Apropos for our day

I have some hard things to say.  Racism.  Even whisper the very word, and the bottom falls out for all manner of primordial pain.  It is the proverbial albatross about our necks hung, to borrow from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The story goes that the Mariner's ship was ice bound in far southern waters.  An albatross appeared, leading them out of the jam.  Yet for sport, the Mariner shot the albatross with a cross-bow.  The omen-fearing crew initially was angry.  The Mariner claimed he shot the bird for bringing the fog and mists.  But when the winds changed fair, the crew supported the Mariner's sport. They were complicit after the fact.  Very much like the zealots who chose the murderer Barabbas at Jerusalem as Christ was dispatched to the Cross--the fruit of which would be the destruction of Jerusalem. 

The Mariner's nightmare followed...his judgment.  Endless misery and horrific suffering, day after day.  "The very deep did rot."  The Mariner cursed it all, until ultimately his own curse was lifted when he "bless'd unawares"  the very same slimy living things moving freely in the sea that he had earlier cursed.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all  

Illustration (1876) by Gustave Doré

The Mariner's punishment was that he was forced to walk the Earth and tell his tale.  America increasingly is quite similar.  Allegory perhaps, but Coleridge's Mariner is apropos for our own day when (also for apparent sport) a young black man, Ahmad Aubery was hunted down on the public streets in Georgia, chased by "sportsmen" in pickups who terrorized the young man on foot in a macabre new-aged "team roping" parade.  He was ultimately injured from an intentional vehicular assault and was then surrounded, before the murderous dual shotgun blasts at point blank range ended his young life.

Leaving the gray of the Deep South, the same sort of "sport" has occurred up in Union blue Wisconsin, during protests and violence resulting from the law enforcement shooting of a yet another black man, Jacob Blake.  And though the two young men killed by erstwhile Illini vigilante Ryan Rittenhouse were white, and so too was the paramedic Rittenhouse left severely wounded with a life changing disablement, the cause célèbre is the same.  The dare-we-whisper-word--racism.  

The word is not new in America; nor are the Siren calls for a race war.  Those who seek what the Third Reich would have called der Endlösung stand in absolute opposition to the Gospel.  Despite their purported Christian fundamentalism, they are not Christians.  For racism has no part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Rembrandt (1626) The Baptism of the Eunuch

After all, St. Philip the Evangelist was called by an angel of God to go to the southern wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza.  In that mission, Philip would baptize the first Gentile convert to the newly formed Christian faith--a black man known in Acts 13:1  as Simeon the Black.  

In the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition he is named Bachos.  In Western Europe, he is also known as "Simeon Bachos the Eunuch," so named by St. Irenaeus of Lyons who referred to him in an anti-Gnostic theological work dating to 180 A.D.

Simeon Bachos the Black Ethiopian eunuch and Treasurer of the court of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia, according to the story of his baptism by St. Philip in Acts 8:26-39, was found by Philip reading the Book of Isaiah.  He read without understanding who the Scripture spoke of.  St. Philip the Evangelist shared the good news (euangélion) and unlocked the Scriptures for Simeon the Black.  

Menologian of Basil II (c.1000A.D.) St. Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

 

The first Gentile to be converted to Christianity--a black man.  And this was very early in the life of the developing Christian Church--before the Apostle Paul was also converted on the road having been stricken with blindness in route to Damascus--before "white" Europe was evangelized.  And well over a millennium and a half before the term "American Christian fundamentalist" was ever heard of.  God brought the Gospel to Africa before any of that.

"What then shall we say in response to these things?" Paul asks in Romans 8:31.  "If God is for us, who can be against us?"  

Paul's question can be stated another way--"If racists in America are against God, how can they stand?"  The answer is, they cannot.  But make no mistake.  We ourselves are also called.  In this day, in this age, in this time...where do we choose to stand?   

Do we rebuke the anti-Christian racists?  Or do we accede, enable, acquiesce, or agree with what can be nothing other that a wrongful act, just like the crew of the Ancient Mariner?  If that is our decision, then surely true Hell awaits us.  And we will not be released therefrom until we too come to the epiphany that God made us all, great and small.  

Racists have Christianity wrong, very wrong.  Prayers are simply words, if they have no love.  The strength of the Law is simply sin, if the Law is not inscribed into our very hearts.  And if it does not live in your heart, then the Law is just as dead as the Ancient Mariner's soul when he sacrificed the albatross and was incarcerated in a hallucinatory watery Hell.

Truly, "The Devil knows how to row!" 

 

Historical Sidebar:

Fresco (1447-1451) Niccoline Chapel by Fra Angelico

The consecration by the Apostle Peter of the Seven Deacons, which included St. Philip the Evangelist, is shown in a fresco in Niccoline Chapel, the most ancient part of the Apostolic Palace. 

According to Acts 6, St. Philip the Evangelist was one of seven chosen (elected) by the Christian community. These seven leaders are often called the Seven Deacons, though the term proto-deacon has been used since these seven predate the organization of deacons). The seven were tasked to administer and care for the daily needs of Jerusalem's Christian community.  The Twelve Apostles called for the election to permit the Apostles to concentrate on Ministry of the Word.  As Acts 6:2 put it:  "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables."

In the early Christian community, it was one of the first delegations of authority.  Acts 6:3-4.  "Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them."  So, from the very beginnings of the Christian Church, blacks have been an integral part of the fellowship.

Meroë, Kingdom of Kush (i.e. Ethiopia)

Lastly, Candace (or "Kandrake"), Queen of Ethiopia from the brief account recorded in the Book of Acts, more properly should be considered Queen Mother.  The "Meroitic" monarchy was matrilineal. 

The Ethiopian Queen to whom Acts referred was apparently Amanitaraqide (c. 21 - 41 A.D.)  At the time of Acts, Ethiopia was known as the Third Meroitic Kingdom of Kush.  It took its name from Meroë, their capitol city.  Situated in present day Sudan, near the cataracts of the Nile, Meroë (Ethiopia) was considered a trading power in the Red Sea.  So much so it came into conflict with Roman Egypt.  And important enough for Simeon the  Black to be sent there to evangelize.