My Biblical hero is Jochebed, Moses’s mother (Exodus 6:20). This woman had faith and fight. Jochebed was a Levite woman of Israeli descent living with her people in Egypt. The Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians. Jochebed finds herself pregnant and gives birth to a son, Moses. Pharaoh gives an edict to kill every Hebrew boy born by throwing them into the Nile (Ex 1:22). To protect baby Moses, Jochebed hides him for the first three months of his life (Ex 2:2). When she could hide him no longer, to give him a chance of life, she places him in a basket in the very body of water meant to take his life. I try to imagine what pain and hope she felt as she knelt down by the Nile to say goodbye to her baby boy. The pain she must have felt to release the child entrusted to her not knowing what would become of him. The hope she must have had that the Lord would watch over His child. The faith she had. The fight she had.
Pharaoh’s daughter finds the basket with baby Moses inside as she is bathing in the Nile. She notices it is a Hebrew baby (I’m guessing because he would have been circumcised) and feels sorry for him because he is crying. Moses’s sister, Miriam, who followed the basket as it journeyed down the Nile (Ex 2:4) discretely and ingeniously approaches Pharaoh’s daughter and asks if she should get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby (Ex 2:7). Of course, Miriam is thinking of her mother, Moses’s mother, but she does not disclose this information. Verses 8 and 9 are glorious. Miriam gets their mother and Pharaoh’s daughter says, “Take this baby and nurse him for me.” I’m not sure how Jochebed fought back her tears in the presence of the princess as she held her son again. And, I cannot imagine the faithful and fervent prayers Jochebed prayed as she held, rocked, and nursed her son again for most likely another nine months until she had to return him to Pharaoh’s daughter (Ex 2:10). Jochebed releases her son again. This time to another woman, a stranger, to be his mom.
Being a mother requires faith like Jochebed’s. We pour and invest so much in our children only to release them to the world for them to hopefully be faithful servants who take part in the advancement of God’s kingdom. It’s an honor for a mother to pray for her children. I recently was at the beach and found myself praying for my children and the world I will release them into one day. As someone who believes God’s Word is the absolute source for truth and as a white mom raising white men, I sat on the beach thinking and praying about the world’s and my nation’s current reality of racism. ‘What, Lord, do you want from me?’ He kept bringing me back to my boys. ‘Lead, direct, and guide them and also pray for them like you imagine Jochebed prayed for Moses.’
I am praying for and rearing my sons trusting they become men who stand for truth, act justly, love mercy, love others, walk humbly with their God, fear the Lord their God, serve him only, keep his commands upon their hearts, impress his Word on their children one day, and talk about God’s Word in whatever they do (Micah 6:8, 1 John 4:7-21, Deut 6:13, Deut 6:6-7). If God’s Word is not the absolute standard for truth on how to love and treat others, then what is there? And if another source is claimed, how can it account for itself? God’s Word accounts for itself in the person of Christ (John 1 clearly lays this out for us).
I imagine a Christian mother praying for her black children would also pray similarly from Scripture. But, here is one difference. That black mother also prays for protection over her children in a way that I do not. She has fears that I do not have. She has to have conversations with her children that I do not have to have with mine. When my sons are able to drive, I will not have to talk with them about how to act if and when they get pulled over by the police. I will not have to tell them to always get a receipt upon a purchase at a store in case they get accused of stealing. Why? Because my sons are white, which instantly makes them privileged.
The beach where I was wrestling with my thoughts on racism is in South Carolina. I was there for eighteen glorious days. I’m a Carolina girl and being on the Carolina coast is my solace. There’s nothing better than having my feet in Carolina sand and eating Lowcountry cuisine. I love my home state, but I am not proud of some of its history – it was the first state to secede from the Union, Charleston was the largest slave port in the U.S., and it took until 2015 for the Confederate flag to be removed from the state’s capitol. And for people who proclaim the Confederate flag is about ‘heritage not hatred,’ I would ask ‘What part of American history does that flag represent?’
I want my sons to experience the Carolinas because my roots are there, but I want to be very clear with them about the racism that is still prevalent in my home state and in our world and the responsibility we have as white people who follow Jesus. Following Jesus precludes us from doing whatever we want. If we have prejudices against people who do not look like us, we have to repent and rely on Jesus to strip us of those prejudices so we can treat others to the standard he has set. If we have righteousness of our own, we have to repent and rely on his righteousness alone. If we have vices, we have to repent and rely on him to fill the void in our hearts. If our thought-life is trash, we have to repent and rely on him. Now, if a person does not proclaim Jesus as his or her Lord and Savior, then he or she can act however. I’m talking about the standard for believers, which my sons and I are. It is interesting how even people who do not proclaim Christ still inherently know that murdering someone is wrong. Where does that moral value come from if not from being made in the image of God?
After a lot of wrestling about the death of George Floyd, all the opinions about riots, and how to raise my kids in the midst of racism, I heard God’s voice in Acts 10 and the book of Jonah. In Acts 10, a centurion in the Italian Regiment named Cornelius is told by the Lord to get Peter from Joppa, a coastal town. Cornelius was an uncircumcised Gentile who was a devout, God-fearing man (Acts 11:3; 10:2, 22). Peter was a circumcised Jew who also followed Jesus. Peter was in Joppa thinking about a vision he had when Cornelius’s servants show up to retrieve him. God told Peter he sent the men and not to hesitate to go with them to Caesarea (Acts 10:19-20).
Peter’s vision from the Lord in Joppa was about not calling anything or anyone unclean that/who the Lord has made clean. God showed privileged, Jewish, circumcised Peter that he should not call anyone impure or unclean or less than because God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:28, 34). In fact, we are told that God commanded Peter to say, “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:33-35). A particular people group is not what is impure. Racism is what is impure. Dehumanizing another person made in the image of God is wicked.
Do you know who else God had to pull off the coastal town of Joppa to speak against wickedness? Joppa is where Jonah ran because he wouldn’t go to Nineveh with the message God gave him to preach against the city’s wickedness. Once in Joppa, he sets sail for Tarshish (Jonah 1:2-3). On his way to Tarshish, he gets thrown overboard (his suggestion) so the raging, stormy sea would become calm. A great fish swallows Jonah. After having a time-out in the great fish for three days, Jonah has a change of heart. God then commands the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. Once Jonah delivers God’s message to Nineveh, the king of Nineveh even recognizes their wickedness and says Nineveh is to “give up their evil ways and their violence” (Jonah 3:6-8).
Why are we not giving up our evil ways and violence in how we think about others and in how we treat others? Why are we still showing favoritism when God himself does not?
God used a captain to get Peter off the coast to declare to Jews and Gentiles that God does not show favoritism but accepts all people, and of course he does, he made them each. God used a great fish to get Jonah off the coast to declare to the people of Nineveh that they were wicked and violent. God used the death of a black man I did not know to get me thinking on the Carolina coast that I need to declare to my children, my students, my readers – “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right” (Acts 10:33-35).
Scripture teaches that God differentiates between the righteous and the unrighteous, those who believe and trust in Christ and those who do not. God does not discriminate between races, social classes, or gender (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11). Who are we to have divisions where God himself does not?
A resource I have listed below is a book by Aaron J. Layton titled Dear White Christian. He writes, “As we think about racial dialogue . . . , we must understand that one conversation, one unity service, or one city project is not enough to make us comfortable talking about race or to change our thinking. If there is going to be helpful, beautiful transformation in our thinking, we will need many conversations; we will need regular rhythms” (p.85-86). He defines ‘rhythms’ as steps you regularly take to help change a culture.
Here are some rhythms to help open our eyes to the wickedness of racism:
- Watch Harriet and Just Mercy (also a book). My husband and I watched these movies with our boys, discussed the injustices, and answered any questions they had.
- Go to Netflix and search Black Lives Matter. There is plenty there to watch. (13th is at the top of the list)
- Watch movies/documentaries to better understand systemic racism (Just Mercy and 13th are listed) https://popculture.com/streaming/news/Juneteenth-12-films-watch-educate-systemic-racism-us/
- Read The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton
- Read Dear White Christian by Aaron J. Layton
- Read The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at Its Best by Irwyn L. Ince, Jr.
- Read Scripture. Look specifically at what Paul writes about Jew and Gentile issues in Romans 2-3, 11-2; 1 Corinthians 1, 3, 8, 10, 12-13; 2 Corinthians 5; Galatians (the whole letter)
- Ask the Lord to show you where you need a breakthrough
- Talk to people (mainly listen) whose culture is different than you
- When not in a pandemic, travel. See and experience other cultures.