‘Evening, Glenda, in one short sentence, how would you comment on Sipho’s War?’
‘I have mixed reactions to the title!’
I looked at this message for many minutes. Puzzled. Unwilling to believe what I thought the inference behind it might be.
I finally responded: Hi….., how are you? Have you read the book?
It is about Swazis who went to the first world war, told through they eyes of a fictitious soldier, Sipho.
and received a ‘thank you, Glenda’ in response.
I borrowed the title from Eugene O’Neill’s groundbreaking play as these words keep creeping into the conscious thought section of my brain. I keep pushing them away, but I am angry at them, at what I think they are insinuating. What a mucky little message. I hope I’m wrong in suspecting the question to be racially motivated, but I did receive a heads up from a friend prior to the first launch of Sipho’s War that many of the local men were not showing much enthusiasm for the evening, put off by the title.
I am unable to get my head around this, and whenever I am at a loss for words, with anger simmering too close to the surface for safety, I turn to the scriptures for comfort, for validation of what I know to be God’s heart towards His people, all of His people, no distinction.
And I pray for the ability to speak calmly in response.
In Genesis 1 v 26:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness …”
No mention of colour. No mention of race. Simply, Man.
We are referred to the sons of Noah, the blessings and curses that were laid on them as justification for separate development, for explaining why the white man is ruler over the black man, the premise on which apartheid, the most heinous and evil form of tyranny after the holocaust, was predicated.
Noah’s story begins in Genesis 6, but for my argument come with me to Genesis 9:vv 25 – 27
Then he said (Noah, not God):
“Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brethren.”
And he said:
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem and may Canaan be his servant.
May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem; and may Canaan be his servant.”
Can you tell me where it says Canaan is a black man? How do you rationalise that of three children born to the same parents, one is black, and therefore must live in subjugation to his white brothers for the rest of however long this generation is going to last? He was surely cursed, but for his sin of disrespecting his father, not for his colour, which by proven genetic fact had to be the same as that of his brothers.
The story of Babel is also used as biblical justification for racism. So let us look at that scripture:
Genesis 11: 1 – “Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.”
On to v 7,
“Come, let Us (God) go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
Language, not colour, not race, not gender.
Fast forward to that most controversial of times, the Jesus days as recorded in the New Testament. Oh, how I love this Saviour of mine, how He managed to flip every bigoted and tawdry opinion on its head! “What manner of Man is this, this Jesus?” (Math 8:27, Mark 4:42) or you can listen to the song by Thuli Kaledi. How I love Him, Jesus, and all He stands for, and how I pray for scales to drop from minds and hearts that man, created in His image, may hear His words, and fall in love with Him, so that all bigotry, perversion, racism, hatred, might be put to death.
There is an interesting story Jesus told, recorded by that most reliable of scribes, the physician Luke, Chapter 16: vv19 to 26
“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.
But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate,
Desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’ table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abbraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.
And being in torment in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Then he cried and said ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.
And besides all this, between Us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.”
The final assurance from the last book of the Bible, those wonderful out of earth Revelations of John, the evangelist, that man needs to understand who all might be with him in eternity, found in Chapter 7 verse 9:
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,”
Jesus invites us every day to examine our hearts, to make sure we line up with His heart, which carries so much love that He hung on a cross for us. For every single person, without exception. Who are we to judge another? The bible is clear on this too. I read in Romans this morning:
Chapter 2: v 1
“Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.”
To verse 3:
“And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgement of God?
4. or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
5. but in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God.,
6. who will render to each one according to his deeds;”
We are so smug and self-righteous in our condescension towards those we perceive to be lesser in whatever way, be it colour or gender, and this attitude is simply not okay with the God who created us. And we need to deal with our bigotry, our misogyny, our racism, in repentance, in humility, asking our Lord for forgiveness, asking Him to cleanse us, and give us His heart for all His chillun.
We have a choice:
We could be spending eternity with people we despise and consider inferior.
Or we could end up on the outside looking in.
Either way, look to your heart.
