On September 1st of this year a young professional opted to sit during the National Anthem prior to an NFL preseason game. Many are familiar with the young man. His name is Collin Kaepernick, and he is the back-up quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. Steve Wyche, an NFL Media reporter, quoted Kaepernick in an interview as saying:
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”[1]
Following Kaepernick’s stand, or failure to stand, social media was abuzz and the expected drawing of a line in the sand ensued. Names flew, charges of racism were barked out, and people were called out for “discrimination.”
The routine offering of polarized opinions, witty one-up-man-ship, and vitriol flooded social media forums. The frenzy of talking heads and expert opinions, brought to us through our market driven media, fed the hungry monster that is the twenty-four hour news cycle. A few weeks have now passed and the narrative of Kaepernick has, for the most part, been shelved. All things have an expiration date. A few individuals might have tuned-out of the NFL for a week or two, but Kaepernick and his protest have seemed to lose momentum. National media attention has identified more glamorous narratives, and “Kap” can sit, stand, or kneel. He is just another media darling and short-lived folk hero. Yet, according to the Center for American Progress:
While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. . . . According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. . . . According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates. . . . [Finally,] The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.[2]
Before you dismiss me as a racist, a political pundit, a liberal hack, or a self-righteous radical, I want to confess that a picture of Robert E. Lee hangs in my home. I am a member of a denomination that was birthed out of the deplorable position that slavery in American was a good thing. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention, of which I am a part of, just this last year voted to repudiate the Confederate flag.[3] This is a step in the right direction, but this action is long overdue.
I am not a man who has an axe to grind or a drum to beat about racial injustice. I don’t think that police officers are evil, and I don’t believe for a second that most of them are trying to gun down minorities. Some would contend that a white middle class male in the US has no right to even offer commentary on racial injustice. White privilege has benefited me many times, but speaking about racism is excluded from that list of benefits. That is, unless, I simply parrot the talking points of humanist and secularist. Parroting the words of those whose worldview I reject is untenable and inconsistent. Before you quit reading this article, don’t worry, I will not repeat the verbiage of the deep thinkers, nor will I revisit media talking points that I’m unqualified to present.
A preface for one to consider before reading to the heart of this article is that I believe my calling is a charge that faces all individuals who readily accept that the Creator entered into creation to redeem a fallen people. My worldview hinges on the fact that Christ came to redeem a people who could not redeem themselves. It is the hope of healing that brings a man like me to my knees. It is a need for healing that draws Mr. Kaepernick to his knees. It is a fact that racial healing is needed in the “Christian Church” today. This same type of racial divide is demonstrated in Luke 17:11-19.
LUKE 17:11-19
11 While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; 13 and they raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were going, they were cleansed. 15 Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, 16 and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they? 18 Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?” 19 And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith has made you well.”[4]
There are a few contextual notes that I believe merit our attentiveness. As a reminder Luke was Paul’s traveling companion. John Polhil notes, in his commentary on Acts, that near Acts 16 the narrative moves to the first person plural.[5] This transition has widely been held to demonstrate that Luke, “the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14) was present with Paul during some of the Acts travels.[6] It is this same Luke that author’s both the Gospel that bears Luke’s name and the book of Acts.
Alan Tomlinson, Professor of New Testament and Greek at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary notes a few unique characteristics of the Gospel of Luke by pointing out that Luke is the most Gentile of the Gospels. Luke 2:14 uniquely points out that Christ’s birth will bring “good-will to all men.” It is in Luke alone that Christ offers praise of two Gentiles from the Old Testament (Luke 4:25-27), and the Gospel of Luke repeatedly focuses on social outcasts. [7]
Let’s unpack this narrative verse by verse. There is a lot here in the first two verses. Let’s go back and look at Luke 17:11-12:
11 While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him;
The section of Luke when this narrative occurs is during the “travel narrative.”[8] Specifically, the text itself tells us that Jesus was between the borders of Samaria and Galilee. As apologist James White notes, “This was a place of racial tension. . . . To even understand the miracle you have to know what was going on in first century Palestine.”[9] This is incredibly interesting as it sets the historical backdrop for the narrative of Christ. In other words, the time period and place set the unique context for culling out the depth of this narrative. In a mere forty years the social situation in this region would change. It is in this time of racial tension and infighting that Jesus takes on the role of a racial equalizer.
The situation is purely rooted in the racial segregation of the day. The Jews and the Samaritans simply hated each other. In Luke 5:12-16 Jesus had touched a leper to bring about healing. It is important to note that physical healing is only a backdrop to what takes place in this narrative, where things take place, and to whom healing is brought. Scripture does not share with us all the motivations that caused these ten lepers to call out that day. We would be amiss, however, to project that their motivations were not multifaceted.
These men did not stand at a distance from Christ in a manner directly comparable to the distance forced on victims of segregation in the U.S. The distance many African Americans stood at on the back of a bus was, in terms of feet, is pretty short comparably. These ten men were seen as less. They were seen as different because of their skin, and they were simply deemed not true image bearers in the Genesis 1:27 sense. In both cases skin separated. This week, as we once again see the ruthless shooting of an innocent black man, believers must with unity state that Christ is a friend to the oppressed. My friends, the oppressed are not hard to find.
Unfortunately, the twenty-four hour media has worked hard to pull the teeth from the liberating lion of the gospel and caricatured “Evangelicals” as a mindless voting bloc. We are pictured as a people who care more about guns than we care about victims of hate crimes. Far too many “Christ Followers” have yielded to this dehumanizing label, playing right into this self-fulfilling prophecy. How else could one explain the rise of either of the two major political candidates? As Shane Claiborne once wrote, “Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.”[10]
Look with me further to verse thirteen. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Is that still the call of the believers today? In the narrative the ten men stood together oppressed. Hurt bonded the men together, and a need for deliverance necessitated a guttural plea for help and healing. How did Christ respond?
We must embrace the oppressed. The issue of the shooting this week of Terence Crutcher should unite believers in a remarkable way. He was a husband, a father, and a church member. Even if he wasn’t, he was still an image bearer. As Russell Moore contends, “the Cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire.”[11] Are we nationalist or are we Christians? Too frequently in the last few years followers of Christ have been letting issues like the shooting of this man be a source of division rather than a chance to bring about healing. Within minutes of the news breaking on this man’s shooting, loud voices of “Christ followers” on both sides were shouting what was being whispered in their ear. The message many were relaying is not a message whispered by the Holy Spirit or one that is found in God’s Word. It is a message of separation that a completely secular media, driven by capital, wants propagated.
Followers of Christ are oppressing each other in an alarming way. What I love about this narrative in Luke is that not one of these ten men deserves to be healed. Verses fourteen through sixteen tell the story that is playing out today. So many in the church simply want to be “saved” and to run off, rather than taking a look at themselves and remembering the mess they once were. Yes, the church is guilty of going about their business.
Where are most of the churches being planted today? They are not being planted in minority neighborhoods. It is easy to plant a church in the suburbs, and you can find a church planting formula that will work without a doubt when you follow the money. How many times do you hear about the church planting movement in impoverished urban areas? If we are not planning churches in places like Chicago and Detroit, likewise though we are not planting them in the glut of rural towns decimated by generational poverty. This is wrong, and both places are mission fields in our own backyards. Verses seventeen and eighteen read:
“Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they? 18 Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?”
My friends if you cannot stand next to your black brother who is bringing the gospel to a broken people, then you are wrong. If you are not connected with an urban church, get it done. How long are we as the church going to fail to look at a real problem? If you simply cannot hear the pleas for mercy coming from places like Chicago and Tulsa because you can’t see minorities by any identity other than a voting bloc, then you are wrong.
If the first thing you do is attack a black man who is giving his voice to the oppressed, then maybe you should remember the Lord who spoke existence into being and who took on flesh to be oppressed and to save the oppressed. I do not want forget what Christ has done for me. Evidence of that very fact is found in my belief that the gospel is still not done changing lives, redeeming souls, and communities. Has your faith made you well? If your faith made you well it was not because you were so good. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
There was a racial outcast between Samaria and Galilee, and he ran into the Lord. The untouchable man found himself on the outside, the dangerous outcast saw that the divide was wide, but with Jesus Christ the leper’s spots come off. My friends, in one of the very first letters written to the church Paul commented, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). I contend that Paul’s message is still one that is eluding the American Church today.
This is a gospel issue. We can either choose to make it a political issue and lose many for eternity, or we can embrace the message of repentance and carry it into the most dangerous communities regardless of our skin color. I choose to remain silent no longer. Black Lives Matter. Black lives matter because every black life is an image bearer; that is the Christian message. The movement to value lives on every level began with a man who was neither black nor white. Jesus says every human being is an image bearer. For this middle class white male simply saying “Black Lives Matter” is not enough. It is not nearly as radical as it should be. I don’t think Christ stopped with just the Samaritan.
Bibliography
[1]Steve Wyche, “Colin Kaepernick Explains Why he Sat During National Anthem,” NFL.com, August 27, 2016, accessed September 21, 2016, http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/colin-kaepernick-explains-protest-of-national-anthem.
[2] Sophia Kerby, “The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States: A Look at the Racial Disparities Inherent in Our Nation’s Criminal-Justice Syste,” Center for American Progress, March 13, 2012, accessed September 21, 2016, https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2012/03/13/11351/the-top-10-most-startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/.
[3] Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “Southern Baptists Repudiate the Confederate Flag,” Christianity Today, June 14, 2016, accessed September 21, 2016, http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/june/southern-baptists-racial-reconciliation-sbc-civilitas-pca.html.
[4] All Scripture is taken from the New American Standard Bible, (The Lockman Foundation, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995).
[5] John B. Polhill, The New American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of the Holy Scripture, v. 26. (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1992). p. 24.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Alan Tomlinson, class lecture notes, Kansas City, MO, October, 2008.
[8]Thomas D. Lea and David Alan Black, The New Testament Its Background and Message, 2nd ed. (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2003).
[9]Alpha and Omega Ministries, “Debate: Jesus: Myth or Messiah?” YouTube. Online video clip, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XKOlOnRsD4 (accessed September 21, 2016).
[10]Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).
[11]Russell Moore, “Southern Baptists and the Confederate Flag,” Russell Moore Blog, June 14, 2016, accessed September 21, 2016, http://www.russellmoore.com/2016/06/14/southern-baptists-confederate-flag/.
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