Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 408

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on the pretext of the marriage he had contracted with a Cushite woman. They complained, “Is it through Moses alone that the LORD speaks?
Does he not speak through us also?” And the LORD heard this.

Given the present controversies in the United States today, it would be difficult to read this story of Moses, Aaron, and his sister Mariam without being drawn into the story.

The Cushites, by all accounts, were "black Africans" of the southern parts of the continent, that is south of the tenth parallel and the Sahara Desert. If the peoples who built the cities of north Africa were mostly Greek settlers, the dominant nations of the south were darker skinned Africans. Can we ignore the punishment of Mariam for speaking against Moses, that she was stricken with leprosy and her skin became "snow white?"

I am sure any competent American preacher could find many ways to see our present predicament in this story. Personally, I don’t suppose being “white” is a punishment but I do see the humor in that interpretation.

I don’t find obvious racism in the Bible. The Mediterranean basin was not so large that nations and religions could be isolated from one another. Armies marched hither and yon, and the so-called races were never remotely pure.  Everyone had more than a few drops of African, Asian, and European blood coursing through their veins. Nor was there any scientific establishment – or pseudo-scientific ideology  – to claim one “race” is superior than another. Ignorant minds of Europe and North America, with little experience of the wide world and a pseudo-history that began with the Deluge, created that misbegotten theory.

But the Bible speaks of tribes and families, and there were the divisions of language. Greeks regarded non-Greeks as barbarians, and Jews tried to keep their distance from gentiles. Mariam apparently resented her brother’s marriage to a non-Jew.

But she was not punished for that. As the Divine Author explains, she used his choice of the Cushite as pretext for her real problem with Moses, that he was leading the nation. For whatever reason she preferred Aaron. Her challenge aroused God’s jealous wrath, and no one should question God’s choice.

But there is racism precisely in Mariam's pretext! 

I lived not far from a casino in Louisiana. Many people wasted many hours and more money in that slough of despond. Often the police were called to the parking lot to be told about a black man in a wool cap who had robbed a white woman of her winnings. The jaded cops wrote it all down and filed it and pursued the case no further. 

There was neither a black man nor winnings. The homemaker had lost a every penny in the casino and was afraid to tell her husband and children there'd be no meal on the table that evening. So they fell back on the standard American pretext, a racist fable. The Bible saw it coming three thousand years ago. 

For over four hundred years "white" Americans have blamed "black" Americans as a pretext for their own crimes, ignorance, fears, and stupidity. They "bond" as families and neighbors and various associations with the pretext of, "We're not black." Clever politicians and merchants use racist dog whistles to exploit fearful whites into voting and purchasing against their own best interests. Poverty, addictions, poor health, and suicide are punishments for their snow whiteness. 

The Bible recognizes no distinction between fools and sinners. Both suffer severely for their unwillingness to act as God's children. But those who confess their sins with neither excuse nor pretext know God's mercy. It is not unlike the mercy shown to Mariam by her patient brother Moses.