Hello everyone,
My name is Charles, the lead pastor here. Welcome to the Zoom Sunday service at The River. We’re in a new sermon series today called, “Invisible Beliefs that shape life and country.”
The idea behind the series is to examine different invisible values and beliefs behind major cultures throughout history that served as the foundation of life and society like Success or Responsibility or Righteousness that remain as powerful values that shape us today. But for true Christians, there can be only ONE core, foundational value that drives all the other values and behavior and thoughts. That is, Agape Love, the unconditional, divine love that confers worth and dignity to all human beings. This is what the Bible teaches us again and again.
What would it look like if Agape Love was REALLY the core belief and value that drives OUR life, as opposed to other invisible beliefs and values? Let’s explore; sound good?
Now for today, I’d like to talk about a book that opened my eyes to some powerful invisible beliefs shaping our life and country today. The book is called Caste: Origin of our Discontents. Written by Isabel Wilkerson who is a National Book prize winner. It is the latest Oprah book club pick. I highly, highly recommend it. It’s getting a lot of buzz out there, but originally, what caught my eyes is the title “Origin of our Discontents.” It reminded me of the phrase, “Original Sin.”, which is a big topic for us Christians, and as I read the book, I realized there IS a connection between Caste and the Original Sin, so that the mentality behind Caste systems could be justifiably called the Origin of our Discontents.
The word, “Caste” is most famously associated with India where the sacred, religious texts have been used to divide people. At the top are the Brahmin (the philosophers), then comes the Kshatriyas (the ruling class), next is Vaishyas (the merchants and farmers), the Shudras (the menial workers), and of course at the bottom is the “untouchables” called the Dahlits. And within each caste, there can be hundreds of sub-castes to rank people by their worth and value.
Caste mentality is not just in India, it’s universal.
These invisible beliefs can cause so much harm with support from decent, ordinary people. You don’t even notice it when you’re in it. It’s invisible beliefs driving our culture, like slavery was just a fact of life for much of human history.
The impulse behind Caste is universal, to divide people into groups to rank their worth. It’s the result of the Original Sin when humanity began to use the knowledge of good and evil or right and wrong or worthy and unworthy to begin judging each other and themselves. The result is, the first thing that happens to Adam and Eve is, “they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Genesis 3:7
When they apply the knowledge of right and wrong, worthy or unworthy to themselves, they see flaws. They are unworthy. So, they feel compelled to cover themselves up with fig leaves to feel better about themselves. As silly as that sounds, we all do it today.
We too MUST have coverings like success, like good job titles, like how skinny you are, positions in society and family that makes us feel worthy in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Such “coverings” can vary from civilization to civilization. In Nazi Germany, it was the Aryan race, if you have blue eyes and blonde hair, you’re more worthy, it’s ‘good covering.’ In India, if you’re from the untouchable Caste, Dahlits, then you’re not even worth talking to, you can’t even walk on the same road as higher caste members.
Isabel Wilkerson interviewed a Dahlit, from the lowest Caste in India. He came to the U.S. as a visiting professor at some top University like Harvard. During the interview, he pointed to his shoes, they were two sizes too big. He said “this is too big for me, but I could not bother the clerk to get my size, I had to just take what was on display”. Because back in India, when he goes into a store, he cannot bother the owner, he cannot ask for a price, because then they’ll say “you cannot afford it. Why are you wasting my time?”
He has too many things at home he doesn’t need, because once he enters a store, he cannot leave without buying something. He could get beaten up. He had this invisible programming back in his mind that was at work, even in America where he didn’t need to be so cautious. Isn’t that so sad?
Such invisible cultural programming runs in America too, this is why the cops get called on the black people for everyday activities. Isabel asked the scholar, what would make you feel better in these situations? He answered, “I need to feel better in my own skin.”
THAT is what Adam and Eve needed in the fall of humanity. Rather than coming up with arbitrary coverings, fig leaves to feel worthy in their own eyes, they needed to feel better about themselves in their own skin. And, Caste is the systematic manifestation of this Original Sin, it is an organized, civilized effort at judging and ranking worth and value of human beings based on some system of hierarchy, of right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, which is driven by the compulsion to find coverings which are only fig leaves in the end. In the end, no-one wins. We are all exiled.
This is why for Christians, it is of primary importance to fight discriminatory practices like the Caste system, because it’s the manifestation of the Original Sin perpetrated at the national level, invisibly running in the background like some sort of Matrix program in everyday life, doing the work of hell.
When cops get called on black people for everyday activities, like watching a sunrise in your own car -this happened to good friends of mine this past week- that causes traumatic programming like it did to the Dahlit scholar. For hundreds of years in America, there has been this invisible mental program running in the background that categorizes and ranks people based on the color of their skin. The lighter the skin color, the more worthy, the more valuable you are. Did you know it was illegal for white people to marry black people in New York until the 60s? Such attitudes can easily persist in culture.
What’s more shocking is this law against mixed marriages was in effect in Alabama into the year 2000. Just let that sink in, the year 2000. This law got overturned by popular referendum, but even then, 40% of the population voted to keep the law, to keep it illegal for whites to marry black people.
When people say, “I have a black friend, I can’t be racist.” or when we see injustice perpetrated against people of color by other people of color, and of course we have had a black President. This type of phenomenon is lifted up as proof that America is not racist. The Republican National Convention argues there is no race problem in America while NBA and major league baseball games are getting cancelled by players demanding justice for yet another shooting of black man in the back. The author argues that a better way to understand America is to see it through the invisible power of Caste system at work.
There are plenty of examples of low caste oppressing other low caste members. There were Jewish collaborators in concentration camps who oppressed other Jews for scraps of privilege. When you’re in the bottom caste, you get even more desperate to hold on to what little privilege you have.
This is why it’s not enough to just try to end the racial inequality in America. Of course, that’s a huge mission worth our passion and effort, but even when racial injustice ends, maybe when everyone is inter married, that will help. But, it will NOT end the human desire to rank everyone’s worth. Other systems will crop up to create alternative Caste systems. When Nazi Germany ran out of Jews to oppress, they began to go after dark haired, darker skinned Germans. Never mind that Hitler had dark hair. They called it the “Persian” trait.
This compulsion to rank people’s worth is in our blood, it’s the Original Sin after all. This is pointed out in a review of the book in the Atlantic magazine. The reviewer loved the book, saying the book makes a compelling case that Caste is in our DNA, in our core foundation, so much so, that there seems to be NO solution. That’s the problem with the book, it appears the only option is to burn it all down to the ground. That’s too dark. Are we hopelessly caught?
No. The solution is found in Jesus and the Cross. What Jesus did for us on the Cross is to confer infinite worth and dignity to all human beings without ANY condition. The Bible tells us, before we did anything, when we were unrighteous sinners, God gave us the life of Jesus to tell us We are the Beloved. Every single one of us, from the Brahmin to the Untouchable, from white to black, we are ALL infinitely worthy, Unconditionally, which makes us all equally precious and worthy in the eyes of God. Amen! There is no man or woman, Jew or Gentile, Free or Slave in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
These are all markers of worth, used to create Caste systems throughout history, but in Christ, there is NO outcast in the Cross. Of course, there are practical consequences to success and failure. But, being a successful person does not make you more worthy in the eyes of God. Having lighter skin color does not give you more worth before God. Jesus was a dark skinned person! These are all arbitrary constructs that we come up with because we are all driven to find fig leaves to cover ourselves.
So, to be saved, we must take the Gospel into our hearts and minds. Do you believe in God’s unconditional love or do you believe you’re worthy because of some characteristic of yours? By faith we shall be saved.
We must “Try to feel better in our own skin.” The Cross gives us this gift.
So as Christian, ask yourself, How do you measure worth and value? Who do you compare yourself to? Do you feel compelled to prove yourself again and again? Are you worthy?
That’s the game of Original Sin. Root it out of you. Get rid of every fig leaf, die to everything that makes you feel worthy in your own eyes because ONLY in the solid rock of the Cross, ONLY in the Agape love of God, can we find covering that will never fade, that will never disappoint, that will satisfy our hearts completely.
And Try to fight systems of worth wherever you see it. Isabel Wilkerson talks about several experiences where a white man oppressed her in everyday settings in outrageous ways, but nobody stepped up, nobody spoke up. No one dared to challenge the invisible Caste system. But, we Christians are not bound to earthly rules. We belong to heaven.
We MUST speak up when we see discriminations. It is not just a matter of human decency. It’s a matter of standing against the Original Sin. THIS is the fight between heaven and hell on earth.
This is why our church stands for full inclusion, we will NOT stand idly by while a group of people get treated like outcasts. The Cross is the tree of life standing against the tree of judging between right and wrong, worthy and unworthy. This is the Gospel that compels us. Let’s be the light and salt of the earth. When we’re freed of compulsion for fig leaves, we will experience life in all it’s fullness. We will be part of the Kingdom of God that marches towards righteousness that brings life and love. God’s truth marches on! Amen!
In the coming weeks, we will look at how different civilizations ranked people, what measures of judgment were used, and how that still happens today, and how the Gospel can free us to live life to the full. Please stay for Zoom service at 11:40 AM.
7
My name is Charles, the lead pastor here. Welcome to the Zoom Sunday service at The River. We’re in a new sermon series today called, “Invisible Beliefs that shape life and country.”
The idea behind the series is to examine different invisible values and beliefs behind major cultures throughout history that served as the foundation of life and society like Success or Responsibility or Righteousness that remain as powerful values that shape us today. But for true Christians, there can be only ONE core, foundational value that drives all the other values and behavior and thoughts. That is, Agape Love, the unconditional, divine love that confers worth and dignity to all human beings. This is what the Bible teaches us again and again.
- God is Agape Love. John 4:8
- Agape Love fulfills all the requirements of the Bible, for every command in the Bible proceeds from it. Romans 13:10
- By this everyone will know you are true Christian, by your Agape Love. John 13:35.
What would it look like if Agape Love was REALLY the core belief and value that drives OUR life, as opposed to other invisible beliefs and values? Let’s explore; sound good?
Now for today, I’d like to talk about a book that opened my eyes to some powerful invisible beliefs shaping our life and country today. The book is called Caste: Origin of our Discontents. Written by Isabel Wilkerson who is a National Book prize winner. It is the latest Oprah book club pick. I highly, highly recommend it. It’s getting a lot of buzz out there, but originally, what caught my eyes is the title “Origin of our Discontents.” It reminded me of the phrase, “Original Sin.”, which is a big topic for us Christians, and as I read the book, I realized there IS a connection between Caste and the Original Sin, so that the mentality behind Caste systems could be justifiably called the Origin of our Discontents.
The word, “Caste” is most famously associated with India where the sacred, religious texts have been used to divide people. At the top are the Brahmin (the philosophers), then comes the Kshatriyas (the ruling class), next is Vaishyas (the merchants and farmers), the Shudras (the menial workers), and of course at the bottom is the “untouchables” called the Dahlits. And within each caste, there can be hundreds of sub-castes to rank people by their worth and value.
Caste mentality is not just in India, it’s universal.
- Nazi Germany used the myth of the Aryan Race to create a Caste system that caused the genocide of Jewish people supported by millions of otherwise normal German people.
- China, Japan, and Korea have caste systems based on Confucian teachings that resulted in hundreds of millions of female fetuses to be aborted.
- And of course, in our country, United States has had a long history with Caste system based on the color of your skin.
These invisible beliefs can cause so much harm with support from decent, ordinary people. You don’t even notice it when you’re in it. It’s invisible beliefs driving our culture, like slavery was just a fact of life for much of human history.
The impulse behind Caste is universal, to divide people into groups to rank their worth. It’s the result of the Original Sin when humanity began to use the knowledge of good and evil or right and wrong or worthy and unworthy to begin judging each other and themselves. The result is, the first thing that happens to Adam and Eve is, “they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Genesis 3:7
When they apply the knowledge of right and wrong, worthy or unworthy to themselves, they see flaws. They are unworthy. So, they feel compelled to cover themselves up with fig leaves to feel better about themselves. As silly as that sounds, we all do it today.
We too MUST have coverings like success, like good job titles, like how skinny you are, positions in society and family that makes us feel worthy in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Such “coverings” can vary from civilization to civilization. In Nazi Germany, it was the Aryan race, if you have blue eyes and blonde hair, you’re more worthy, it’s ‘good covering.’ In India, if you’re from the untouchable Caste, Dahlits, then you’re not even worth talking to, you can’t even walk on the same road as higher caste members.
Isabel Wilkerson interviewed a Dahlit, from the lowest Caste in India. He came to the U.S. as a visiting professor at some top University like Harvard. During the interview, he pointed to his shoes, they were two sizes too big. He said “this is too big for me, but I could not bother the clerk to get my size, I had to just take what was on display”. Because back in India, when he goes into a store, he cannot bother the owner, he cannot ask for a price, because then they’ll say “you cannot afford it. Why are you wasting my time?”
He has too many things at home he doesn’t need, because once he enters a store, he cannot leave without buying something. He could get beaten up. He had this invisible programming back in his mind that was at work, even in America where he didn’t need to be so cautious. Isn’t that so sad?
Such invisible cultural programming runs in America too, this is why the cops get called on the black people for everyday activities. Isabel asked the scholar, what would make you feel better in these situations? He answered, “I need to feel better in my own skin.”
THAT is what Adam and Eve needed in the fall of humanity. Rather than coming up with arbitrary coverings, fig leaves to feel worthy in their own eyes, they needed to feel better about themselves in their own skin. And, Caste is the systematic manifestation of this Original Sin, it is an organized, civilized effort at judging and ranking worth and value of human beings based on some system of hierarchy, of right and wrong, worthy and unworthy, which is driven by the compulsion to find coverings which are only fig leaves in the end. In the end, no-one wins. We are all exiled.
This is why for Christians, it is of primary importance to fight discriminatory practices like the Caste system, because it’s the manifestation of the Original Sin perpetrated at the national level, invisibly running in the background like some sort of Matrix program in everyday life, doing the work of hell.
When cops get called on black people for everyday activities, like watching a sunrise in your own car -this happened to good friends of mine this past week- that causes traumatic programming like it did to the Dahlit scholar. For hundreds of years in America, there has been this invisible mental program running in the background that categorizes and ranks people based on the color of their skin. The lighter the skin color, the more worthy, the more valuable you are. Did you know it was illegal for white people to marry black people in New York until the 60s? Such attitudes can easily persist in culture.
What’s more shocking is this law against mixed marriages was in effect in Alabama into the year 2000. Just let that sink in, the year 2000. This law got overturned by popular referendum, but even then, 40% of the population voted to keep the law, to keep it illegal for whites to marry black people.
When people say, “I have a black friend, I can’t be racist.” or when we see injustice perpetrated against people of color by other people of color, and of course we have had a black President. This type of phenomenon is lifted up as proof that America is not racist. The Republican National Convention argues there is no race problem in America while NBA and major league baseball games are getting cancelled by players demanding justice for yet another shooting of black man in the back. The author argues that a better way to understand America is to see it through the invisible power of Caste system at work.
There are plenty of examples of low caste oppressing other low caste members. There were Jewish collaborators in concentration camps who oppressed other Jews for scraps of privilege. When you’re in the bottom caste, you get even more desperate to hold on to what little privilege you have.
This is why it’s not enough to just try to end the racial inequality in America. Of course, that’s a huge mission worth our passion and effort, but even when racial injustice ends, maybe when everyone is inter married, that will help. But, it will NOT end the human desire to rank everyone’s worth. Other systems will crop up to create alternative Caste systems. When Nazi Germany ran out of Jews to oppress, they began to go after dark haired, darker skinned Germans. Never mind that Hitler had dark hair. They called it the “Persian” trait.
This compulsion to rank people’s worth is in our blood, it’s the Original Sin after all. This is pointed out in a review of the book in the Atlantic magazine. The reviewer loved the book, saying the book makes a compelling case that Caste is in our DNA, in our core foundation, so much so, that there seems to be NO solution. That’s the problem with the book, it appears the only option is to burn it all down to the ground. That’s too dark. Are we hopelessly caught?
No. The solution is found in Jesus and the Cross. What Jesus did for us on the Cross is to confer infinite worth and dignity to all human beings without ANY condition. The Bible tells us, before we did anything, when we were unrighteous sinners, God gave us the life of Jesus to tell us We are the Beloved. Every single one of us, from the Brahmin to the Untouchable, from white to black, we are ALL infinitely worthy, Unconditionally, which makes us all equally precious and worthy in the eyes of God. Amen! There is no man or woman, Jew or Gentile, Free or Slave in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
These are all markers of worth, used to create Caste systems throughout history, but in Christ, there is NO outcast in the Cross. Of course, there are practical consequences to success and failure. But, being a successful person does not make you more worthy in the eyes of God. Having lighter skin color does not give you more worth before God. Jesus was a dark skinned person! These are all arbitrary constructs that we come up with because we are all driven to find fig leaves to cover ourselves.
So, to be saved, we must take the Gospel into our hearts and minds. Do you believe in God’s unconditional love or do you believe you’re worthy because of some characteristic of yours? By faith we shall be saved.
We must “Try to feel better in our own skin.” The Cross gives us this gift.
So as Christian, ask yourself, How do you measure worth and value? Who do you compare yourself to? Do you feel compelled to prove yourself again and again? Are you worthy?
That’s the game of Original Sin. Root it out of you. Get rid of every fig leaf, die to everything that makes you feel worthy in your own eyes because ONLY in the solid rock of the Cross, ONLY in the Agape love of God, can we find covering that will never fade, that will never disappoint, that will satisfy our hearts completely.
And Try to fight systems of worth wherever you see it. Isabel Wilkerson talks about several experiences where a white man oppressed her in everyday settings in outrageous ways, but nobody stepped up, nobody spoke up. No one dared to challenge the invisible Caste system. But, we Christians are not bound to earthly rules. We belong to heaven.
We MUST speak up when we see discriminations. It is not just a matter of human decency. It’s a matter of standing against the Original Sin. THIS is the fight between heaven and hell on earth.
This is why our church stands for full inclusion, we will NOT stand idly by while a group of people get treated like outcasts. The Cross is the tree of life standing against the tree of judging between right and wrong, worthy and unworthy. This is the Gospel that compels us. Let’s be the light and salt of the earth. When we’re freed of compulsion for fig leaves, we will experience life in all it’s fullness. We will be part of the Kingdom of God that marches towards righteousness that brings life and love. God’s truth marches on! Amen!
In the coming weeks, we will look at how different civilizations ranked people, what measures of judgment were used, and how that still happens today, and how the Gospel can free us to live life to the full. Please stay for Zoom service at 11:40 AM.
7