Last Sunday Jan and I attended an early Sunday church service at a Midwestern UCC Church before we went to the Episcopal Church in that town. In its Chapel where the 8 AM service is held, in the very front of the chapel above the altar, is a huge four foot by five foot picture of the head of Christ. He is very slightly bronzed in countenance, but his face is clearly Caucasian white though, with nice blue or possibly brown eyes and a very neatly trimmed beard. The pastor looked quite the same, when I think about it, white skinned, blue eyes or maybe brown, with a neatly trimmed beard. He probably doesnft even realize his features have copied the picture on his Chapel wall that he was standing in front of. The message could easily be read to all there that they are a Caucasian church, beards are OK if neatly trimmed, but if you donft look like this Jesus in some way you may find problems in being accepted here. There were no African Americans at that service. The next service was held in the large sanctuary that does not have a picture of Jesus hanging in it and I believe an occasional African American attends.

The pastor spoke of how they were having difficulties in regaining the attendance that they had a few years ago.

Not far from that church is a largely African American neighborhood. Go figure. [And if you are reading this sermon and your church has a picture of Christ somewhere visible, you may want to see what message you may be sending to your congregation; some may not appreciate it.]

And to be sure, if one looks at all the pictures of Christ in our eleven foot high stained glass windows, you will quickly note that every one depicts a Caucasian Jesus. And we are probably not that different from any other Episcopal or other denominational church in the US that at one time had or even now has a ewhitef congregation. We have telegraphed our enormf too well, donft you think? I donft believe the Episcopal Church has caught on to one reason why its numbers are dwindling; the Caucasian population of the US is dwindling; our Rectors are mostly white, as are most Vestries and Bishops.

Fortunately here at St. Johnfs we have some very forbearing African and African American attendees and supporters. But the stained glass is perhaps a bit of stain on our message of gChrist is for allh. I seriously doubt most white church folk even realize what sort of story their church buildingsf pictures and stained glass windows are telling. Last week we received offers for several of the windows here, and we are very likely to accept some of those offers sooner rather than later.

Up until the Newark riots in 1967, Elizabeth as a city was pretty much the white stronghold suburb of Newark. But those riots resulted in the burning of huge numbers of African American neighborhoods less than four miles north from here, and the people rendered homeless had to migrate south into Elizabeth, among other towns around Newark, and the racial makeup of Elizabeth changed abruptly. By the time I came to Elizabeth in 1989, the African and African American population had risen to one third of the cityfs population, and has remained above twenty percent to this day. The large influx of Hispanic peoples has changed the character of the City even more dramatically since 1989, as the Hispanic population is above sixty or seventy percent now, some quote eighty percent. So called ewhite and othersf now comprise only about five percent of the cityfs population, even though we still have a white mayor, a mostly white City Council, and a largely white police force. Change is resisted pretty handily on a political basis. None of our windows depict a familiar Hispanic religious scene. The closest we came was at the celebration of Divinio Ninio on July 12 when the folks from St. Augustinefs brought in their statues of the Divine Child.

Businesses around here, however, know where the dollars are, and almost all have Hispanic cashiers and managers, including the banks.

Here at St. John’s we spent a bit over a hundred dollars a month advertising our church to new movers, people who had recently moved into Elizabeth. As it turned out, probably not unexpectedly in hindsight, the advertising was sent to a largely new Hispanic population, appropriately worded in Spanish, and we did bring in a few Hispanic people, but as soon as the mailings stopped in June, the Hispanic attendance dropped to nearly zero. We donft really have enough conversational Spanish here to be able to sustain and hold the Hispanic visitors it seems. And we are pretty much representative of the rest of the Diocese of New Jersey.

So the message of who we say Jesus is is probably less than accepting to much of the majority population of Elizabeth.

It is not that difficult to see that someone may say our answer to eWho do we say Jesus is?f would be a white, middle class, neatly trimmed male; note none of the stained glass windows depict Jesus as a very poor person, and in fact, we would likely feel something were strangely wrong if Jesus garments were less than pristine white. Yet we know he probably wore sandals and walked in a very dusty countryside and sat on dirty rocks and terrain. But I donft think I have ever seen a picture of Jesus that depicts him wearing a dirty garment. And we probably completely miss the meaning of the story where the woman washes off his feet and dries them with her hair, and the other scene where sweet smelling ointment was poured over his head. There was really no other deodorant in the first century.

Thus many of our misconceptions of Christ have formed our perception of him and our ministry to others in our neighborhoods.

On a more theological level, Nicky Gumbel in the Alpha course notes that his foundational teaching on gWho Is Jesus?h is used in place of the more difficult topic of gWho Is God?h We really can only eseef God by looking at Jesus. I saw a web site on the internet that has 29 different proofs that God exists and also 29 proofs that God does not exist. The existence of God, in philosophical terms, is tenuous at best. But we Christians know God by our knowledge of Christ, his teachings, his miracles, his life, and his death.

St. Peter is taken aback when Jesus alludes to Jesusf impending crucifixion and indeed Peter pulls Jesus aside to rebuke him for saying that he Jesus was going to be killed. Peterfs view was that there canft be a killable, dying Messiah as the Messiah meant Jesus was the Anointed One of God and was surely omnipotent over death. But Peter misunderstood what Jesusf death would mean, life eternal for Peter and the rest of us who believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Jesus was not going to change the laws of human life just for himself, even though he could have done so for then his life would not really represent the human condition. And even his inherent divinity was insufficient to raise him from death\his Heavenly Father raised him back to life. Jesus didnft defeat death by not dying; Jesus defeated death by dying and then showing that Death did not have control of him and his future. Jesus defeated Death and Satan.

I feel certain that every one here today has more money than Jesus ever possessed, even considering the rate of exchange between denarii and dollars. We are all rich in his eyes. And typically we share very little of our wealth. Old Testament tithing canft even make much of a strong pull on our wealth, and the New Testament edict of egiving it allf is so far from our consciences and imagination, it really sounds ridiculous. But Jesus did say to the young man to sell what he owned and give it to the poor. And the one person he commended for giving was the widow who gave her all into the Temple offering box. Jesus did have a good word to say for Zacchaeus who promised to give half of his money to the poor, and thatfs the only gloopholeh we have as far as giving is concerned. The Pharisees tithed everything, but Jesus never commended the Pharisees. He wanted us to give far more.

The Episcopal Church has for decades affirmed tithing as its norm; I very seriously doubt Christ would congratulate us for that at all; we more likely stand condemned in his eyes for only tithing. And I shudder to think how we will be treated at the Judgment. We are all about like that woman in the stained glass window over there who kneels at Jesus feet looking somewhat expectantly but maybe not so confidently as the angel behind her is searching for her name in the Book of Life but has not seemed to find it in the past hundred years. Isnft that a chilling thought and picture?

Stewardship is a troubling time for most people. We try to give off the top, from the first part of what we earn, but practically we give from what is left. God gets our leftovers.

I will commend to you that this year we give from the top, and to the top, that we do not stop with a tithe but get well beyond that artificial barrier.

For decades humanity thought we could not survive breaking the sound barrier or the four minute mile until some one did. The we take it as a give that the sound barrier is routine broken each day by our fighter jets and Olympic runners need to break the four minute mile just to have a place on their Olympic team.

I hope and pray that the Episcopal Church stops affirming the tithe at its next General Convention. It has become an unbreakable barrier, and one only leading to smugness among the few rich folks who donft really need a tenth or half of their money in the first place.

Maybe this year you will break the tithing barrier. I pray so.

And breaking this tithing barrier will help us really see Jesus as he is, the giver, the healer, the lover of the world, our Savior. Amen.

(Comments to Joe at JOE.PARRISH@ecunet.org.)