Two years ago, I read Howard Thurman’s foundational work, Jesus and the Disinherited. In my first semester at seminary, I had come here thinking I had things mostly sorted out, and while I cared deeply about social justice, I thought it was one of those things you really had to extrapolate beyond the verses of the Bible to really get at.
Since Jesus never directly mentions any of those -isms we talk about all the time, it seemed to me to be not quite at the forefront of his message. But then Thurman spoke to me. In his work, he asks what Christianity has to say to the disinherited, or those who have their backs up against the wall. It turns out, Thurman’s answer was: everything.
Jesus’ message, Thurman writes, was about freedom for the oppressed: rather than responding out of fear, deceit, or hate, Jesus taught his people, who were living under imperial Roman rule, to love their enemy.
To walk the extra mile, and to turn the other cheek. This wasn’t about Jesus, meek and mild, telling us all to be nice. This was about a radical new way of seeking liberation from a world that wants to drag you down into a cycle of violence.
Jesus might not have mentioned racism, I realized, but the division between the Jews and their Roman colonizers was the foundation upon which all of his teachings rested. And this particularity is exactly what made Jesus’ message universal: Thurman applied this message to black people in America, saying it wasn’t about “being more moral than white folks, but becoming more free than we have ever been.”
But reading those words, I found myself uncomfortably on the opposite side of that “we.” That “we” that includes the oppressed Jews of Jesus’ time, black people in America, and other marginalized groups throughout history, made me realize that so much of what Jesus taught might not have been shared with me in mind.
I am not poor or oppressed, in any substantial way; though each one of us has a whole bunch of intersecting identities that are either privileged or marginalized in various ways, in my particular case the scales are tipped pretty heavily in the direction of the former.
And so if I attempt to love my enemies, the first thing I have to do is find one. What, then, does it mean for the oppressor to become free? For these systems that we are all caught up in most surely tie up men as much as women, cisgender as much as trans, white as much as black, and so on.
Recognizing that Jesus spent almost all his time among the colonized, and not the colonizers, I began a quest, scouring the Bible, trying to figure out what Jesus could possibly have in mind for me.
Have you ever tried to read the Gospels, looking for a time when someone who comes from a place of privilege is portrayed in a good light? Other than the many tax collectors and pharisees, who are all still part of the colonized class, and the Syrophoenician woman, whom Jesus initially calls a dog for taking his attention away from the children of Israel, the Centurion in today’s reading is possibly the only model we have where Jesus allows his attention to be diverted, responding with praise toward someone not of his particular marginalized community. And so I invite you all to take a closer look with me, as we explore what freedom for the oppressor looks like in the Gospels.
The Jewish elders tell Jesus that the Centurion built a synagogue for the Jewish community. A man of decent wealth, having under his authority 100 men of the Roman Legion, he must’ve either used his money, or used his troops, to provide the Jews with a place of sanctuary in a world not made for them. In doing this the Centurion has aligned himself with the Jewish cause, supporting them before he ever asked for anything in return.
Then, when it comes time that he does have a request to make, rather than sending his own men to track down Jesus, he entrusts the Jewish elders with this message. This empowers them to make a decision about his request before it is even passed on. He put the power in their hands, either to support the request and convey it to Jesus, or not.
And then, when suddenly he realizes that Jesus is coming to him, and he is taking up their time and energy, he counters with great humility: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof,” even though the Jewish elders themselves just said he was! While the traditional read of this text continues and ends up with us all praising this man for his faith, what I’m interested in are the steps this man took before putting that faith on display; I’m interested in what this man did in order to break free of the systems that separated people like him from the Jews.
Now we will never know this man’s full story, but for those of us who identify in one way or another with a privileged class, this Roman Centurion serves as a model for what we can do to become free. Free from the systems that benefit us materially, but lock us up spiritually.
Free from the ideas that inhibit our ability to relate to one another with humanity. Free from the belief that you have to see the effects of violence in order to believe it happened, or the expectation that others have to prove their pain before they’re allowed a seat at the table.
You know, I’ve heard it said numerous times, that we have tolerance for everybody, except for conservatives. That we have grace for everybody, except for those who think differently.
And you may think that, but let me ask you this: Are you yet free? If you’re more concerned about certain people who look like you getting to voice their opinions without criticism than you are about other people’s humanity, then are you yet free? Are you yet free of your whiteness? Free of your maleness? Free of your straightness? Free of your cisgenderness? Free of your able-bodiedness?
As a community, this is about making sure we don’t set a higher bar for grace on those who are already marginalized than we do on ourselves! This is about paying attention to who’s getting hurt by the things we’re used to saying, rather than who’s feeling a little bit embarrassed after getting some difficult feedback! This is about saying that all are welcome in this space, but in order for us to all get along, there have to be some rules!
We can still have differences of opinion on all sorts of things; but as James Baldwin said, “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in [the] denial of my humanity and right to exist.” We need to learn to listen to and trust marginalized communities, and live into the freedom that is grounded in Christ’s love!
You may be tired of hearing about social justice in this space; tired of sermons that seem to allow only one way to vote at the ballot box; tired of feeling that marginalized groups are lifted up in this space in a way that leaves you out. But let me ask you: are you yet free?
Freedom is what we’re after! Freedom from the powers and principalities, freedom from the systems that enslave each one of us, freedom from the divisions that cause me to think I’m better than you are, or that my discomfort is worth more than your humanity.
Freedom! And when we’ve gotten that far, and broken free of all of our chains, let us remember, as Paul said, that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Let us stand firm, then, and not let ourselves be burdened ever again by a yoke of slavery.
Peter Levenstrong 