A message presented on February 18, 2024, the first Sunday in Lent, and also in the middle of Black History Month.

          February is Black History Month.  But is that really a good thing?  Shouldn’t history simply be history, an account of what has happened, including all people, evenly and equally?

          OK, it should also be her-story as well as his-story, maybe their-story, our-story?  Sure.

          But - Black History?  Why should one group, or one classification of people, get special treatment?

          Should we be emphasizing Black history?  Should we say things like “Black lives matter”?

          To be sure, all lives matter.  But if there are certain kinds of people that society looks down on, or treats unfairly, or pushes out of mind as much as possible, or underpays, or undervalues, or exploits, it makes sense to call attention to their plight and insist that their lives matter.  And, it makes sense to examine history to find out how it came to be that black lives were considered less than fully human, subjected to slavery, discrimination, separate and unequal treatment, and maybe also look to see how much of the harm suffered carries over to today.

          But still, the thought of “special treatment” is disturbing, awkward.

          Suppose someone comes here, to our church, and says they want to give winter coats to everyone in the community who needs one.  They know we have a Wednesday afternoon meal program.  That might be a good time.  We can get the word out - even if you don’t want the meal, if you want a coat, c’mon by!  So we set the Wednesday, and the times, and get the word out.

          The Wednesday comes, and the donor group is there with boxes of winter coats.  They open up the boxes.  All are nice new coats, all light brown.  And all women’s size medium.

          A man comes to the table and asks, Can I get a men’s large please?  And the answer is, Are you looking for special treatment?  A family is there, and the mom says:  Our children need coats.  Do you have anything for children?  But the answer is:  We’re treating everyone equally.  Everyone can have the identical coat.

          Rather bizarre, isn’t it?  But, strictly speaking, that’s what equal treatment is.  Everyone is treated the same, whether that is appropriate to the particular needs of each person or not.

          Taking the particular needs of each person into account:  that’s what equity is about.  All people are created equal, all are created in the image of God.  All are due respect, and dignity, and consideration, and even love.  But we are not created identical.  We are male and female and maybe other genders.  We have a variety of origins, ethnicities.

          We have different ancestors and parents.  We have different settings:  cultural, religious, political, economic, educational.  We have different relatives, different relationships, different birthdays, different first languages, different health histories, different lived histories.

          Equitable treatment means giving everyone equal/full respect, dignity, consideration, love by giving them special treatment related to who they are, what they have been through, what they’re going through now.  Here is a winter coat that fits you.

          Black History Month is an opportunity to examine history, to find out how it came to be that black lives were considered less than fully human, subjected to slavery, discrimination, separate and unequal treatment, and maybe also look to see how much of the harm suffered carries over to today.

          And even to wonder if the society that robbed them of their freedom and stole their labor should provide restitution for their losses.  Reparations -  that’s the word being used these days.

          Reparations isn’t a new concept.  In 1862, for example, three years before the abolition of slavery in 1865, the District of Columbia freed the slaves there. President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act into law on April 16, 1862.  Guess who got the compensation - the former slave owners!  For every slave they had owned who now was free, each owner was compensated up to $300 each, maybe $8,000 in today’s money.

          But what about the slaves themselves?  The people who were ripped from their families, tribes, cultures, languages, in Africa - yes, they once had real lives (or their parents or ancestors did) - put in chains, shipped across the ocean to our shores, sold as property to work as slaves, sometimes forced into breeding to produce more slaves, more wealth for their owners, worked without compensation … did they get reparations?

          Not so much, even after emancipation in 1865.  Efforts to get some reparations to emancipated slaves didn’t go far during Reconstruction.  Instead, Black people got Jim Crow in the South, redlining in the North, segregation, lynching, terrorism, discrimination.  And if an expressway was about to come through the city, where will it go?  Not through our neighborhood, said the well-connected not-black people.

          Should society, communities, universities, even churches, consider providing reparations to Black Americans?  This is an active, and controversial, question.  (There is an article in the current issue (March 2024) of The Christian Century about one church that is tackling the question:  Michael Woolf, “Repairing the redlined body of Christ”.)

          The story of Noah is a story about God, about decisions God made.  Whoa!  How did I get from reparations to Noah!  OK, the ride is getting bumpy - hang on!

          In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  And God created life, living beings, and human beings, created in the image of God.  After perhaps many thousands of years, or more, but only five chapters into the book of Genesis, God is dismayed to see that humankind is very wicked, the earth is filled with violence and corruption, and God is sorry that they (God) made people in the first place. (Genesis 6:5-13)

          So God decides to destroy all human beings; and not only the people but all the animals too.  Except for Noah!  Noah - a righteous man - and his family, and pairs of all the living things that Noah will take onto the ark to ride out the flood.  God has decided to wipe out all the other people and animals and birds with a flood.  It looks like God is planning to give life, and humankind, perhaps even God’s own self, a do-over.

          Genesis chapters 6-8 tell the story.  God gives Noah detailed instructions for building the ark.  Then tells Noah - all aboard!  For 40 days rain comes from above, and waters rise up from below.  Water covers even the highest mountains for 150 days.  Quoting Genesis 7:23:  “God blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth.  Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark.”

          God causes the waters to recede, gradually.  The ark comes to rest on the mountains of Ararat.  Eventually the earth is dry enough for the people and the animals to disembark.

          From Genesis 9, we read the covenant that God made with Noah, and with all living things, that God would never do this again, never destroy life with a flood.  The rainbow is the sign of this covenant.

          Is God now sorry that God destroyed all the animals, all the people?  Maybe so.

           Did the flood wipe out evil, wickedness, from the earth?  Well … no.

          How will God deal with evil now?  Maybe, there will be fire next time - you can read about that in 2 Peter chapter 3.  But the greater, and more astounding, answer, is in those words we read from 1 Peter 3:  “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight lives, were saved through water.  And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.”

           Jesus died for us, the righteous for the unrighteous.  He took the destruction of evil onto himself.  He died, but was made alive.

          And note this:  he went to proclaim the good news to those wicked people who died in the flood!  We thought they were wiped out, God in wrath had totally destroyed them, forgotten them.  But no - they were made in God’s image, God still loves them.  It looks like repentance, and renewal, might still be open to them.  Even in 2 Peter 3, the fire next time text, we read that God doesn’t want anyone to perish, but wants all to come to repentance.

          Here, on this first Sunday in Lent, this all comes together. It is precisely because we all, all people, are all equal, that we should have, and need, special treatment.  We are created equal, in the image of God, and God loves us, and so we should receive dignity, and respect, and consideration, and love that takes into view all our differences.

          And we are equal in that we all have sinned.  “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6) in lots of different ways, and we need special treatment to be brought into the flock.

          We read in Mark’s gospel (1:9-15) that Jesus was baptized.  He was not baptized because he needed to repent.  Rather, he was baptized to identify himself with all of us, who need to repent.  He then took on the death that baptism symbolizes, so we can live.

          Jesus is the good shepherd who seeks us out in all the ways we go astray, and guides us home.  When we are baptized, we identify with the death and resurrection of Jesus, we commit ourselves to walk in new ways.  Part of our healing is making amends, or providing restitution, or giving reparations to those we have wronged, or perhaps those our ancestors wronged, or our society has, to show dignity, respect, love to those we have neglected.

           When we are baptized, we also identify with the ministry of Jesus, to give special treatment to others, to love as Jesus has loved us.  And in repentance and baptism, an appeal to God for a good conscience, we open ourselves to the possibility of receiving mercy and forgiveness from those we have wronged, when they call us to repentance, and offering mercy and forgiveness to those who have wronged us.

          For you see, because we have received God’s mercy and forgiveness, we’re not in the position to condemn or cancel others, no matter how much we would like the floods to rise or the fire to come down and destroy the wicked!

          Baptism is a one-time event for Christians, but repentance, leaning on Jesus, is continual.

          In the hymn “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” verse 2 is about special treatment we get from Jesus!

Have we trials and temptations?  Is there trouble anywhere?                                                           We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer!                                                       Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?                                                  Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer!