Reflections from a Ferguson coffee house -- Part I

Anger. Fear. Sadness. As I sat at a coffee house not far from Ferguson’s “ground zero”, I contemplated the sentiments I’d been hearing expressed in conversations, in the news and on social media.

We’ve all had natural reactions to recent events—largely predictable ones based on our background, upbringing and, as confirmed by the polls-- our race. Evaluating people and situations based on group identity is convenient. It saves time and the energy required for deeper reflection.

But for followers of Jesus of any race and background, it’s helpful to be reminded of his approach to such things. He had no place for the practice, prevalent in all times and cultures, of reacting to people on the basis of group “brand”.

In Jesus’ own day, for example, the Samaritan race was despised by his home culture. His countrymen would journey far out of their way to circumvent the Samaritan province in the way whites avoid travelling through north St. Louis city. Yet Jesus repeatedly traveled on foot through the region, mixing with the Samaritan people.

On one such journey he naturally came into contact with a local resident at a public well. This particular Samaritan also happened to be a woman. In Jesus’ time, women were held in low regard and men of his culture generally refrained from conversing with a female in public. Furthermore this hardscrabble, perhaps jaded, woman had been married and divorced five times and was currently living with a man in unmarried state. Virtually any religious leader of Jesus’ day would hold this Samaritan woman in utter contempt.

Yet he respectfully engaged her by asking for the favor of sharing a drink from her cup. In the process, they became engaged in an animated, far reaching conversation about personal, ethnic, and spiritual concerns. Their discussion—the longest recorded in the New Testament between Jesus and another person—went far beyond his reported conversations with most religious figures of his own culture.

On another occasion, to the dismay of his listeners, Jesus casts a member of the despised Samaritan race as the hero of a story—a hero who epitomized kindness and charity. The Parable of the Good Samaritan transformed the term “Samaritan” from a degrading racial slur to one of the most ennobled concepts in western society.

Following Jesus’ example of embracing people as individuals rather than reacting according to group identity, Mother Teresa explained, “I feel called to serve individuals, to love each human being…. I never think in terms of a crowd, but of individual persons. If I thought in terms of crowds, I would never begin my work. I believe in the personal touch of one to one.”

Experiencing individuals directly can change perceptions.

Recently a number of my white, suburban friends spent an extended weekend as camp counselors with about a hundred poverty-laden black, urban youth. For some counselors it was their first such experience. I asked several of them how their assumptions about such kids were impacted by their up close, live-in contact with them. The response of one was reflective of them all, “I thought they’d be different, more hardened. They were much more loving than I thought. They craved love and affection.”

It’s natural and necessary that in our dealings with others we discern the nature of the people with whom we are involved. Jesus articulated the appropriate, individualized basis for doing so. He observed, “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.” He asserted, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” Martin Luther King echoed this perspective by longing for the day when people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The racial tension in Ferguson—and America—has been many generations in the making. It is complex as are the potential solutions. The current circumstances indeed offer reason for hope—hope for a more authentic conversation and for productive, healing changes. It seems, however, long term solutions must include a heartfelt, stubborn resolve on the part of those of all backgrounds to perceive and respond to people as individuals with innate value and dignity.

Our tendency to evaluate and react to people in terms of group identity is not surprising. It is, after all, so convenient, so reflexive.

And so unlike Jesus.

John 4; John 8:48 & Luke 10:25-37; Mathew 12:35 & 7:16