September 22, 2013

Galatians 3:26-29 — For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise

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I watched a pretty good movie on the plane over from Frankfurt yesterday — “42”.
For those of you that don’t follow these things — and I guess there are some — Jackie Robinson was number 42. He was the first African American in Major League Baseball and there will never be another number 42. These very real events happened in 1947, and the courage of Jackie, Branch Rickey (the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers) changed Baseball for ever and surely laid one of the foundations of the Civil Rights movement.
“Sounds like a GREAT movie,” I hear you saying, “how come you only rated it ‘pretty good’?” Well, here’s the thing. Most movies exaggerate, but this one, I think painted the corrosive bitterness that Rickey and Robinson faced with only a muted palette. But this piece isn’t about my undoubtedly excellent credentials as a movie critic. No, it’s about prejudice.

You might wonder why I’m writing this more than 65 years after the events the film portrayed. Let me make a shameful confession. It is one of the things I like least about myself. I am prejudiced. There are people that I meet that I don’t think I’m going to like. Of course I’ve been proved wrong so many times that you’d think I would have learned better by now. And whenever I detect this horrid quality in myself I do struggle against it.
If you can honestly, absolutely, deny that there is the slightest stain of my sickness in you — move on — congratulations. Otherwise, stick with me.

You see, I am NOT alone. In fact just about everybody is prejudiced one way or another — race, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, dress choices, wealth (or lack of it). There are more excuses for “disliking” people than I can think of. And there’s no reason for it! There is only one distinction. Christian, or not? And the “not’s” might not be in the family yet, but we want them! So that person I “just don’t like” might be my sister or brother tomorrow. Better get used to it. Better start loving them now. Or I can be those people who hated Jackie Robinson because He was black, and couldn’t bring themselves to love his God-given talent.

Prejudice is not new. In fact it was ingrained in the Jewish man of Paul’s day who prayed every morning to thank God that “You have not made me a Gentile, a slave or a woman.” Let’s be honest about it and fight against it — in the memory of number 42.