Mark 10:35-45

Song of Songs 1:1-8

September 17, 2006

 

            The Song of Songs’ rich poetry, has been described as pro-marriage, as soft-pornography, as deeply religious, as sacrilegious, as too sexy to preach, and as too sexy to preach.  As poetry, like parable, it is not easy to wrestle into sound-bytes: “It means this.” Or “It means that.” Taking in the whole poem, I declare it a deeply religious love poem of relationship and reconciliation. Within the Song we have love and reconciliation between God and humanity, love and reconciliation between humanity and creation, and love and reconciliation between male and female. It also includes love and reconciliation between working class and wealthy people and a love and reconciliation between people of different skin color.  

            The poem starts as a dialogue with a man, supposedly King Solomon, and a dark working-class woman.   In chapter 1, verses 5-6, she entreats him to overlook her very obvious dark skin. “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar (Black - these tents were dark canopies made of goat’s hair), like the curtains of Solomon (Black - deep dark blue curtains covering the Temple’s Holy of Holies), Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards.”  This woman was forced to work in her brother’s vineyards, where she became deeply tan under the gaze of the sun. It seems that even way back in the deep ancestry of our faith, there was a skin-color prejudice.   It is important to the story that her dark skin is clearly understood – dark as those tents, dark as the curtain, dark under the gaze of the sun.   The man does overlook the differences of class and color, declaring her, in verse 8, “O fairest among women.”           

            Now, if our culture were to turn the story into a G-rated Disney film, we would start with a dark skinned, rough and poorly dressed beauty. She would be dark with dirt, like Cinderella, working in the vineyard fields with two lazy, shouting brothers. Fortuitously, she would meet her European-looking Prince Charming dressed in the finery of royalty. He would gaze upon her beauty and become enrapt. Disney would then introduce a villainous character, maybe his mother. She would scold him in the palace, “Whatever you do in life, just don’t bring home a black girlfriend.” 

            The movie would shift to another encounter between the star-crossed lovers, where they sing a Celine Dion and Elton John duet. She sings about how she is only dark because her brothers have forced her to work daily in the sun. She would sing about how she is really beautiful anyway, and worthy of his love.  He would sing about how he sees her true inner beauty, her deep pure whiteness.   In Pygmalion/Disney fashion, the dark beauty will make some friends either anthropomorphized animals or tools, who will teach her how to clean up, how to lighten her skin, even how to straighten and Clairol-bleach her hair. They would find her a light blue, ball-gown and she and King Solomon would live happily ever after. 

            In my research, I found this young peasant woman listed as one of the few black characters of the Bible. But the way I read the text, it seems that she was rather a deeply tanned woman of Mediterranean descent.  I can preach the text against classism. I cannot preach it as one that is directly against racism. But I do see within in it the insidiously, dark (no – maybe I should say, the insidiously, negative) problem of skin color prejudice.   

            Did you hear, what I just did, the language systems of our world have made “dark and black” negative, and “light and white” positive.  Tragically, the human fear of the lack of vision during nighttime has become symbolized as “black” and the comforting brightness and clarity of daytime has become symbolized as “white.”   Go home and look up the term black in the Wikepedia web-encyclopedia and you will find a long list of negative associations with the color: Black magic, black cat, black market. Remember Snow White, bright angels, and the old songs of how Jesus’ blood washes us clean as white snow. 

            Racism in our world is a confusing and complex combination of ethnic, racial, and classist prejudices and power struggles.   One of its deepest sinful roots is skin color prejudice. Culturally-learned color bias whispers to us, that white is better than black, that lighter skin is better than darker skin. The whispers tells us that the darker your skin, the more dangerous, the less intelligent, the more expendable, the less valuable, the less beautiful you are, the less promotions, the less ease in life. Thusly the whiter you look corresponds to more intellect, potential, value and beauty, more promotions, more ease in life.    

            I would love to think that colorism no longer influences our society.   I would love to believe that Dr. King’s dream had arrived, that day where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. 

            Considering white people’s addiction to tanning, one might think that the problem is past us. It’s not. Skin color prejudice thrives. Queen Latifa started as a rap-singing, doo-rag wearing, big black woman. Now her hair is straight with blond highlights, and her skin lighter. She is a CoverGirl.   Millions of dollars are spent on skin-lightening products. The majority of colored models considered beautiful have lighter complexions. The darkest, scariest villains of the Lord of the Ring movies were dark-skinned and had dreadlocks.  Simply, if dark is associated with bad and you are born with dark skin, unless there is strong evidence otherwise, you can easily believe in an innate badness, in some innate inferiority to the lighter skinned.   

            As a Christian, my deepest core belief is imagio dei . This belief is born out of my study of scripture. It starts in the creation stories of Genesis, it fuels the 10 Commandments of God, the pleadings of the prophets, the life, and teachings of Jesus Christ, the stories of his disciples, and the early church.   This ethical belief that God’s image is within each human, declares an equality, the fabulous worth of every child of God. This ethical belief commands respect for others. It commands resistance to any whispers or powers that seek to convince that some people are better than others.   It commands a fight against the privileging hierarchies of our societies. It demands we acknowledge white supremacy. 

            Yesterday, I struggled with how to open up this frustrating topic, that is shame-producing for whites, and rage promoting for people of color. I struggled with how to delve into a deep paradox within me, the conflict between desires for self-protection/promotion and Jesus’ command to love neighbors.    My deep-set self interest is glad that I’m white looking.   But my deepest core belief, imagio dei, demands that I not take advantage of privileges that denigrate others. Frustrated, I walked into Beans and Bagels, and ordered a toasted poppy-seed bagel with eggs, and sausage.   Fuming about the complexities of racism in our country, and the seeming impossibility of combating white supremacy and white deserved privilege bore me down. And then I looked up and saw the Serenity Prayer framed above the coffee bar.   It says, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. I pondered for some wisdom. Is racism and white dominance something that we can change or not? Can we change our very human nature’s drive to self-preservation and promotion?   Can we change the structures of our civilizations that encourage stratifications of people? Or is it just too complex, too dominate, too confusing, too dangerous, too hard.   

            I stand before you this morning ready to say, “Hell yes, we can change.” With the hope and courage of Jesus Christ flowing within, we can daily change ourselves, our families, our congregations, our county and the world.    We can promote a reconciled humanity that values diversity, diversity of color, faith, and culture. We can sing Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s song of hope, “Ebony and Ivory together in perfect harmony.” 

            James and John asked Jesus for special roles, special places of influence in his coming kingdom.  They wanted to be Jesus’ closest confidants, captains for justice. Maybe they believed they had better gifts for leadership than the other disciples. Maybe they wanted Jesus to confer upon them a superior status.    Martin Luther King Jr. preached a sermon on this passage called, The Drum Major Instinct.  Kingshares that they dreamed Jesus would become the King of Israel setting Jerusalem free, and ruling the world with righteousness. King preached that James and John were only responding to the common human trait, the Drum Major instinct, to quest for recognition, to desire attention, to get ahead, to prove themselves.   He defines it a normal human impulse that can become destructive if not harnessed.   When it is not harnessed it can become a “snobbish exclusivism” where “one will push down others in order to push himself up.”  He relates the instinct to racism saying, “Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct? A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first…And they have said over and over again in ways that we see with our own eyes. In fact, not too long ago, a man down in Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council. And so God being the charter member means that everybody who's in that has a kind of divinity, a kind of superiority. And think of what has happened in history as a result of this perverted use of the drum major instinct. It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man's inhumanity to man.”   

            I believe Dr. King is correct. He lifts up the paradox of ambition. As creatures designed with the image of God within us, we have a creation impulse. We have an ambition to move ahead, to create, to achieve. Unfortunately, there is a fine line to cross between the holy goals of ambition and those of self-promotion/protection that injure others. Jesus answers James and John not with a strong rebuke for he understood that they really did want to help bring in a just social order as Jesus’ captains. He answers them flipping the Drum Major Instinct from one that promotes self, into one that serves others.   Jesus instructs them not to use power to lord over others, but to use it to serve and lift up others. Yes – we can change the destructive patterns and behaviors of our world as we use all our gifts, powers, and resources daily serving and lifting up others. I ate my bagel, smiled and thought that we can together with all believers of every time and place, change this world teaching each other to be a new people. 

            Martin Luther KingJr. concludes his sermon, enthusiastic about his desire to be a drum major, but not for self-promotion. He preached: “Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind…If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, If I can spread the message as the master taught, Then my living will not be in vain. Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, …not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.”