ESTHER  2:19-3:6, 13-15 (from The Message)
MATTHEW  7:1-5                                                                                                          

Gordon E. Ellis
March 7, 2004

BREAKING   OUT   OF   THE   PRISON   OF   PREJUDICE

            There was an INCIDENT in our community several months ago that has LED our CLERGY Association in town to speak out -- and NOW to offer this Esther Sabbath.  It was an incident that happened at Sam the Clam’s on Meriden-Waterbury Turnpike.  It seems that a BI-RACIAL couple was there having DINNER, as my wife and I have had DINNER there on occasion.  And AS I understand it, they did NOTHING to incite any kind of violence against them.  Instead, THEY – and anyone who tried to intervene, even an 83-year old woman – were brutally BEATEN.  And it was SIMPLY the result of PREJUDICE.  Like HAMAN, looking at Mordecai in our Scripture Lesson from Esther, the MAN who incited the violence just DIDN’T LIKE the way this couple LOOKED.  HE was PREJUDICED!  In THIS case, it happened to be a BI-RACIAL couple, but it might WELL have been -- and in other communities, it HAS been – a JEWISH couple or a MUSLIM couple, a FOREIGN couple or a HOMOSEXUAL couple.  But in EVERY case, what it’s really ABOUT is PREJUDICE.  So THAT’S what I’d like to TALK about today: PREJUDICE.

            I BEGIN with the words of Sister Mary Roman, a Carmelite nun from Barre, VT.  She writes: Many years ago, on my way home from Germany, I became involved in a light-hearted SHIPBOARD romance.  The boat picked up passengers at Liverpool; among them a British boy who, like many others, was out to seek fame and fortune in America.  We became friends, did all the shipboard things together, and indulged in LONG talks.  Well one night, in a burst of SELF-REVELATION, as we walked the moonlit deck, he blurted out vehemently: “There’s one thing I can’t stand, and THAT’S a JEW.”  Well, END of our light-hearted shipboard romance.  As a JEWISH girl, who did not LOOK particularly JEWISH, I had had more than ONE such experience – though not always quite so EXPLICIT.  And years LATER, as a convert to Catholicism, I had to listen to my RELATIVES’ long diatribes about WILY Jesuits, who were trained to ensnare young innocents in their theological nets, and forcefully persuade them into the Catholic church.  Still later, when I made known my intention of entering the Carmelite ORDER, I was REGALED by BOTH my Jewish and Protestant friends with HORROR stories of what went ON behind convent walls.  And Mary Roman continues: There are FEW things we humans treasure MORE than LIBERTY.  We naturally RESIST confinement, restraint, control.  We are sensitive to even the SLIGHTEST obstacle to our personal freedom….  SO, why IS it, then, that we YIELD so EASILY and unquestionably to the TYRANNY of our PREJUDICES?

            Well, friends, Sister Mary Roman is RIGHT!  We TALK about forming an OPINION, but actually, DON’T our opinions form US?  ONE bad experience with someone, like HAMAN’S experience with Mordecai, and we tend to GENERALIZE, JUDGE and CONDEMN.  How often do we HEAR, or maybe SAY things like, I just can’t STAND lawyers, or I just can’t STAND school teachers, or I just can’t stand police officers or I just can’t stand FOREIGNERS, or WHOEVER it IS that we have had some sort of PROBLEM with in the past.  OR, we might say, I’m really AFRAID of BLACK people, or WHITE people, or HOMOSEXUALS, or EX-CONVICTS or HOMELESS people.  And so often, we just LEAVE these feelings and fears UNEXAMINED in ourselves.  But in TIME, they tend to GROW into PASSIONS, until they become PART of our very IDENTITY.  It’s JUST the way I AM, we say, as if THAT somehow JUSTIFIES us for being so RIGID and JUDGMENTAL: It’s JUST the way I AM.  But don’t you see: THAT’S nothing but PREJUDICE!

            The DICTIONARY defines PREJUDICE as an adverse judgment or opinion formed BEFOREHAND, or WITHOUT knowledge or examination of the FACTS.  It can BEGIN as a mere feeling of DISTASTE from hearing our parents TALK, or from ONE negative incident, as it does with HAMAN in our Scripture Lesson.  But ALSO like Haman, it can GROW into a FRENZY of HATRED.  And RACIAL prejudice, ETHNIC prejudice, RELIGIOUS prejudice, and SEXUAL prejudice have ALL proven themselves to be particularly VIRULENT forms of this affliction that we call PREJUDICE.  For example, almost 60 years ago, the GERMAN nation gave the entire WORLD a SHOCKING and devastating LESSON in the EXCESSES to which prejudice can lead, as MILLIONS of Jews were imprisoned and tortured, maddened and KILLED, in what became known as the HOLOCAUST.  SINCE that time, Holocaust literature has been growing to ENORMOUS proportions as historians, investigative reporters, photographers and SURVIVORS all EXAMINE and bear witness to the shameful FACTS of the Holocaust.  And RIGHTLY so, the EMPHASIS has been on the tragic FATE of its VICTIMS.  More RECENTLY, however, there has been a trend to examine more closely the character, and FATE, of the PERPETRATORS.  IN the process of their SADISTIC genocide, WHAT were they doing to THEMSELVES?  After all: we CANNOT indulge in DEHUMANIZING another human being without SEVERELY damaging our OWN humanity.  So, WHAT were they doing to THEMSELVES and to their OWN character?  For MOST of us, you see, the word NAZI NOW conjures up images of people who were rigidly BOUND and ENSLAVED by PREJUDICE -- and maybe people who were CRAZY and INHUMAN -- and CERTAINLY people who BECAME the personification of FEAR and HATRED.  And we think SIMILAR thoughts about the members of the Ku Klux Klan and OTHER hate groups.  When we think of them, we think of people who are ENSLAVED by prejudice, people in a DARK and dingy PRISON.  No, friends, we CANNOT indulge in DEHUMANIZING another human being without SEVERELY damaging our OWN humanity.  When I was a kid, I went through a BULLY phase.  And I would UNMERCIFULLY pick on, and BEAT UP, among others, this kid, whom we called Baby Ballou, because he would CRY at the drop of a hat, so WE didn’t LIKE him.  Well, to THIS day, I’M not sure WHO got hurt MORE in the long run.  It’s TRUE: we CANNOT indulge in DEHUMANIZING another human being without SEVERELY damaging to our OWN humanity.  Like HAMAN in the book of ESTHER, we slowly but surely become ENSLAVED by our prejudices, and we END up hurting OURSELVES and our OWN character.  And THAT’S because, whether it’s a WHIFF of DISTASTE or a BLAST of HATRED, the SOURCE of prejudice is ALWAYS the SAME.  Prejudice ALWAYS originates in our DARK side, our EVIL side; and SOME would say: in the FURNACES of HELL.  And therefore, it is BOUND to cause us HARM.

SO, we NEED to CONFRONT prejudice, and ELIMINATE it, wherever we experience it.  The ONLY question is: HOW do we DO that?  Well, I think that there are only TWO ways that we can confront and eliminate prejudice.  ONE is with FACTS.  For example: I had VERY different feelings about homosexuality BEFORE I learned TWO facts.  FIRST, I took a year-long educational program in SEX therapy.  And IN that program, I learned that RESEARCH shows, that in EVERY culture across the globe, 10% of ALL people are purely HOMOSEXUAL.  ANOTHER 10% are purely HETEROSEXUAL.  And the other 80% of ALL people are stretched out on a CONTINUUM, somewhere in between being PURELY homosexual and PURELY heterosexual.  They may only ACT one way or the other, but they have SOME tendencies toward BOTH.  WOW!  What a DIFFERENCE it makes to KNOW that fact!  And it makes me think that MOST people, who are MOST homophobic, must be EXTREMELY afraid of their OWN homosexual tendencies.  The SECOND fact that I learned is that, MOST often, when the Bible talks about homosexuality being an ABOMINATION, it’s ACTUALLY talking about RAPE and violence, which was very COMMON in those days, rather than the COMMITTED kind of homosexuality that WE see in so many same-sex relationships today.  SO, knowing the FACTS is ONE way to confront and eliminate PREJUDICE.

 The SECOND way that we can CONFRONT and ELIMINATE prejudice is by REMEMBERING and contemplating GOD’S love for ALL of creation, ALL of which God has labeled as GOOD.  Just as PREJUDICE, with its complex assortment of NEGATIVE reactions, DISTORTS our vision of reality, SO, FAITH, with its SINGLE eye on the TRUTH of God’s LOVE for ALL people, puts EVERYTHING into its proper perspective.  You see: when push comes to shove, it’s ALL about LOVE, GOD’S love!  In the FIRST Letter of JOHN, chapter 4, we find these words: Beloved, let us LOVE one another, because LOVE is from God; everyone who LOVES is BORN of God and KNOWS God.  And whoever does not LOVE does NOT know God, for God IS love….  Friends, those who become TRUE Christians, TRUE disciples of Jesus Christ, DO SO, NOT so much in the measure that they love GOD, although THAT must be their CONSTANT striving.  They DO SO in the measure that, forgetting THEMSELVES, they can GAZE at, and PLUNGE into and finally become LOST IN, the INFINITE depths of GOD’S love for each and every ONE of God’s CREATURES.  You see: contemplating GOD’S love puts us in a proper perspective to FACE the world.  Whereas UNDER the influence of PREJUDICE, with its suspicions, fears and hatreds, my fellow creatures become my ENEMIES -- and EVERYTHING becomes a THREAT – WHEN I contemplate GOD’S love for ALL of creation, which has been REVEALED to me IN and through Jesus Christ, THEN I can see the BEAUTY and the GOODNESS that is present in ALL people.  AND, I can SEE that God LOVES diversity, and CREATED it for a REASON: because it is SO beautiful and SO life-giving.  So you SEE: as prejudice DISTURBS the heart, with its welter of emotions, FAITH in God’s love RESTORES the heart to a sense of CALM, PEACE and SECURITY.  And WITH our hearts GROUNDED in GOD’S love for ALL of creation, we come to SEE ourselves for WHO we really ARE.  WE are CREATURES of GOD’S making, and objects of God’s CARING.  We are MEMBERS of ONE human family, GIFTED like ALL the others with a DIVINE destiny.  And if WE can keep THIS perspective, our WORLD will be ENLARGED.  No longer will we be CRAMPED within the narrow CONFINES of our personal misgivings, our personal suspicions and our personal prejudices.  Instead, we will let LOVE cast out FEAR, and we will be TRULY FREE.

The Psalmist writes: SURRENDER to God, and GOD will do everything FOR you.  And of course, the KEY word here is SURRENDER.  We NEED to surrender!  We NEED to LET GO of our NARROW-MINDED fears and inclinations, because they are NOT what we SEE in Jesus Christ.  HIS love was a radically-INCLUSIVE love for ALL people, REGARDLESS of RACE, regardless of religion, regardless of nationality, regardless of social acceptability, regardless of sexual orientation, regardless of wealth or prosperity, and regardless of past SINS.  HE loved EACH person He MET, WITHOUT prejudice.  And He loved them AS IF they were the ONLY person on earth TO love.  And friends: THAT’S the kind of love that WE need to be LIVING in this world, because that’s how He CALLS us to live.  And so, we HAVE to let GO of our prejudice.  We have to SURRENDER it!  We have to PRAY it right OUT of our hearts!  And we DO that by LEARNING the facts, AND by contemplating the AMAZING and unconditional, unending and unmerited LOVE of GOD that we see in and through Jesus Christ.  St. Paul urges us to PUT ON the MIND of Christ.  Well, as far as I can tell, THAT’S a MIND that is totally INCAPABLE of prejudice!  And it’s a mind that REACHES OUT in LOVE for ALL people, everywhere.  Friends, may CHRIST’S mind be OUR mind.  Amen.

With Thanks To: Mary Roman, OCD: Prejudice: Prison of the Mind.  Praying, January-February 1997, P. 19.