Cure To Racism – Part 1

Racism is cancer that has eaten deep into the fabric of our society.  It has caused hostility, injustice, and hatred.  The recent murder of George Floyd had awoken us to realize that racism is a human malady that must be addressed, not just in words but from a spiritual perspective as well.  For this reason.  I will be approaching this from a biblical point of view. 

Is racism a spiritual sickness?

The answer is yes.    What is spiritual sickness?  Spiritual sickness is the inability to see things from God’s point of view.  When one is suffering from spiritual myopia then things are not seen clearly as God sees them.  The Bible says, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place – Acts 17:26(ESV).  It means every human being comes from one source.  God is the creator of everyone.  Starting with Adam then comes every human here now and to come.  We inhale the same oxygen and exhale the same carbon-dioxide.  We all have the same red blood flowing in our bodies.   We are all equal because we are all created in the image of God.  No nation or man is above another.  God determines the rising and falling of nations.  There were nations like Babylonia, Assyria, Hittite Empire, Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Athens that used to be powerful but are now either forgotten or not so powerful.  It means God also determines the existence of any nation. Therefore “it is not by power or by might but by the Spirit of the LORD” that any nation or individual is existing. 

So if we all come from the same Creator why do we have a different shade of skin? How uncreative will it be if an eight billion world population has the same skin color?  God is the God of varieties.  Dwell on this: How boring will it be if we have just one color for the flowers or the fish in the sea or the birds of the air?  He has different colors, sizes, and personalities for all these; all for His own pleasure.   

Can we blame God for being creative in having a different shade of color for human beings?  Dwell even more on this, we use the words “white” and “black” to describe human skins. However, we all know white color; no one has skin that is white as snow and no one has skin that is black as charcoal. I truly wish that linguistics should come up with names that reflect the same root word. 

So how can we cure this cancer that is called racism? 

Well; the truth is, Jesus, dealt with this issue since it is an age-old problem.  In John 4, Jesus confronted the plague of racism in Samaria.  Samaria was between Judea in the south and Galilee in the north.  There was a bitter hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans because the Jews regarded the Samaritans as half-Jews.  Centuries ago the Assyrians captured the ten tribes in the northern kingdom in Israel and brought the Assyrians to take over the land of Israel.  There was intermarriage between the Assyrians and Israel in the Northern Kingdom.  This caused the strict Jews to hate the Samaritans and rejected them because they believed they were impure.   They were even restrained from participating in temple worship.  The Samaritans felt rejected by their own brothers hence the great bitterness between the two.  The Jews because of this feud will not even pass through Samaria for the fear of being contaminated.  This was the pathetic situation for years.

Jesus taught us in John 4, how to overcome racism.  He went to Sychar in Samaria despite the hostility between the Jews and Samaritans. He broke the ice by asking a woman to give Him water to drink – John 4: 7.  The woman was indeed shocked, reminding Jesus that as a Jew He must not even be talking to her – v. 9.  Jesus revealed Himself to the woman and she recognized Him as the long-awaited Messiah.  Then the disciples of Jesus came and saw Him talking to a Samaritan woman.  Their reaction was to be expected as revealed in v. 27.  They were stunned.  There were two problems. 1. Jesus, as a rabbi, is not supposed to be talking to a woman in the public. 2. The woman is a Samaritan who is considered by the Jews as degrading, disreputable, shameful, wretched, and vile.  That is racism. The disciples look down on this woman as impure, as degrading.  They have been taught and told that the Jews are superior.  The LORD Jesus destroyed the plague of racism that day by holding a conversation with her.  He removed the barrier of racism by going to where the Samaritans were.  The wall of hostility was broken.  Peter was helped by Jesus again after His resurrection to overcome racism as we will see in “Cure to racism Part 2”.  The Body of Christ will be limited in her power if we do not eradicate racism.

I am praying that Church Leaders will rise to champion this cause, cure cancer that is racism.  Let us start to break the walls of hostility today.  Christians are the salt of the world, let’s end the bitterness that racism brings.  And we are also the light, let us show the errors of racism so we can rid our nation of it.