Black History in the Bible

Black History in the Bible

by | Feb 8, 2023

These days Black history is in the news. People studying it, teaching it – even attempts to ban it. But Black history can’t be banned. It’s a history to remember.

Bible characters are usually portrayed as white and European, all except one of the wise men. But the spiritual history of Africa is imprinted in every book and chapter of the Bible beginning with Genesis. When God creates Adam out of the dust of the ground it contains the soil of Mesopotamia and the sun-warmed earth of Africa.

But it isn’t just earth and soil that indicates African presence in the Bible. It is the people themselves.

The lands of the Bible span the continents of Africa and Asia—both home to peoples of color.

People of African descent, Asian descent, and of mixed descent–Afro-Asiatics—all lived in ancient Israel. In general, the people of Ancient Israel were probably more African than Asian and they looked it.

Consider the story of Joseph. Sold into slavery and taken down to Egypt he rises in the ranks of Pharaoh’s government. While his brothers intend it for evil, God intends it for good; Joseph is able to bring his father and 11 brothers down to Egypt to escape a devastating famine.

This means all 12 tribes of Israel and their descendants live in Africa for over 200 years until Moses leads them to freedom. They go down as 70 souls and they come back one and a half million strong. Through intermarriage, African blood flows freely through their veins.

Even so, the people are called Hebrews, not Egyptians. Why? Not because of race or racism; that construct doesn’t come into existence until the 1600s. It is because of tribe. Tribal affiliation is what matters in the ancient world. Nevertheless:  In the Bible, Hebrews and Africans are one and the same people. The first Hebrews are African and many Africans are Hebrews.

Long before slave ships bring Africans to American shores, many enslaved Africans already worship the God of the Bible. In fact, I went to seminary with a student from Kenya who told me that the African tribal practices of his people were straight out of the Old Testament. They’re living now like the Jews did millennia ago.

The African presence in the Bible can be traced even deeper in the Bible. Moses, “The Prince of Egypt,” is born of Hebrew slaves, but is raised by Egyptians.   Remember how Moses’ mother and sister put him in a basket in the Nile so that Pharaoh won’t find him and kill him?  But Pharaoh’s daughter finds him, keeps him, and raises him in the royal palace right under Pharaoh’s nose.  Now if Pharaoh’s daughter and Moses look all that different, it stands to reason that Pharaoh would take the baby and kill him.   But he doesn’t.  Why?  Probably because Moses fits right in:  an Egyptian among Egyptians.

Moses isn’t the only one who fit right in. Here’s where it gets really interesting. Remember how Mary and Joseph take Jesus and flee when King Herod wants to kill him?  Where do they go to hide out? Where do they go to find sanctuary? Where do they go to blend in? Egypt.

Now if Joseph, Mary and Jesus look all that different from the native Egyptians, they would never pass. But they do. They too had African blood flowing through their veins. Even Jesus. Especially Jesus.

As Dr. King so famously said, “…all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Black history is biblical history.  Black history is all our history.

 

Originally published February 2019.

Copyright © 2023 rebekahsimonpeter.com.  All Rights Reserved.

It’s More Blessed to Receive than to Give

It’s More Blessed to Receive than to Give

by | Sep 21, 2019

Last year, I had the opportunity to hear Ed Wingfield, one-time Executive Director of the former Denver Urban League speak on leadership. “Using our current models of leadership, if we’re not careful, a few heroes will rise economically in our community. But no one else will advance. We’ll be in the dubious position of creating victims, so that we can rescue them.”

 

As I listened to him speak, I realized his was a familiar story. We in the church do that too. Most church mission trips are designed to create a level playing field for the “underprivileged” or underserved. Yet adopting the attitude that “we will rescue you because we are great and competent and able—while you are not”—doesn’t level the playing field. It perpetually tips it. Rather, level playing fields come from empowering people to discover their own greatness, competency and ability.

 

With the summer mission trip season upon us, it’s time to re-imagine mission trips. That means discovering the blessing of receiving, not giving. 

 

Years ago, I had been on several mission trips to Rosebud Indian Reservation, home of the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota of “Dances with Wolves” fame. We would paint homes, do minor repairs, and in the evening learn about history, customs and if we were lucky, experience a sweat lodge. We were excited to paint homes and make a difference for “underprivileged” people. We felt good about it. 

 

But I didn’t know how our efforts actually came across until Chesie Lee, an ally and advocate for Native American empowerment let me in on a little secret.  Chesie, who co-facilitated the creation of the Wind River Native Advocacy Center together with members of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, told me a common response to the question: “Who wants to have their house painted this year?” is typically “Nah, I’ve had mine painted 3 years in a row.”

 

All that house painting was for us, not the people who lived in them.  In other words, our focus on giving wasn’t really meeting needs. Yes, we felt blessed to give, but it placed those on the receiving end in a dependent, less-than, victim role.

 

Chesie had seen this dynamic play out over and over.  Several years ago, when she served as the Director of the Wyoming Association of Churches, she realized that mission trips designed to “help” Native Americans didn’t necessarily help. Playing rescuer to Native Americans was ironic since the church had been instrumental in creating the victimization of Native American populations to begin with.

 

Chesie saw that Instead of organizing traditional mission trips to the Wind River Reservation, in which churches would come paint or repair homes, she could invite church groups to come to the reservation to learn from the Native Americans. She could switch the paradigm from rescuer-victim to co-equals.

In this way, Native Americans would be granted the gift of agency. Of moving away from the role of invisible, underprivileged people to real live human beings with something to offer to others. These trips would be for mutual education and uplift.

 

It was a tough vision to communicate. Many churches resisted the idea that coming to receive would be as worthwhile as coming to give. The few who did come discovered something of a new connectedness and a different view of history. They discovered something of the Kingdom within.

 

As you plan summer mission trips this year, ask yourselves these questions:

  1. Will our mission trip create long-term empowerment for those we aim to serve? Or will it leave them dependent on us?
  2. How can this experience be mutual in nature?
  3. What are we willing to receive from the people we are there to serve?

 

This summer consider how you can experience the blessing of receiving by allowing others to give.  Alternatively, you can re-paint homes that don’t really need it.

 

Adapted from the forthcoming book Dream Like Jesus, by Rebekah Simon-Peter, Market Square Publishing, 2019.

Debate as Sacrament

Debate as Sacrament

by | Sep 14, 2019

At one church I visited recently, a long-time member confided that the church was going to have to split because the two pastors had differing views on human sexuality and the Bible.

Why can’t our differences live side by side?  They do in the Bible.

There are two creation stories, two exodus stories, two accountings of how many animals piled into the ark.  Kings and Chronicles have alternate views of history.  The four gospels themselves   tell differing stories to differing audiences.

Why is it that we in the church see difference, debate, and conflict as unholy?

Difference and debate are woven into the biblical story. Abraham dickers with God.  Jacob contends with the Angel throughout a long night. God and Moses have an equally challenging relationship with each other. Jesus is in constant debate with his followers, his community and his opponents.

As uncomfortable as conflict is, it’s in these encounters that sacred truths are revealed, and holy moments are elevated. It’s time to reclaim debate as sacramental.

When it comes to sacraments, debate is messier than spilled grape juice, scattered breadcrumbs, and overflowing baptismal waters.  But not messier than the events that gave rise to these symbols.

Conflict is a natural part of human community. Conflict doesn’t need to split your church.  As long as you know how to talk to each other.  But even more importantly how to listen.  That requires self-regulation, a key element of emotional intelligence.

When in the midst of conflict, remember the word CALM:

C:  Calm down.  Breathe.  Pause.

A:  Assess your automatic thoughts.

L:  Listen to what was actually said instead of how you interpreted it.  Listen with your heart and your head.

M:  Make a new response.

For more leadership tips, click here.

Remember, conflict and debate is natural – remain CALM in the face of conflict.

Beyond Thoughts and Prayers

by | Sep 7, 2019

A flurry of well wishes were unleashed across the United States in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso shootings ten days ago. These well-meaning expressions of sympathy were tweeted, emailed, texted, written, preached, and whispered:  You are in our thoughts and prayers. 

 

While words of comfort are always appropriate, in and of themselves, they are increasingly inadequate as a ministry response.  Maybe thoughts and prayers were an adequate response after Columbine.  But here we are 20 years later.  What was an isolated incident of horror has become a public health crisis.  So much so that in 2019 there have been more mass shootings than days in the year.  According to Gun Violence Archives, a mass shooting is defined as four or more people killed, not including the shooter.

 

As a nation we seem to be stuck and paralyzed, unwilling or unable to prevent further mayhem.  Is there anything the church can do when the government can’t or won’t?  Absolutely. As vessels of divine love, who carry light into the world, you are empowered to co-create new realities with God.

 

How does this spiritual reality translate into visible action? It involves shifting your focus from comfort ministries to challenge ministries. 

 

Jesus engaged in both kinds of ministries.  He not only healed others who suffered the crippling effects of sin and powerlessness, he created a new kind of community in which those distresses couldn’t take root. Because you are made in the image and likeness of God, you can do the same.

 

Let’s take a look how.

 

Up until this point, comfort ministries have been primarily employed in the case of mass shootings.  Thoughts, prayers, impromptu memorial sites, community services, and counseling for the bereaved have pulled together traumatized communities. But they haven’t bound up the brokenhearted families or brought the dead back to life.  Nor have they put a halt to public shootings at the movies, food festivals, concerts, yoga classes, and stores.  They haven’t stopped a gunman from killing people in church, synagogue, school, or at home. Because they haven’t dealt with the why or the how of the violence.

 

Challenge ministries get at root causes.  What are some of the root causes of these shootings?  One common denominator is domestic violence. Investigations are beginning to reveal that many of these gunmen have a history of domestic violence.  This is compounded by the ready availability of military-grade weapons, coupled with an inadequate system of background checks, and spurred on by a darknet of hate-promoting sites. It all brews in a culture of toxic masculinity and fear of loss of power as the US and world population grows increasingly multicultural.  This fear of the “other” includes a fear of black and brown-skinned people, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Amish, gays, Mexicans, immigrants, and women.  It’s made all the more heinous by a lockdown on treating this as a public health crisis. 

 

What can you do in the face of this?  Keep reading to discover five ways. But first, let me invite you to join me for a free one-hour webinar to discuss how to respond to mass shootings, Beyond Thoughts and Prayers: Responding to the Unthinkable.  Email us to register and receive a link.

 

Back to the five steps.  But first, before I tell you what they are, be aware that they will require all the courage the Christian life has to offer.

 

  1. Remember who you are. You are made in the image and likeness of God.  As a follower of Jesus Christ, you bring love and light into the world.  As a partner with the Holy Spirit, you co-create miracles through willingness and faith.

 

  1. From this space, forgive the shooters, the factors that led to their violent deeds, and the paralysis of the nation. If you can’t do that, imagine God’s unconditional love and Jesus’ forgiveness for them even in the midst of the evil. If you can’t do that, at least ask God to help you set those feelings aside temporarily.  Why?  If you meet their anger, hostility, loathing and fear with your own, then the atmosphere of us v. them has simply increased. Love and light cannot win in that environment.  And love and light must win.

 

  1. Next, lift up your thoughts and prayers in a brand-new way. Turn your thoughts to the covenant you have made with the community of faith: “To accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression.”  Pray on those words.  Gently turn aside the thoughts that say you can’t make a difference.  Go back to praying. Couple that with reading Matthew 17:20 and John 14:13.

 

  1. After this, redirect your attention from the trauma at hand to an expansive vision of the Kingdom. What would a community look in which the thought of shooting others wouldn’t even occur for people? In which a violent fear of the other couldn’t take root? Envisioning this will take holy imagination, creative conversation, and much prompting of the Holy Spirit.  Allow the Spirit to take you there.

 

  1. Ask God what action or actions you can take toward that vision. Be aware that this will require more than one person or a few people to accomplish.  And likely more courage than you currently have.  Be brave.  Be faithful. Trust that God trusts you to do this.

 

Do share this process with others.  Invite them to forgive, to re-direct their thoughts and prayers toward the freedom they have to act, to envision the Kingdom, and to choose an action.  

3 Deadly Sins of Leadership

by | Sep 1, 2019

In many churches, this is the time of year when pastors are settling into their new appointments, and congregations are learning to work with their new pastors. In other churches, people are starting to come back to worship.  Across the board, committees are beginning to reconstitute, fall plans are being made, and activities are gearing up.

 

As you connect or reconnect with your people, and prepare for a season of ministry, you may stumble unwittingly into the three deadly sins of leadership.  Although well-intentioned, these sins are deadly because they snuff out aliveness. Not only that, they generate unnecessary conflict.

 

Read on to discover the three deadly sins of leadership, their deadening effect, and how to keep calm in the midst of conflict.

 

Here are the three deadly sins of leadership.

 

Sin #1.  Trying to be all things to all people.  Wholesale people-pleasing never works.  First, because it’s impossible to know what everyone needs.  Second, because people won’t know the real you.  Third, because it demands too much of you, and not enough of them. 

 

Community is based on give and take.  People-pleasing takes away the need for people to show up as they are, and to work through the challenges of being community. Anything less is deadening.

 

People-pleasing leads to internal conflict.  Let’s say you give up your day off to attend to someone’s need. But the needs are never-ending.  So, what’s next—your vacation time?  If so, it won’t be long until you’re giving up your convictions. 

 

The one who suffers the most will be you:  you’ll be resentful, feeling taken advantage of.  And it won’t be anyone’s fault but your own.  People-pleasing is always a choice. Yet, it takes great strength of character, great emotional intelligence, to be true to ourselves. 

 

Sin #2. Make no changes.  Or change everything.  Life is full of change; now more than ever.  We are living in a time when the rate of change continues to accelerate. Pretending like you’ll never change anything is unwise and dishonest.  Equally unwise and dishonest is acting as if everything in place needs to be scrapped. 

 

When I began local church ministry, I abided by the rule to make no changes in the first year.  What I didn’t know was that people were eager for me to make changes.  They were tired of being stuck.  When I was slow on the uptake, they grew more resigned, and more contentious. Following the rules was safe for me, but deadening for them. 

 

Pacing change appropriately reduces resistance, eases conflict, and builds buy-in.

 

Sin #3.  Assume your emotional or spiritual space is universal. For instance, just because you are arriving fresh and sassy, full of ideas and open to the Spirit, doesn’t mean that they are.  Or just because you are tired and burned out, doesn’t mean they are.  One of the challenges of pastoring a congregation of differing ages, personalities, and life experiences is that not everyone is in the same spot, ever. 

 

Conflict comes when leaders don’t recognize the deep work that the Spirit has been doing in that place for generations. Or when they don’t pay attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit they are receiving.  Either approach stymies the work of God.

 

Congregational Intelligence If sin is missing the mark, then salvation is collaborating with the Spirit.  This collaboration takes courage, and resilience.  It also requires trust in yourself, an ability to sense the Spirit, and an understanding of how to read and lead the people around you. Together, these qualities comprise what I call congregational intelligence. Finally, knowing how to self-regulate during conflict is essential.

 

Not sure how?  Register for a free 45-minute webinar on “Keeping Calm in Conflict,” Noon Mountain Time on August 30.

 

In the meantime, notice what is happening in your spirit.  Are you feeling less than alive?  Deadened?  Perhaps you have stumbled into practicing these leadership sins. 

Black History in the Bible

by | Feb 6, 2019

Bible characters are usually portrayed as white and European, all except one of the wise men.  But the spiritual history of Africa is imprintedJesus, Mary and Joseph - African in every book and chapter of the Bible beginning with Genesis.  When God creates Adam out of the dust of the ground it contains the soil of Mesopotamia and the sun-warmed earth of Africa.
But it isn’t just earth and soil that indicates African presence in the Bible. It is the people themselves.
The lands of the Bible span the continents of Africa and Asia—both home to peoples of color.
People of African descent, Asian descent, and of mixed descent–Afro-Asiatics—all lived in ancient Israel.  In general, the people of Ancient Israel were probably more African than Asian and they looked it.
Consider the story of Joseph. Sold into slavery and taken down to Egypt he rises in the ranks of Pharaoh’s government.  While his brothers intend it for evil, God intends it for good; Joseph is able to bring his father and 11 brothers down to Egypt to escape a devastating famine.
This means all 12 tribes of Israel and their descendants live in Africa for over 200 years until Moses leads them to freedom.  They go down as 70 souls and they come back one and half million strong.  Through intermarriage, African blood flows freely through their veins.
Even so, the people are called Hebrews, not Egyptians.  Why?  Not because of race or racism; that construct doesn’t come into existence until the 1600s.
It is because of tribe. Tribal affiliation is what matters in the ancient world.  Nevertheless:  In the Bible, Hebrews and Africans are one and the same people.  The first Hebrews are African and many Africans are Hebrews.
Long before slave ships bring Africans to American shores, many enslaved Africans already worship the God of the Bible.   In fact, I went to seminary with a student from Kenya who told me that the African tribal practices of his people were straight out of the Old Testament.  They’re living now like the Jews did millennia ago.
The African presence in the Bible can be traced even deeper in the Bible.  Moses, “The Prince of Egypt,” is born of Hebrew slaves, but is raised by Egyptians.   Remember how Moses’ mother and sister put him in a basket in the Nile so that Pharaoh won’t find him and kill him?  But Pharaoh’s daughter finds him, keeps him, and raises him in the royal palace right under Pharaoh’s nose.  Now if Pharaoh’s daughter and Moses look all that different, it stands to reason that Pharaoh would take the baby and kill him.   But he doesn’t.  Why?  Probably because Moses fits right in:  an Egyptian among Egyptians.
Moses isn’t the only one who fit right in.  Here’s where it gets really interesting.  Remember how Mary and Joseph take Jesus and flee when King Herod wants to kill him?  Where do they go to hide out? Where do they go to find sanctuary?  Where do they go to blend in?  Egypt.
Now if Joseph, Mary and Jesus look all that different from the native Egyptians, they would never pass.  But they do.   They too had African blood flowing through their veins.   Even Jesus.  Especially Jesus.
As Dr. King so famously said, “…all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Black history is biblical history.  Black history is all our history.