During Lent, the forty days leading up to Easter, Christians commonly give something up as an act of spiritual discipline and to align themselves with Jesus’ forty days of fasting in the wilderness. While I grew up in a Christian home, my family didn’t do much for Lent. As Jewish followers of Jesus, we focused our attention on the one-two-punch of Passover and Easter - Passover reminding Jewish people of how God delivered our ancestors from slavery in Egypt and Easter reminding Christians of how Jesus delivered us from slavery to sin and death. So, while Lent wasn’t a huge part of my personal Christian tradition, this year I decided to contemplate and interact with this season in ways I previously haven’t.
At first, I couldn’t figure out what God wanted me to give up. Chocolate? Honestly, I barely eat any. Movies? I love them, but I’m so busy that I watch maybe two movies a month. Social media? I’ve pared down my social media presence so much over the last year, it would be cheating to give it up for Lent. Then, God sparked something in my mind and heart. What if I used Lent to make lasting life changes? What if I cut something out of my life entirely, starting in this season, because of Christ’s sacrifice and its corresponding eternal freedom? Seconds after asking those questions, I knew what God wanted me to give up:
White supremacy.
Allow me to explain. I have never identified as a white supremacist and I don’t think I’m a racist. Here’s the thing, though: there are far fewer people who identify themselves as “racists” or “white supremacists” than there are people born into structures whose foundational elements include white supremacy and whose engines of continued existence and operation are fueled by racism. I have been forged in the fires of a racialized society, one designed to dehumanize, disempower, and disenfranchise Black, indigenous, and people of color (to say nothing of women, people who are neuroatypical, or LGBTQ people). My Jewish identity instills in me compassion for people considered “other” and a certain attunement to cries for justice. Also, my relationship with Jesus has aligned me with the hopeless and rejected - I believe Jesus calls his friends and relatives to radical compassion and empathy. But these crucial components of who I am - Jewish and Christian - are in constant conflict with another reality: I am a cishet, white, man from a middle class background, and each of those teachers (gender and sexual identity, whiteness, socio-economic experience) fight to disciple me away from the path of Jesus.
There are a few components to consider if I want to be honest about giving up white supremacy. I need to recognize I have already been obviously and subtly molded by the white supremacy inherent in my society. And I need to understand and accept the American experiment is one in which the foundational racism and bigotry of our nation is always at odds with the diversity of people who call it “home.” I know there are other nuances that need to be explored and excavated, but for the sake of brevity here’s one more - I need to wrestle with ideas of “whiteness” and how those have informed my identity as a person and a Christian. If Jesus is king over my life, and if he wants to renew and purify every aspect of who I am, I have to give him these fleeting and illusory notions of how I want to be seen by society.
Following this line of thinking led me, fortunately, to the Bible. But what does the Bible have to say about prejudice, bigotry, or white supremacy? I was reminded of something Paul wrote to believers in Galatians 3:27-29: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
Paul wrote these words to a multiethnic congregation. Nearly all the earliest followers of Jesus were Jewish, but the message of the gospel spread throughout the known world and many Gentiles (a catch-all term for non-Jewish people) responded in faith to the story of Jesus. In these communities growing in diversity, problems arose and questions about whether or not someone needed to live specifically as a Jewish Christian caused conflict. In short, people fought over cultural/ethnic supremacy: were Jewish believers more important or valuable in the kingdom of God, and should Gentile believers essentially convert to a Jewish faith-practice?
Paul communicated this answer - Absolutely not.
In Galatians 3:27-29, Paul wasn’t erasing all differences between people, teaching a first century version of “colorblindness.” Rather, he mentioned broad categories (Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female) in order to bring them all to the feet of Jesus. The allegiance of believers should be with Jesus (we “who were baptized into Christ have clothed [ourselves] with Christ”). And because of finding our primary identity in Jesus, we should then identify with anyone and everyone else who similarly follows him (“for you are all one in Christ Jesus”).
When I hold fast to concepts of whiteness and allow a racialized and racist society free access to my worldview and identity, I have fundamentally misunderstood something about what it means to identify with Jesus. My teacher, my savior, walked the earth as a dark-skinned Jewish person, a working-class tradesman with no evidence of formal education; he belonged to a marginalized group, since the Jewish people had been conquered by the Romans, whose soldiers occupied the Jewish homeland; from within his own people group, Jesus came from the bad part of town, and he continually upset his community’s religious leaders by challenging their control of the minds and hearts of the common people; he showed love and compassion to the poor, to those with physical injuries and diseases (making them “unclean” in Jewish tradition), to women, and to Gentiles. For me, right now, aligning myself with Jesus means accepting the freedom he gives me to reject our cultural ideas of whiteness and humbly and sincerely repent of my connections to white supremacy.
This Lenten season, I have no answers and am just trying to listen to God. I asked God what he wanted me to give up and he responded by convicting me regarding my relationship to white supremacy. It would have been easier if he was like, “I don’t know, Eryn, how about pasta?” But, ultimately, I wouldn’t be a better person, a better friend, a better husband and father, or a better Christian, if I shy away from God’s difficult request in favor of something simpler. And I know he’s asking me to give up other things, as well. White supremacy is a deep, wide, and insidious problem, but it’s one of many areas of my life that need to be transformed by Jesus. As I reflect during this time of year, I hope you’ll indulge me if I choose to share my thoughts with you. And I hope hearing my thoughts, frustrations, and moments of conviction, gives you something to think and pray about.