Easter V B Connections

We are more connected physically than we ever knew. While there are differences in skin color and other visible features between whites and blacks, we are finding that these differences are only superficial.  In 2008, researchers found that people of African descent differed in only 383 out of the 9,156 human genes they examined.  That’s only a 4% difference.  We are finding that race is mostly a cultural concept with little basis in real physical difference between us.

This is shown in an astounding way in a public television program about finding your roots.  The sociologist Louis Gates Jr, traces the lineage of famous people, including actors, college presidents, and public figures.  When he traced the heritage of 3 African-Americans last week, he found some amazing things. All three had European ancestry, but some were a lot less from Africa than they were from other heritages.

He found that the former secretary of state Condoleeza Rice was 49% European and 51% African.  The president of Brown University was found to be nearly purely of American Indian descent.  This astonished both these women, who both grew up in the segregated south in the 1940s and 50s, and who each had overcome racial barriers to reach the top of their fields in academia and in public service.  In three instances, Gates has introduced his famous black guests to their white cousins.  The actor Samuel L. Jackson’s white relatives served in the Revolutionary War and he is eligible therefore to become a Son of the Revolution.

The exploitation of black slaves by white overseers has been whispered about and tacitly accepted, but to actually meet relatives of another race makes the notion of who we are racially very suspect. 

The tv program on finding your roots found some other surprising things.  Jewish heritage can be determined by DNA as well, and when Gates looked at the DNA of three people of Eastern European Jewish descent, including Barbara Walters, Gates found that they all were distant cousins who came from the same great-great-great grandparent.  All were related to Barbara Walters.

This sounds a little like a parlor trick, but the science is very clear.  All humans come from the same ancestor in the dawn of the appearance of human beings as a species. We are all from the same foundation, the same genetic structure, and differ very little from each other, despite the benefits we claim due to our unique family heritage and our being different from each other. 

Jesus makes this connection clear today in a spiritual way, with his claim in being our spiritual ancestor, the vine, and us being the branches of the family of God.  In Christ, we do have our start as Christians, and our very spiritual fruit relies on this being rooted in Christ.

Our spiritual DNA all comes from this root of Jesse.  We say we are brothers and sisters in Christ, but what does this mean to us?

Our brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ signifies that our spiritual life may be uniquely ours, but must take its very existence in the teachings, healing, and work of Christ.  Everything we are and do as Christians looks to Jesus of Nazareth’s life on earth, but also the Christ’s life in our spirits as well.  We look to scripture to find the sayings and doings of this Jesus, and we look to our prayer life to find the living Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Both these sources are crucial for our sisterhood and brotherhood in Christ.

Christ points to God, our spiritual parent, who gave us life, created us as thinking, feeling beings with individual talents and gifts, and gives us peace in the face of the challenges of life.  Christ’s rootedness in God’s justice and peace makes us rooted in the same work of God to redeem the entire world.  And we find the courage and love of God in our brothers and sisters in Christ.  In our Christian friends, our spiritual friends, we are given examples of working for justice and peace, for being Christ’s hands and hearts in the world.

One set of examples comes to us from the holy people we have known and those known to us only through history.  You may know that the pope is appointing a cardinal to oversee American Catholic nuns, whom he has criticized for being too focused on poverty and justice. Many people are coming to the defense of these women religious, many of whom live in poverty themselves, in ghettos, doing work, not for the poor, but with them, helping them help themselves, not giving them a handout.  They are teachers, nurses, social workers. Some of the first women doctors and administrators of health systems were Catholic nuns.  They often go into dangerous conditions of violence in Central America and Africa, confronting terrorism, war lords and drug lords, oppressive governments, and they have sometime been killed for their protest and action against violence and injustice.  I would say, if we want examples of the branches of Christ, look to people like nuns.  Nuns acknowledge in their work in the world that we are all connected, that one person’s life affects every other person’s life.

Our connectedness as people of God cannot be denied.  We must act as if we are all one, as if all people are one people, if God’s justice is ever to reign in the world. It is said that a soldier cannot fight a war with a person he has gotten to know, which is why each side in a conflict often demonizes the other as the villain, as evil.  When we get to know each other, we cannot deny that we all are of one blood, one vine.

Just as our DNA proves our relatedness to surprising people, who may not look like us but who share a common parent, so our relatedness in Christ puts in connection with the entirety of humanity as one people in God.  In a world where we know we are connected, we cannot hate someone who looks different from us.  In a world of connectedness, we are not separate from each other, but are one together. May we each live in this connectedness so that future of our world may be one of justice and peace.