I am a pastor, I am a wife, I am a mother. I am a good person. I am a decent person. I love Jesus with all my heart. I belong to a denomination, which believes in holiness of heart and life. As such, I live and strive to live out the holiness of God in my everyday life. It is my desire that all I do, all I say, all of my actions every day reflect the nature of God and the loving heart of Jesus Christ for this broken world in which I live.
I am also the kind of person who when talking about cussing and which words are words a “good Christian” should and should not use, it is not about a list of words we deem too unholy to be uttered but that such things go deeper than that. We should never use our language to hurt, harm or degrade another human being. Any word or phrase used as such should be deemed unholy, should never be uttered or used, whether that word or phrase was a part of any official or unofficial list of what is taboo. But there I was; I was explaining how I had been cheated out of something that I deserved and I said, “I was gypped.” I stuttered to a stop and looked up into her velvety chocolate eyes, at her beautiful olive skin and enviable dark brown ringletted curls. She was Roma, a gypsy. We were in Romania, and I knew what they said about the Roma. They lied, cheated and stole. I had been told once that I should never think about adopting a gypsy baby, because even if you took it from its mother on the day it was born, it would be stealing from you by the time it was two. It was in their nature, they could not help but lie, cheat, steal; it was inevitable spend much time with a gypsy and sooner or later you would be gypped. She was my friend I would never think any of those things about her, but with one word, I had just said ALL of that to her, about her. I may not have meant it, I would never have even thought it, but I had said it, I had participated in a deeply rooted racism I did not even fully understand.
I could say that I did not mean it; I did not. I could say that I did not realize; I did not – not until that moment. I could say that I would never say it again; I have tried not. But in that moment I knew I was wrong and in many ways I could not believe that I could have been the kind of person who could do something, say something that mean, that offensive, because most of the time I was not.
Whether it is racism, or sexism or some other kind of prejudice, my guess is that all of us are the kind of person who would not seek out that kind of behavior, we would not purposefully say words, phrases, or participate in aspects of our society for the purpose of hurting, harming or deeming anyone else.
We all want to believe we are good people, we all want to believe that we are enlightened, that we know our own true nature and we not “those” people. We are not sexist. We are not racist. We do not perpetuate prejudice with our words or our actions. That is not who we are. That is not who I am. That is not who I want to be.
I still blush with embarrassment when I think of myself saying what I said in front of my friend. In that moment, at the time I was racist. I said a racist thing, not to my friend, not about my friend, but the remark included her anyway and it included her all the times I had said it previously in my lifetime, whether it was in her presence or not, whether I knew about its racist origins or not. It was wrong. I had said it before, it was wrong, and it just made it so very clear to me, when I said it in her presence how very wrong it was.
My guess is, whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not (to ourselves or to others), we all do and say things like this on a much more regular basis than we would care to think. There are words and phrases in our vernacular, which we do not think about, we have not actually heard what they mean, it has not occurred to us about what or to whom they are referring.
I think of the teens with whom I worked when I was at my first pastorate. I can remember having to talk to them about their use of the word, “Jewd.” Several of them would go to swap meets and pick up stuff and they would talk about how they “Jewd” someone else down from their original price. I can remember their faces the first time I explained to them that this was a racial slur against the Jews. None of them would purposefully use a racial slur. None of them harbored any ill will against the Jews. But they were commonly using a racial slur against a people whom they wished no harm.
Recently I heard someone, say from a pulpit, “Say to the devil, ‘get your cotton pickin’ hands . . .’” It may or may not be a phrase of which you are familiar. It is a saying in the South, and bugs bunny said a version of it often in his 1940’s cartoons. But it is a phrase which is literally referencing the dark hands of the slaves who picked cotton in the South. I was shocked and distressed. We were in a multiracial gathering and this man was using a racial slur from the pulpit!
That evening I got on Facebook and messaged my one of my dearest friends in the world, who had spent the first 10 years of her life in Georgia, to talk to her about it. Her response? She had used the phrase growing up. It was a phrase older people used more often than younger, but she has not ever thought about it that way before. In fact, if I had not written it out she would never had made the connection. She had always thought it was a nonsense word, “cotunpikin.” She did say now that knew, she would never use it again.
I cannot even begin to imagine what it means to be black person, much less a black man in America today. I can read the headlines, I can do what I can to be aware, but I am not black, I do not know, I can never know, I will never know. I do know what it means to be a woman in America today. I know what it feels like to be a 40-year-old woman who is called a “girl.” I know what it feels like when someone says, “ladies” in that tone of voice which seems to imply that that is something wrong with my hormones, or my temperament, or my reaction that needs to be soothed and coddled because it is somehow irrational. I know what it is like to be talked down to by others in my profession because I am a woman in a male dominated field. I have been told implicitly and explicitly that I will need to work harder and obtain better results to get the same kind of acclamation as my male counterparts. I have been at a gathering of my colleagues and be addressed as “gentlemen.” In fact I have on my desk, framed and given to as a gift, the covenant I made with my congregation when I was installed, which has me agreeing to be a “faithful husband and father” (rest assured the proper words were used in the ceremony). I will also tell you that most of the times I have been a recipient of sexism, it has been perpetrated upon me by well meaning, good people who did not mean it, and most of whom did not realize that their words and actions were hurtful much less sexist, but they were hurtful and sexist none-the-less.
It is my hope that I do not use language in my everyday speech, which is derogatory of another group of people. It is my hope that I am not going around pronouncing racial slurs. It is my hope, it is my desire that I am not that person, but I have no assurances that I am not, that I do not. But, I know that at least at one point in my life I did. I do not know for sure but it is my guess that I continue to remain ignorant of other words, or common turns of phrase, which have deeper, darker meanings than I currently comprehend. It is possible that at some point during the course of this day, I have unknowingly said something racist or something prejudice against another human being. And if I have, I am truly sorry and hope that I will be enlightened so that I may not go on unwittingly hurting and harming other with my words and actions in the future. Inadvertent sexism, racism or prejudice is still sexism, racism or prejudice and in many ways is more insidious than that which is perpetrated purposefully, because it is perpetrated by good people over and over again. This is how sexism and racism is perpetrated and sown, watered and grown in our midst. This is unacceptable! This is not Christlike!
My guess is that you also believe yourself to be a “good person.” That you do work to do good and not harm in this world. I would hope that you are of the same mind as myself; that you would never be the kind of person who would purposefully make sexist remarks, that you would never be the kind of person who would make a racist statement, that you would never purposefully perpetrate prejudice in any way. Neither of us are those kinds of people. But I think that although it is not our desire, it is not our intent that we all do. We have said things; we have done things; we have unknowingly, and unwittingly participated in prejudice in ways that have yet to be revealed to us. We are sexist, we are racist, we hold prejudicial attitudes, we just, as of yet, do not know how, or in what ways. The seeds are planted in our hearts, we water them with our words, we nurture them with our attitudes and harvest them with our actions. We cannot continue to allow this to happen. We cannot continue to allow these things to grow in us, be nurtured in us and by us and harvested among us. This must stop, and it must stop now.
But what can we do? We are all unwitting participants. It seems we are all doomed to fail! No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that we all can do better. Doing better begins by humbly admitting that although we may not be sexist people, we may not be racist people, we may not be people who see ourselves as defined by some kind of prejudice. In the core of our beings we are none of these things. Yet, we must admit that it is possible that we say racist things, that sometimes we have sexist attitudes, there are times in our lives when prejudice is behind some of our actions. It is possible that we have done one or more of these things today, this week, on a regular basis even. And in speaking those words, performing those actions, holding those attitudes we are being racist, sexist, prejudice. In those moments we are people we do not want to be, would never intentionally be, yet we are. And then, we should be open to be aware of the person we are in that moment, the things she said, the things he did, the attitudes I espoused. In order to hear ourselves, to see ourselves, to know ourselves, we must first be willing to admit it is possible, so that when we do, we may be able to catch ourselves, stop ourselves. It is possible that simply by being conscious of the fact that we might do this, we are able to enact change in our own attitudes, in the words we use and the things we do.
We must also be willing to humbly hear them when others call us out. There are times when we are with a friend or a small group and we say, do or reflect attitudes that we did not realize were hurtful, that person calls out (either immediately or some time later). We may be confronted following sermon, a Bible Study, a public presentation or some other situation in which we were before a larger group of people. No matter the situation, there are times when someone will come to us and bring before us the harmful things we have said or done. It is easy to deflect, to come up with an excuse, “that is not what I meant.” “I do not think that is what that means.” “You know that is not what I mean when I say that.” “I would never do that.” We might even be tempted to put it back on the person who has come to us. “You are being too sensitive.” “You are reading too much into what I said.” “Come on you know that’s not what I meant.” “I think you misunderstood.” When this a happens we must be willing to see the ways in which we have failed. We must be willing to actually hear the person, their concern, their hurt. We must be willing to entertain the idea that we are wrong.
Like my friend who had no idea that she had been using a racial slur until it was pointed out to her, it may take someone else to tell us, to explain to us that what we just said was wrong, that our actions are sinful, that our attitude is wrong. We must be willing to hear these corrections whether they come kindly or whether they come from someone who is lashing out at us in their hurt and their pain (which I might add we inflicted upon them). We must be willing to hear them, to admit that we are wrong, and move to make changes for the future.
When we are made aware of the ways in which we have participated in prejudicial sin, then we must begin by humbly admitting that we are wrong. Before we can move forward before things can begin to be better, before we can work to be the Christlike people we desire to be, we must see these words, these actions, these attitudes for what they are, sinful. We must admit that we have sinned. We must be contrite, we need to confess that we have sinned, to ourselves; to God and to any person or persons we have hurt or harmed. And we must also repent, which means that we will need to work within ourselves (with the help of God) to change so that we will no longer sin in these ways in the future. Whenever we are confronted with our own prejudice our response should immediately be humility, contrition, and repentance, privately for private sins and publicly for public sins.
When we see the seeds of sexism inside of us; when we are made aware of how racism is being nurtured in our lives; when we come to know that we are growing attitudes of prejudice let us stomp them out, let cut them down and no longer allow them a place in our lives.
But, let us also cultivate a garden around us, which does no include these things. Although, we begin within ourselves, as we are made more and more aware of the sexist comments that come to our lips, the racial slurs that we might speak or the prejudice attitudes we espouse, we will more and more be made aware of these very things in the Christians (in the people) around us. We must work at finding ways to gently correct our loved ones and friends. We need to figure out brave and kind ways to bring these kinds of things to attention of those around us.
When we come to someone, we must assume that they, like ourselves do not realize what they are saying, what they are doing, what kinds of attitudes they are reflecting in this world. They too are good people; they too are not seeking to hurt and to harm those around them. They are not sexist at heart. In the core of their being they are not racist. They are not really the kind of people who desires to reflect prejudicial attitudes. They may not be as willing or as open to hear us, as we are seeking to be, but we should still work to gently, kindly, and humbly speak to those around us. Perhaps, they will hear us, perhaps they will not. It is possible, even if we do not receive the response we would hope, or we would like, that our words are the first of many which will eventually lead to change in that person’s life. When we find our kind correction is turned away, we should continue to pray that God will work within that person, and one day they will be able to see their own need for change.
Let us be better than this! Let us strive together to be the people we envision ourselves to be. Let us stop racism at its roots within each of us. Let us come together and work to make this world a world where the hearts, lives, words, actions and attitudes of Christians truly reflect those of Jesus Christ.
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