Day 88: Nation Must Address Longtime Stain

DAY 88

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK THIRTEEN: WEDNESDAY 10 JUNE 2020

Nation Must Address Longtime Stain

“I refuse to have it take away the attention from the stain we need to be working on. These are things that have been brewing in this country for 400 years.” - Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in response to Minneapolis race riots

“Whites Only,” said the sign on the laundromat; “Colored” said the sign above the warm water drinking fountain while “Whites Only” was what the sign said above the refrigerated cold water drinking fountain a few feet away –  I still have the pictures I took.  “Blacks have a different kind of soul than white people,” the woman told me, a passionate follower of Jesus. Whites, then Indians, then Mexicans, then Blacks, was the social order on the Indian reservation where I lived for a while, an unspoken, unwritten caste system reflected in the housing of each group.

These have been some of my own experiences with racism. It is complex with education and economics playing a role, a whole separate discussion, and the question of nature versus nurture as primary determinative factors in personality formation. At its heart however, racism has its genesis in the human heart, a deep insecurity and brokenness that saw the only race ever chosen by  God to be His ethnic people on earth ending up calling half-Jewish-half-Samaritans ‘dogs.’

Prejudice – an easy word to dissect: from the Latin ‘pre’ meaning’ in advance’ and the verb ‘to

judge’ – to judge in advance, ahead of knowing who a person is, ahead of knowing anything about them. It is judging the inner person based on skin color, ethnic or cultural background, economic status, education, gender, sexual orientation, handicap of whatever kind, or religion. For those of us who claim Jesus as Lord, there is no category of persons for whom He did not die on the cross and we therefore are not to treat any category of persons any different from our own.

Reflective question: Will you ask the Holy Spirit to show you any stain of racism or prejudice that is in your heart?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 139:23-24 – “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Reflective hymn:

“There is a Fountain Filled with Blood” – William Cowper (1731-1800)

There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains.

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.