rejected on occasion, we must be more careful in its expression, and pray more for change.

In this way, we adhere to the counsel of Jesus, avoiding judgment, and still passionately pointing the world to Jesus to find relief from sin, not a continued embrace of it.

And the sermon was far from over …