Fun fact: Jesus spent most of his ministry teaching about the Kingdom of God. Yet, how often do we hear that? We love to talk about how Christ heals, reconciles, redeems, etc., but we spend precious little time over what was clearly his favorite subject. One guess as to why is that all those memorable parables and aphorisms, passed down through oral tradition until they were written into our Bible, don’t actually leave us with much of a blueprint for God’s kingdom. While that’s true, I also suspect that we (preachers and teachers) avoid the topic of God’s Kingdom – particularly in the pulpit – because the topic itself is unavoidably political in nature. In Jesus’ telling, the Kingdom of God stood as the antithesis and counterpoint to the empire, or kingdom, of Rome whose heavy hand of oppression and taxation was felt keenly by the inhabitants of Palestine in Jesus’ time. Those teachings leave us with the sense that the Kingdom of God was a hoped-for future in which humanity would live in peace, where fairness – i.e. social justice – prevailed in the distribution of wealth and resources, and the powers required to hold society together were less concentrated in the few and wealthy. At this point, to the astute political observer, The Kingdom of God seems suspiciously WOKE.
And there it is: the ultimate political insult and surest sign of a liberal agenda hell-bent on destroying America. Once labeled as woke, any person, policy, program, or book (even if taught by Jesus) can be immediately cancelled, dismissed and disregarded.
Though that’s not what woke originally meant. The term originated in the early 2000’s in the African American community as a way of referring to someone who was alert and attentive to racial prejudice and discrimination. Not just awake to instances of overt racism – someone using the ‘N’ word or targeting Blacks for hate crimes – but aware of the insidious discriminatory practices that make it harder for Blacks – on average – to achieve the same level of success as Whites. Thus ‘woke’ pointed to the reality of structural and institutional racism in our society.
And then the political blowback started: For, while a White such as myself might easily condemn acts of overt racism – we know not to use the ‘N’ word – we are less comfortable acknowledging the existence of structural racism because that means acknowledging our own complicity in a system of racial oppression…and we don’t like that idea.
Said differently, we Whites are comfortable acknowledging that slavery was a harsh reality that lasted north of 400 years for a large segment of our population; yet we are uncomfortable acknowledging any residual hangover from slavery or the Jim Crow laws that existed for much of the twentieth century. We love the idea of self-made individuals who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and achieve the American Dream. At the same time, we Whites are often averse to the idea that there might be an invisible hand in society that either gives someone an easier leg up or, alternatively, holds someone else down in the pursuit of their dreams. It goes against our American ideals of individual ruggedness and a fair shake for anyone willing to work hard and play by the rules.
And, boy, we don’t like it when others suggest that we are part of the problem – that our whiteness, our culture, our history, our economy – is inherently racist and repressive. In response, we resist affirmative action as being un-fair, and we lash out and suppress textbooks or corporate initiatives that suggest White culture and history might be anything less than exemplary in thought, word, or deed for the last 400 years. And then we fight like hell to prevent the mere concept of structural or institutional racism from being discussed in our schools, governments, businesses, cities and towns. We can’t have that; that crap is woke!
I get it: it’s one thing for me to acknowledge that I have slave-owning ancestors (I do) who held racist views 150 years ago, but it is altogether another to ask me to renounce my heritage as evil (a common, if inaccurate, criticism of Diversity, Ethnicity and Inclusion programs). Afterall, these are my people, my family, and I certainly don’t hold those racist views now, and I don’t know anyone else who does either. And if I didn’t have slave-owning ancestors, all the better, I’m even more justified in rejecting this whole woke thing.
On the other hand: If institutional and structural racism weren’t real, then we really would have a level playing field for all of us, whether black, white, yellow, green, or purple. But taking even a cursory look at this playing field – it doesn’t look very level. The life expectancy for Blacks across the US is 70.8 years while Whites live almost 6 years longer. Thirty-four percent of Black adults have associate degrees (or higher), compared with fifty percent of White adults. The average income for Black families is $52,860 while White families earn $77,250. Overtime, this income discrepancy equates to an astonishing gap in net worth, with White families averaging over 9 times as much wealth as their Black counter parts. And finally, Blacks are 3 to 4 times more likely to spend time in prison than Whites. So on this supposed level playing field, the average Black person lives a shorter life, having received less education, made less money, accumulated less wealth, and spent more time in prison than that average white person.
I don’t see how any of that could be true (and it’s all true) if powerful forces weren’t at work to shorten the lives, education, and earning potential of Blacks. So while we Whites might not think of ourselves as racist, we live in a country where being black has a clear penalty, and that is not just evidence of, but also the definition of, structural racism.
So I think it’s time we Whites woke up. We can be both honest about and still proud of our heritage. We can recognize and not feel threatened by the myriad ways in which things are just harder for people of color. When our Black brethren speak about the oppression they continue to experience, we can listen and hear the truth of which they speak. We need not be afraid, or insulted, or put upon. We are only being asked to walk in another’s shoes for a period of time and to allow that experience to shape us and our perception of the world. And once we can start to see it, then we can get with the program, the Jesus program, of building and revealing God’s Kingdom to the world.
Mad Love, Zach
Along The Way... 
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