in Jesus' continuing monologue (I've used the term "rant" before, but there's obviously some judgment there) against the scribes and Pharisees, which continues without a pause for 34 verses of chapter 23 of Matthew's Gospel, today Jesus compares the scribes and Pharisees to "whitewashed tombs." (Mt 23: 27- 32) As Jesus fills out the image, they are people who appear righteous on the outside (beautiful, even, as a whitewashed tomb looks beautiful) but on the inside are filled with hypocracy and evil doing. Interesting, isn't it, that white is associated with beauty and goodness in this passage, while in the scriptures black is often associated with evil. And it is not just in the scriptures, of course. Generally in our society, white is associated with good (think of The Lord of the Rings, where Gandolf becomes the White Wizard to conquer evil) and black with the opposite. People have a black heart when they're not good. In the Lord of the Rings, the evil one is the Dark Lord. The forces of good have a white hand; those of evil a black one. I could go on, but you get the point. I've been thinking about those kinds of things as I've been working through The New York Times' Magazine from August 18, 2019, called the 1619 Project, named after the year African enslaved people first arrived in what would become the United States. That happened in August, 2018, exactly 450 years ago. The Project documents, explains, and argues for the proposition that the contours of modern America are and were fundamentally formed by the institution of slavery. As the cover of the magazine states: "No aspect of the country (the United States) that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed (the arrival of enslaved people in 1619)." In other words, the Prohject argues, whiteness and blackness -- differentiations based on race-- go to the core of who we are as Americans. I won't ask you to buy that proposition. You have to make that call yourselves, and I know there are people who disagree with it. But I do urge you to read the magazine, from beginning to end, and decide for yourselves. As you do that, you might keep in mind what Jesus says at the end of today's portion of His "rant." He talks about how the scribes and Pharisees say they wouldn't have been like their fathers, who "shed the blood of the prophets." We wouldn't have done that, they say. Jesus' response is essentially: Like father, like son. You are the children of those who murdered the prophets, He says, and you will "fill up what your ancestors measured out." As we continue in the difficult conversation about race in this country and confront the impact of our "original sin' (ie, slavery), we might keep Jesus' words in mind. It is so easy to say we're not racists. Everyone says that, even people who obviously behave in ways that suggest that racist is exactly what they are. But most of us come from a tradition that was profoundly racist-- read The 1619 Project articles if you don't believe me. My father, who was born in Superior, Wisconsin, in 1918, was a lawyer, and a forward observer in World War Two where he got two Purple Hearts, and the Bronze Star and the Silver Star for valour in combat. For the times, he was pretty progressive. I never heard him use the "N"- word, although he called African-Americans "darkies." He clearly thought that African-American troops were inferior to white soldiers in the war, although I doubt that he ever served with them. He wasn't opposed to blacks; he just thought they were inferior to whites. That's how many in his generation thought. Do folks, like me, raised in that environment still think that way? All the statistics would say "yes," although most of us would deny that fact. Look at incarceration rates, poverty rates, average life expectancy, health outcomes, housing stock-- you name it-- and you come to that conclusion. As Jesus suggests-- like fathers, like sons. Now is the time we need to stop that progression. We need to read up, educate ourselves, look for places where we are "murdering the prophets" as our ancestors did, and make changes. If we don't do that, we are the very hypocrites that Jesus rants so strongly against in the Gospels.