structural racism | treevalley in the inner city

This is a message I gave to the church family I grew up with about racism in the Church and why this is a gospel issue. Message begins at the 28:30 mark in the video below:

Here is a transcript of the message:
INTRO
Good morning West Covina Christian Church! Thank you so much for your prayers and financial support that allows me and my family to live and minister cross-race & cross-class for God’s Kingdom. With that in mind, Pastor Kory invited me to speak on this challenging passage in the bible that we’re tempted to skip right past. This passage touches on racism in the church. Okay, I know that this is a touchy topic but we must speak to it as even the early church struggled with this. The second part of the greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves, even those that are different from us! Now, before we jump into the passage and message I want to be sure to clarify what I mean by some terms

Race: When I say the word “race” I want to acknowledge that this is largely a socially constructed word, that generally defines differences of people groups by physical appearance, often by skin color. It’s more than just country or nationality alone.

Racial Prejudice: If you’re feeling defensive rise up within you, I want to recognize that we all struggle with prejudice. We all have the sinful tendency to pride and favoritism so why wouldn’t that touch our perception of racial differences?

I confess, even in my years of cross-race ministry I have to continually uncover and root out my own racial prejudice. Hopefully, it’s less now with God’s help.

Now our final term to clarify is Racism: Racism isn’t the same thing as individual racial prejudice. Racism is when racial prejudice works its way into systems, that is into whole groups and institutions, such that sometimes it takes on a life of its own, bigger than just one individual person’s choice.

Okay now that we clarified some words let’s open up our hearts to what God wants to speak to us from this episode in the early church narrated by the Apostle Paul. If we feel paralyzed when it comes to racism God wants to bring a word of clarity and hope!

Please stand if you’re able for the reading of God’s word from Galatians 2:11-21 (NIV)
11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles 16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! 18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Okay, how do we see racism in this passage?

Well first, in v.15 Paul states the Jewish view that “we are Jews by birth.” This means the Jewish race wasn’t something you could achieve nor was it dictated by WHERE you were born but rather your genes, specifically descendants of Jacob
Then you see racial prejudice appear in how some Jewish people viewed themselves in contrast to “sinful Gentiles” (Gentiles meaning anyone who’s NOT Jewish). Some felt superior to other non-Jews, even though Paul goes on to make clear that NO ONE is able to be righteous before the law except Jesus.
This racial prejudice became racism as it pressed into systems in how these Jewish people interacted with Gentiles. Jewish laws moved from certain foods being unclean into human traditions that Gentiles themselves were seen as unclean. In v.12 we learn of the circumcision group who insisted that all believers needed to follow Jewish ceremonial laws. Racial prejudice was not just individual here but became racism in that it permeated whole groups, institutions, and even laws.
THIS is what Paul the Apostle HAD to speak out against as the early Church was forming!

So what lessons can we learn about racism from this passage?

Racism is a gospel issue. Paul addresses the issue of racism here as a major gospel issue. So much so that he doesn’t talk to Peter in private about his error but calls him out in front of everyone, even his own leader, Baranabus, who was implicated!

Why? Because racism hinders the witness of the gospel!
You see, Peter, a leader of the church, was doing life with the Gentiles believers, making them feel like this gospel of Jesus connected them. But when these particular Jews came, Peter distanced himself from the Gentiles. How would you feel in the Gentiles’ shoes? Do racial hierarchies persist in the gospel, are we only second class citizens in God’s Kingdom, does Jesus’ love not extend all the way to me?
Gospel means good news. How can the gospel be good news if we still keep treating others just like the rest of the world?
The Gospel ceases to be good news if it means that we must still earn our place, especially if it’s through race specific rules. Paul ends this passage in v.21 by declaring: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
Christ died for us when we were still sinners! The Good News of Jesus means we don’t have to be born or live a certain way BEFORE we can receive it.
Now as Paul says, in v.17-18, this doesn’t mean license to go on sinning and destroy ourselves but rather we NOW have the power of Jesus to live a different way. But these life changes are not to be conflated with forcing one specific racial expression of faith as more superior than others.
That’s why we must share the table with Christians of different cultural perspectives around the Word of God. No race has the monopoly on truth. God made us ALL in His image but different cultures came out of that and in heaven we’ll still have different tribes and tongues because no single race can reflect all the beauty and awesomeness of God.
Jesus says in John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” What should make Christians stand out from the world is how we love each other unconditionally, especially those that are different from us.

STORY (Locke students & WLA holiness church)
I was a public high school English teacher for 8 years in a South LA neighborhood that was mostly Black and Brown. Over time I got to know my student’s lives, their stories, their families, their homes. God taught me so much of his heart of love and justice for those that are often overlooked and taken advantage of.

Some of the students found out I was Christian, and by God’s grace they wanted to come to my church. But the thing was, I went to church at WLA Holiness church which was majority Japanese American. But I started bringing them. It was a big cultural difference for them.

But they kept coming back. You know why? Because even through the awkwardness and mistakes, the WLA Church family, though racially and economically different, showed them love. Ate with them, invited them into their spaces, and began to love them like family.

So when the gospel of Jesus was shared with my students they received it with joy, because they had a better sense of what that good news looked like. Because you see racism IS a gospel issue.

What else do we learn about racism from this passage?
Friendship is the start of breaking racial prejudice.

Cross-race friendships are a great place to start to combat racism.
Peter didn’t always hang out with Gentiles. In Acts 10 God had to speak to him in a vision 3 times to break him out of his racism. And even then he didn’t understand until God brought him to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius, had him preach the gospel to them, and the Holy Spirit manifested on them.
It was through relationship with the Gentiles, that Peter’s racial prejudice was broken down more so that, not only did he baptize the Gentiles, he began to eat with them, something he said he would never do.
Through sustained interaction and friendship, with real people of a different race, limiting stereotypes are unable to hold up.
To say “I don’t see color” isn’t actually helpful because what that conveys is that you still don’t see the full person. Colorblindness is still a kind of blindness. To have a real relationship with a person is to see the whole person, including their color and how that affects their experience for good and for bad.
And when i say friendship I DON’T mean a shallow one way relationship. When i say friendship, I mean a relationship that moves toward mutuality.

STORY: New Life Mutuality
My wife and I sensed God calling us to love more holistically so we moved into LA city’s Eastside, amongst predominantly working class Latinos, learning from a church that was doing ministry in the community. I began to make friends in the neighborhood. But I must confess I had come in with an attitude of a savior where the help just flowed one way.

Gus is someone I met early on. He’s a Mexican American that was raised by the streets, without a college education, and been through drug abuse. But he met Jesus and God transformed his pain and anger into deeper love and his heart as a helper really came out. You see he was already a construction contractor. I began to learn he had skills I completely lacked.

And on top of this God poured out on Gus incredible spiritual gifts of the prophetic. God often uses Gus, to rat me out. He’ll come up to me humbly and say, “I’m not sure if this is from the Lord but God brought this image to mind…” and bam, i’m laid bare. He shares with me something that I didn’t tell anybody that only God would know. But its always to build me up, not tear me down.

Gus has helped me to Jesus multiple times. He is not just a friend that I help, he is a friend that helps me. Ours is a friendship of mutuality. But this didn’t happen right away. Deeper friendship takes time. I moved into the neighborhood in 2011 but it wasn’t until about 2016 that i’d say I moved into friendships of mutuality.

What else do we learn from this passage about racism?
Cross Race Friendships must move to challenge individual and systemic abuses.

Friendship did break down Peter’s racial prejudice HOWEVER, racism still persisted in Peter.
I say this because although he personally overcame some racial prejudice against Gentiles, when other Jews came along Peter withdrew from table fellowship with the Gentiles to accommodate prejudice. He didn’t challenge the Jewish believers’ system of racism in their interactions, laws, and beliefs.
Maybe Peter didn’t want to make waves, or cause division. But some things should never be accommodated. Racism is one of those things. This is the difference between a peacekeeper and a peacemaker. A peacekeeper’s priority is to maintain the status quo. A peacemaker’s priority is to bring true reconciliation.
True reconciliation CANNOT happen if a wrong is not named and restitution is not made. If only the wronged group has to do all of the adjusting and speaking up this is not true reconciliation.
It’s insufficient to say “I can’t be racist because I have a friend who is X.”
You may have a friend who is X, but what are you doing to break down racism where it persists? I don’t mean you go looking for fights. But what I do mean is that when racial prejudice and racism show up you don’t give it a free pass.
As an Asian American this isn’t easy for me. But we must speak up. We can not just go with the flow of racism. Scripture challenges us that “Love does NOT delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (pause) 7 It always protects (pause), always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Though you personally didn’t make the laws and institutions, silence is complicity. In these ways we can be racist without even knowing it because we dont push back against norms that are unjust and favor one group over another. History tells us what happens when people have power to say something but don’t, allowing things to happen, with devastating consequences.
More often we may encounter more subtle forms of racial prejudice and racism. That may be little offhand comments, circles of certain friend groups, who is or is not included in leadership decisions. We all need the help of Jesus to overcome the fear of man, and fear of what others think to speak and do right.
You may not be received well for speaking to and practicing gospel love. Don’t worry Jesus and the prophets weren’t always received well either.
Sometimes those we’re trying to love may not receive it either. But keep bringing yourself under the tutelage of the love of Jesus, and be willing to learn from the people you are trying to love too.
Speak truth to power, especially if you have some form of power or authority.

STORY: Cross-Race Friendships must move to challenge abuses.
My friendship with friends like Gus cannot just stay there. I must be willing to learn from him and care about the things that affect him and neighbors like him.

As we listened to our neighbors, affordable housing has become a great concern. Rent increases are unreasonable, the poor are being displaced, and homelessness has become unavoidable. So our church members have begun to organize more and get involved with local policy. One of my fellow co-workers had to speak up and challenge our council member on the issue of affordable housing. We’ve had to go to boring and even contentious civic meetings.

We are starting to see some changes as we’ve rallied together to support more housing policies, linkage fees so that new constructions have to pitch in for affordable housing, as well as lifting of parking minimums for more housing.

In my personal practice I try to not stick to cliques in church but step out to talk to, listen to, pray with, those who are new or feel on the outside. I try to share the stories of my friends who are of a different race and class with my supporters. I try to speak up at our church conference wide meetings, which are mostly Caucasian, regarding needs and concerns of my friends of color. Cross Race Friendships must move to challenge individual and systemic abuses

This sounds hard. Why do I have to be engaged with this Dave? What does this have to do with me?

Consider what would have happened if this racism wasn’t addressed in the early church? WE are the Gentiles! We wouldn’t be here if Paul hadn’t confronted racism in the early Jewish Church. We are here because Jesus, the Son of God, but a Palestinian Jew in the flesh, laid down his life for all races, not just his own. If God’s love and grace did not extend to us as outsiders of Israel we would be lost.

So Beloved Sons and Daughters of God of all races, here at West Covina Church, in like fashion let us love not just with words but in action and in truth. Let us root out racial prejudice and racism where it exists so we can see more clearly the good news of Jesus. Let us displace ourselves and put ourselves in structures that will help us interact with people of different races, whether that be at work, at school, clubs, and social settings. Let us work at building deeper mutual relationships across class where we not only meet needs but are open about our needs. Let us not live in fear of man but speak up whenever racial prejudice or racism shows itself and demonstrate another way. Let us be the church that Jesus gave his life for, so that we would all be not the SAME, but be ONE in God’s love.