A solution to racism

Family,

I was struggling with this text all week. I havent found it easy to find inspiration and guidance in preaching about "geneology," but that was before God opened my eyes. Ironically, the inspiration came from my dad, who has no biblical knowledge or foundation, and yet, he was able to illumine the text in a way i had overlooked.

Often times i want to get into the meat, academically, of the text and exegete the text, discover the Hebrew/Greek meaning of words, and i should, because this honors the text as it was intended. But. If i in my desire for an intellectual approach to the Scripture, i miss an obvious, easy message, i have done no justice to God or our church. And it took my dad, a non-believer, to help me see. God works in mysterious ways.

Genesis 10 is a chapter about the sons of Noah and their families. It is a story about how humanity spreads out and begins to repopulate the earth after the tragic, yet necessary, events of the flood. And it is a story about how God's blessings overflowed for Noah and his boys. But it is also a story about our common ground, our common lineage, and our common ancestry. At the core of all of this, is the truth that each of us, whether one is from North America, Africa, Asia, or Europe, come from the same family tree. In essence, we are all family, and the narrative of Noah's sons and their sons illustrates how truly connected we are.

Each son represents the populace of a different section of ground, whether that be near Egypt, Greece, or Israel herself, Noah's sons prove God's intention to unite us all, through Him. It is a commonality we share with each other. If we could trust in that, wouldn't that resolve or at least begin to resolve many of our racial conflicts? If we could ground ourselves in the reality, the truth, that each of us come from the same beginnings, couldn't we work for justice together, fight against oppression together, and stand before water hoses together? I believe so.

If can lean on our common history, we could create, together, an amazing future. And i know we can do it. The geneology of Noah's sons isnt just a historical record of one family, it is THE historical record of humanity. All peoples, everywhere, can trace their lineage and beginnings to this part of our story as a people, and that should give each of us hope that peace is possible, racial reconcilation is possible, diversity that is welcomed and embraced is possible, and that God's Kingdom can and will break upon our world once again.

This is about Noah's family, but it says so much more. It is about the founding of our world's political and social systems, which inevitably, as we read in chapter 11, begins to separate and dominate each other, instead of connecting to one another. And we can continue down this path of disunity and discord, but if we can learn a lot from chapter ten, including that we all come from the same family tree, and we are all sisters and brothers. Recognizing each other as family will go along way to determining our future. It is a future i have a lot of hope for, because i sense the possibilities, for us as children of God, are endless. I hope you feel that hope too. Amen.

Shalom,
jerry