Mark
8:31-38
We often forget, perhaps willingly,
that slavery was once legal throughout the American colonies, Pennsylvania
included. I’m going to read in a few
moments from the Journal of John Woolman,
who was a Quaker born in New Jersey in 1720.
He became one of the earliest and most effective abolitionists. Still, it wasn’t until 1780 that the
commonwealth passed a “gradual emancipation” law that declared that children
born to enslaved women in were to be considered free. Those held as slaves continued as such until
freed by the slaveholder or by death.
And slavery was as brutal in the North as in the South. In the mid-eighteenth century a black man was
convicted of a crime and executed in Perth Amboy by being burnt alive, with
persons of color from all neighboring townships forced to witness the
execution.
Looking back on those times, we want
to ask how people could have allowed it.
We want to think that we would have been the ones who would have stood
up and said, “No!” Woolman’s Journal gives an insight into how even
somebody who knew, deep down, that the customs and law of the time were wicked
could calm and soothe his conscience. As
background to this passage, it helps to know that Woolman was a notary who was
paid to sign off on transfers of property of all sorts.
“My employer, having a negro woman, sold her, and desired me to write a
bill of sale, the man being waiting who bought her. The thing was sudden; and
though I felt uneasy at the thoughts of writing an instrument of slavery for
one of my fellow-creatures, yet I remembered that I was hired by the year, that
it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a
member of our Society, who bought her; so through weakness I gave way, and
wrote it; but at the executing of it I was so afflicted in my mind, that I said
before my master and the Friend that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice
inconsistent with the Christian religion. This in some degree abated my
uneasiness; yet, as often as I reflected seriously upon it, I thought I should
have been clearer if I had desired to be excused from it, as a thing against my
conscience; for such it was. Some time after this a young man of our Society
spoke to me to write a conveyance of a slave to him, he having lately taken a
negro into his house. I told him I was not easy to write it; for though many of
our meeting and in other places kept slaves, I still believed the practice was
not right, and desired to be excused from the writing. I spoke to him in
goodwill; and he told me that keeping slaves was not altogether agreeable to
his mind; but that the slave being a gift made to his wife, he had accepted
her.”[1]
“I’m
only doing my job.” “It could have been
worse.” “It wouldn’t last long.” “It was my wife’s decision.” “I needed to keep peace in the house.” “I didn’t want to offend anyone.”
Let’s talk about Jesus. He confronted some of the most entrenched
abuses of his own day, practices that had their justifications. Roman coins had the image of Caesar stamped
on them: Augustus Caesar, who claimed the title divi filius, “son of a god”.
Images and idols could not be carried into the Temple, so moneychangers
were needed to prevent that. Likewise,
if the Law required animals to be sacrificed, a pilgrim coming from North
Africa or Persia couldn’t carry a cage of pigeons that whole way. It made sense to set up a few stalls where
they could buy them right there. So far,
so good.
But
we all know what happens when people bid for the contract and sweeten the deal,
right? Kickbacks, exploitation of those
who could least afford to be there, artificially high prices, the poor being
elbowed out of their place as part of the congregation, the sellers forgetting
why they were there in the first place, and who-knows-what-else Jesus saw going
on.
“And
he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those
who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the
moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow
anyone to carry anything through the temple.
He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,
‘My
house shall be called a house of prayer for all
the
nations’?
But you have made it a den of robbers.’”
[Mark
11:15-17]
Yes,
there were times that Jesus expressed lenience, as when hungry people plucked
grain to eat on the Sabbath, or when a sick man whom he healed took up his bed
and walked away with it, again on the Sabbath.
But when what was going on destroyed people’s relationship with God or
degraded them as human beings, he had no patience.
Jesus emphasized that it is one
thing to be stuck without good choices, but it is another to deny that you have
choice, or to sell out. When you do
that, what you sell is more than you will ever realize.
“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If
any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the
gospel, will save it. For what will
it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” [Mark
8:34-37]
(Now, I
warn you, I’m going to stop preaching and start meddling.)
I’ll
start with myself, though. I have to
admit that I am where I am because of how unfairly others have been
treated. William Penn may have made his
treaties with the Indians, but for the most part, this land was not
borrowed. A big chunk of the wealth that
built our economy came from slave labor.
As for myself, specifically, I can point to scholarships that helped me
out in seminary that came from the Duke Foundation (as in Duke University),
whose money ultimately derived from James Duke’s ability to encourage smoking
and sell a lot of cigarettes in China.
My education is tied to an increased rate of cancer and emphysema. Do I not, then, owe it to someone to say that
I cannot undo the past, but I refuse to repeat injustice in the future? So hear this: “Don’t smoke, don’t vape, don’t
chew, don’t juul. Just don’t.”
Jesus’
words also mean that what we think is to our benefit may not be worth anything
in the long run, so be prepared to forgo what you consider to be owed to you,
because you might lose your soul over it.
You may have a legal right to say anything, but if it is hate speech, or
even simple gossip, you don’t have any moral right to open your mouth. Maybe people have a legal right to own an
assault rifle, but children deserve safe schools more than you deserve whatever
warm and fuzzy feeling you get from having an AR-15 in the house. Maybe you don’t own any weapon like that, but
do you have stock in a company that sells them?
There are places in the world where prostitution is legal, but what does
it do to everyone involved in the business?
There are spots where you could farm poppies for opium and heroin
production. Could you look into the eyes
of someone whose child has overdosed? These
things give fuller meaning to “making a killing”.
Just
be aware that you kill yourself at the same time. And for what?
There’s a scene in A Man for All
Seasons where Thomas More is on trial for treason that he has not
committed, but Henry VIII wants him found guilty. One of More’s former proteges steps forward
and gives false testimony against him that everyone in the court recognizes
will guarantee conviction and a death sentence.
More notices that the witness is wearing a chain and badge identifying
him as the new attorney-general for Wales and says to him, “Richard, it
availeth a man nothing to sell his soul for the world. But for Wales?”
An
English teacher I had in high school told us on the first day of class, “I want
you all to know that I can be bribed – but that none of you can afford my
price.” I hope nobody else ever could,
either, for their sake as well as for hers.
