Stockton Methodist Circuit

"Racial Justice Sunday"
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In this edition of Our Story a Local Preacher from the Circuit shares their sermon from this years Racial Justice Sunday

 

Scripture Text: Micah 6: 1-8, Colossians 3: 9-11

Illustration found here

 

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One of my favourite questions to ask a congregation when I preach is – who are your role models? There are some usual suspects, titans of history, people who changed the world, who shaped the world we live in today. I may have mentioned it before but I’m a Trekkie so one of my role models is a certain Captain Jean-Luc Picard. For the simple reason that here was a character in a television show I watched who spoke with such power and conviction on a number of issues, you could absorb the life lessons just from listening to these speeches that Picard would give. And now you’re all wondering what Star Trek has got to do with racial justice Sunday. Well we’re getting to that.

 

I’m going to present to you a scenario that Picard finds himself dealing with in the course of his time on the starship Enterprise, his android crewmate and friend Commander Data is ordered to report for a research assignment in which Data himself will be studied and potentially others like him constructed, the contention of the scientist wanting to do this is that Data as an android is not a sentient lifeform but a machine and therefore the property of Starfleet, the organisation he serves, so he has no choice but to comply with the order. In essence, he’s different and because he’s different the rules that apply to us do not apply to him. It’s a repulsive argument, it’s wrong, it’s alarming and sadly It’s a very convenient argument for the person trying to get their way, it’s also an argument that’s unfortunately been used far too many times throughout history to justify atrocity after atrocity and wrong after wrong – empires built on slavery led by people who thought themselves superior to those who built the structures of those same empires. Look at Micah, read that indictment, despite everything done for them, despite the delivery out of slavery in Egypt, despite everything taught to them, despite every prophet sent why is the lesson of history still not learned? Now I ask that in respect of the cycle of the old testament – everything is fine, the Israelites stray, God sends a prophet to bring them back, people repent and everything goes back to being fine until the next time. It plays on repeat. The Israelites have been told what is good and what is required of them to do what is right, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. They’ve been told that and the cycle of the old testament and events contained within is such that it’s apparent that the Israelites don’t listen. But apply it more broadly, does it apply today? The sentiment of the question does, the tone of the indictment certainly does, but in totality? No because there will always be faith, there will always be hope and there will always be love. We come from many different places, from many different backgrounds but we all have things in common, our past experience amplifies that which we share, adding a vibrancy to it and through that we see the true wonder of it all there’s far more that unites us than divides, and that which divides can be overcome.

 

Now to go back to Picard and how he handles Data’s situation, he argues the following point “to build hundreds maybe thousands more Data’s isn’t that becoming a race and won’t we be judged by how we treat that race?” the question goes unanswered in the episode but let’s be clear the answer to the question is yes, we will judged by that. When asked what the most important commandment is Jesus says “Love your neighbour as yourself.”, or to put it another way do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Another way of looking at it is “love one another as I have loved you” And what love is that? The all loving unconditional kind of love. And let’s be clear what that means, it means it doesn’t matter what colour skin someone has, it doesn’t matter which country someone comes from, it doesn’t matter what gender they identify as, what sex they are, what background they come from, what sexual orientation they have. No none of that matters, no that’s what divides, that’s what tempts the dark, that’s what allows the darkness to spread, to linger and fester. What matters is as seen in our Colossians reading “Christ is all that matters and he lives in all of us.”

 

The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas writes “Do not go gentle into that good night… rage, rage against the dying of the light.” We see injustice, wrongfulness, despair and many more things seemingly insurmountable in a bit of a bleak world landscape out there, so why not do something about it? Do not go gentle into the world out there but go boldly, go knowing that you have the love of God in each of you, regardless of what makes you different from others, and take a stand against injustice, a stand against the ways of hatred, of division. Let the light shine brightly and spread it out, prove what we know to be true, all are deserving of mercy, all are deserving of love. There is strength in unity, there is strength in diversity and there is strength in understanding. Don’t go gentle, go boldly.

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Amen