Sermon Cloud

Good morning!  Welcome to another Sunday of The Gospel According to Harry Potter.  Again, I bring you greetings from headmaster Albus Dumbledore and the rest of the staff at Hogwarts school of magic.  As I explained last week, I’ve been given the incredible honor of a position at Hogwarts.  Dumbledore has appointed me to be the chaplain of the school.  With this unique position, I have an insiders view as to what is going on at Hogwarts. 

I’m got to admit something to you, lately I’ve been kind of concerned about some stuff going on at the school.  There is some strong animosity among some of the students and their families. 

            For example, look at the conflict between the Malfoy family and the Weasley family.  These families don’t get along.  The Weasley’s are poor.  School uniforms, books – everything they own are hand-me-downs.  They have seven kids, we can’t really feel sorry for them, can we?  Ever heard of family planning?  They deserve to be poor, right?  Maybe if Arthur Weasley would just work harder, he’d get a promotion and he’d have some money.  If they weren’t so ignorant and lazy, they wouldn’t be poor, right? 

Besides being below the poverty line, the Weasleys are kind to muggles.  Despicable.  Muggles are non magical people – like all of you.  Among those in the magical community, you muggles don’t rate very high.  Everyone knows that you don’t associate with lower classes.  And even the impoverished Weasley’s are a higher class than muggles.  In so many ways, the Weasley’s are a disgrace to their fellow wizards.

And then there’s the Malfoys.  High and mighty.  Rich and powerful.  Snobbish.  But they’re purebloods.  Not an ounce of muggle blood in their veins.  Of course, everyone knows that to keep the Wizarding blood pure, you’re pretty much reduced to marrying your cousins.  Still of Lucius  Here’s the father, Lucius Malfoy.  Lucius had been a death eater, a follower of Voldemort, the Dark Lord.  After Voldemort was wounded and forced into hiding, Lucius claimed that he had repented and seen the error of his ways.  His fast words kept him out of prison.  I’m sure his money helped a bit, too. 

Lucius became a deatheater because he bought into Voldemort’s Hitler-esque vision of creating a pure wizarding race.  Their mission was to eliminate anyone with muggle blood.  They especially wanted to get rid of mudbloods.  Those born with the gift of magic, but had muggle parents.  As a side note, though, the joke was actually on Lucius and the other deatheaters, because their beloved leader Voldemort had a muggle father.  It’s human nature to despise those who remind us of the things we hate in ourselves. 

            As you can imagine, the low class Weasleys clashed with elite Malfoys.  The Malfoys detest the Weasley’s poverty.  And they look down their noses at the Weasley’s for associating with muggles.  Of course, the Weasley’s aren’t exactly hospitable toward the Malfoys, either.  We’re going to see a clip here, of a clash between the two families.  By the way, Harry and the Weasley’s are dirty because they’ve just traveled via chimney. 

Which sounds like fun, but you’ve gotta have magical ability to do it.  Clip 1

            Are you sensing some tension?  I told you there is some trouble at Hogwarts.  I hate seeing this prejudice, but it runs so deep.  As we’ll see in this next clip with Draco Malfoy, he’s followed in his father’s footsteps.  Which is the way it goes, isn’t it?  I should probably set up this scene for you.  The first guy talking is Wood.  Wood is the hard-driving captain of Harry’s Quidditch team.  What’s quidditch?  Let’s just say you won’t find a youth quidditch program with Gardner parks and recs.  You’ve gotta be able to fly a broom to play.  You could also say that Harry’s team and Draco’s team have a bit of a friendly rivalry.  Clip 2

            Don’t you just want to give little Hermoine a hug and say, it’s okay.  Wipe away her tears.  This rampant prejudice is a threat to tear apart Hogwarts.  The prejudice is destroying people.  You see how it hurts Hermoine.  But it hurts Draco, too.  He’s growing up to be bitter and spiteful. 

And the prejudice is everywhere.  You’d think people would learn, but they don’t.  Ron is prejudiced towards Giants, even though Hagrid is half-giant.  Almost everyone has some sort of prejudice. And most of them are blind to it.  

            But the prejudice at the school runs even deeper than Draco’s resentment of Hermoine or Ron’s mistrust of giants.  Hogwarts has a history of prejudice and it affects students at the school.  Prejudice is embedded in the social structures of the school.  But you’ll find that type of prejudice outside the walls of the school, too.  Throughout the rest of the magical community.  The way their government operates, their laws, their policies, all of these structures are full of prejudice.  Prejudice that results in the oppression of weaker people and those with minority opinions. 

            For example, Arthur Weasley has been stuck in his entry level position with the ministry of magic for 7 years.  That’s why he struggles to provide for his 7 kids. 

 But Arthur’s boss refuses to promote someone who is friendly to muggles.  Now, Arthur’s boss won’t actually admit this, but it’s obvious.  The prejudice of Arthur’s boss keeps the Weasley family in poverty. 

            A lot of wizards enjoy harassing and torturing muggles.  They do things like enchanting toilets. When the muggle flushes, instead of going down, everything comes back up.  That’s a funny example, but they do worse stuff than that.  But what is sad is that when these wizards are caught, their only punishment is a slap on the wrist.  The ministry of magic refuses to pass a “muggle protection act.”  Their prejudice kept them from doing anything to protect the weaker muggles.  The $20 word for this type of prejudice is systemic prejudice.  Prejudice that manifests itself in the very systems of a society. 

            You could think of systemic prejudice as a monster.  An evil creature that devours anyone who isn’t fast enough, or powerful enough, or rich enough to get out of its way.  In fact, that’s exactly what happened at Hogwarts about 50 years ago.  A monster was released that tried to kill those who weren’t purebloods.  Clip 3

            During Harry’s second year at school, Slytherin’s monster had been released again.  Harry, Ron and Hermoine had to figure out who was responsible and they were convinced it was Malfoy.  He sure seemed like the obvious culprit.  Turns out, though, that their prejudice towards Malfoy blinded them to what was really happening.  Lord Voldemort was actually Slytherin’s heir and though he wasn’t actually in Hogwarts castle, through a magical diary, he was able to influence Ron’s little sister to do his dirty work.  Ron was chasing after Malfoy when it was actually his little sister unwittingly doing all the damage. 

            This is a trick JK Rowling pulls in almost all of her books.  You’re always sure who the bad guy is.  It always seems so obvious, but it ends up that you’re always wrong.  JK Rowling is making a point about what prejudice does to us.  It blinds us to the good and causes us assume the worst.    

            Man, how depressing.  I thought the Gospel According to Harry Potter was supposed to be fun.  These are kids books, for crying out loud.  Well, they were written for kids but they speak to us adult, too.

            But, here’s where the sermon turns positive.  Ready.  All that prejudice is getting us down, it’s just in JK Rowlings stories, right?  We’re the land of opportunity, everyone has an equal shot, right?  Good ol’ US of A doesn’t have any systemic prejudice, do we?  Or what about personal prejudice?  I’m a nice guy, aren’t I?  There’s not any prejudice lurking in my heart is there? 

Nate Warren  God put a spotlight on the prejudice in my heart toward other believers. 

            Subway story  

So, yeah, prejudice exists in my heart.  I hate to admit it, but I can’t deny it.  It periodically rears its ugly head. 

            Most of us don’t intentionally harbor prejudice.  But everyone once in awhile, we catch a glimpse of the deeper levels of our heart and we can see that yeah, there’s still some prejudice in my life.

            So, how do we respond when we come face to face with our own prejudice.  It’s no different than anything else we have in our lives that God doesn’t want there.  When we’re made aware of the sin we confess it to God.  We ask him to get it out of our lives.  Nothing you’ve ever done is unforgivable.  There is no habit that God can’t help you break.  No addiction God can’t free you from.  And there is no prejudice, no matter how deeply it has been ingrained in your thinking, that God can’t change.  His power is sufficient to help you break free of any, ANY type of sin. 

            Just like in the Harry Potter stories, there is systemic prejudice in our country that we must constantly fight against.  You can find prejudice in our laws, our economy, our foreign policies.  At Hogwarts, Slytherin’s monster preyed upon the weak and the mudbloods.  We have structures that also prey upon the weak and minorities.  Systems that keep people in poverty.  And we have structures that exploit people.

            Did you know that PriceChoppers, Hy-vee’s, any large supermarket chain won’t put stores in the inner city.  The only options for buying groceries are the small independent stores, which are a lot more expensive.  So, poor people living in the inner city pay more for their groceries than we do.  Just one tiny example of systemic prejudice.

            An author by the name of Robert Blauner studied this type of prejudice and came up with these findings:  Blacks pay higher rents for inferior housing, higher prices in ghetto stores, higher insurance premiums, higher interest rates in banks and lending companies, travel longer distances at greater expense to their jobs, suffer from inferior garbage collection and [often have] less access to public recreation facilities. . . .

            That’s systemic prejudice.  I’m just beginning to understand this type of prejudice.  Some of you may be mad at me for saying this stuff.  We like to think of our country as the land of opportunity.  And it is, in so many ways. But we also need to accept that we have policies and systems in our country that benefit the majority by suppressing the minority. 

            But it doesn’t happen just within our borders.  In fact, a lot of our systemic prejudice extends beyond US soil.  Although we’re only 6% of the world’s population, our country consumes about 33% of the world’s resources.  We’d all admit that it’s wrong to mistreat someone because of the color of their skin.  We’ve also got to admit that it’s wrong to exploit people in other countries so that we can maintain our high standard of living. 

For example, a lot of the fresh fruit we get in grocery stores is grown on plantations in South America.  These plantations are owned by the wealthy elite while the majority of the people in these countries struggle just to survive.  In Central America and Caribbean countries ½ of all farmland is used to produce stuff for us. They grow Coffee, bananas, cocoa, sugar and beef for consumption in the US.  While 80% of the people in these countries are malnourished.  We could sit here all day and hear stats like that.  But just know that systemic prejudice exists, and it’s a monster that devours people.  As we become more aware of this type of stuff, we’ll learn how to fight it.  Remember what G.I. Joe used to say, “Now you know.  And knowing is half the battle.” 

            What is the counter to personal prejudice that lurks in our hearts?  What is the counter to systemic prejudice?  It’s not guilt.  Just walking around feeling guilty doesn’t help anyone.  The answer to prejudice is love.  Not mushy love that Delilah talks about on 98.1.  I only listen to that when Erin makes me.  Not sentimental love, but active love.  Self-sacrificing love.  Aggressive, world-changing love. 

            We’ve been given a perfect example of that type of love in action. The life of Jesus.  Listen to what was a song sung by the early Christians.  Philippians 2:5-11

            Jesus gave up his position of power to rescue people.  At great personal cost, Jesus came to where we were and pulled us out of our sin.  While he lived on this earth, he invested in the losers.  The nobodies.  The half-bloods.  The ones at the wrong end of social prejudice.  Jesus hung out with the down and out, the outcast, the outsiders and all the other “outs” of the day. 

            We counter personal prejudice by following Jesus’ example in putting others first.  No matter what they look like.  Or how they act.  Or even how they smell.  We fight systemic prejudice by giving of ourselves to help people on the wrong side of the tracks.  Or on the wrong side of the globe for that matter.  We fight prejudice and unjust systems by putting love into action. 

            A few years ago, I was at a special event in which Compassion International was being promoted.  That day I sensed God speak to me very clearly.  He said, “Donnie, I want you to get rid of your cable tv and use that money to sponsor a child.”  Now, I don’t usually receive direct commands like that, but I knew I’d better obey.  So we did exactly that.  Our sponsored child was named Dedi.  He attended a Christian school in Indonesia, where just about everyone is Muslim.  Not always very kind to Christians.  We received regular letters from Dedi, but at one point we went a long time without hearing from him.  And when the Tsunami hit Indonesia, we were really worried.  We finally got a letter from him last spring and Dedi told us that he hadn’t written because he’d been really sick for a long time.  We found out that through Compassion International, Dedi had access to medical care that he wouldn’t have had otherwise.  Dedi has since left the program and now we sponsor another child.  But there was a reason God wanted us to sponsor Dedi for those couple of years.  For less than our monthly cable bill, we were able to help save his life. 

            None of us can fix all the evil systems that deny people access to basic medical care.  We can’t change the entire world.  But you could change the entire world of one child.  Helping one kid receive food and an education, you can fight against the evil systems that keep third world countries in poverty.  So I encourage you to take home one of those brochures and decide whether sponsoring a child is something you should do.

            That’s one way you can fight prejudice.  This was not an easy topic for me to talk about.  I’m sure it wasn’t easy to listen to it, either.  But prejudice is real and Christ’s love compels us to fight against it. 

            In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul wrote that in our new life with Christ “it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave or free.  Christ is all that matters and he lives in all of us.”  (Colossians 3:11)