Those of us fortunate enough to have grown up in the 1970s enjoyed the shared cultural experience of the great TV sit-com, “All In The Family.” In my family, this TV show (along with reruns of “I Love Lucy”) was one of a very few cultural touchstones that connected three generations. The show also provided substantial cultural commentary. One of the most famous examples of that commentary was the episode in which Sammy Davis, Jr comes to visit Archie Bunker and his family at 704 Hauser Street.* The plot details of what occasioned the visit are mostly unimportant. In the course of twenty-nine minutes, the episode exposes and challenges a huge variety of racist and bigoted attitudes, all embodied in the person of Archie Bunker. For instance, Archie, who first met Sammy Davis, Jr. when the performer was a passenger in his taxicab, shares his excitement with his family, telling them that the big star seemed like “a regular person.” “If it wasn’t for the rear-view mirror,” Archie says, “I’d have thought he was a white guy.”
On reviewing this episode 49 years after it first aired, I expected the writing to seem heavy-handed and dated. But I’d say it has aged quite well. What’s surprising is how very blunt and direct the writing is. It pulls no punches, and Archie never sees any of them coming.
Of course, Archie’s son-in-law, Mike, the Meathead, objects to Archie’s racism at every turn. He prompts Archie to make a claim that is remarkable in its perverse accuracy, when he asks why Archie holds Sammy Davis in high regard, in contrast to his view of black people in general. Archie answers: “In this great country, a man like him can overcome the unequal-ness of his color to become a great star.” Oh, Archie, you know not what you say.
If you can remember that far back, you might recall that the climax of the episode comes when a neighbor is snapping a photo of Archie and Sammy Davis together at the door, as the famous man is making his departure. Just as the flash goes off, Sammy leans in to kiss Archie on the cheek with his black lips. The moment is captured on film, much to Archie’s shock.
But the dialogue had already led to a high point of commentary, moments earlier, when Archie asked Sammy to come to his defense in the face of the Meathead’s accusations of prejudice. Full of irony, Sammy Davis obliges Archie, saying: “If you were prejudiced, you would, like some people, close their eyes to what’s going on in this great country we live in. But not you, Archie, your eyes are wide open. You can tell the difference between black and white. And I have a deep-rooted feeling that you’ll always be able to tell the difference between black and white.” Naturally, Archie is pleased with this assessment, and asks Sammy to shake hands in a show of solidarity in their supposedly shared commitment to the racial divide.
A divide is at the heart of the beautiful passage we heard read from the Epistle to the Ephesians a moment ago: the divide between Jew and Gentile, circumcised and uncircumcised, between those who had been included among the children of God, and those who were excluded. The early church was deeply engaged with this question of who the message of the Gospel was intended for, and who could be given the gift of salvation. Israel, after all, already enjoyed the blessings of the covenant of God’s love. What, then, was the Venn diagram that described who would be included in this new covenant of Christ’s blood? How much overlap could there be? How far could new limits extend?
The writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians describes the separation between Jews and Gentiles in terms of a wall. You just know he’d been talking with someone who confidently asserted that you could and should easily tell the difference between Jew and Gentile, and that he (the writer) had a deep-rooted feeling that there were those who would always be able to tell the difference between Jew and Gentile, and wanted to keep it that way.
And in a sentence of majestic confidence and simplicity, we are given a vision of hope, through the grace of Jesus Christ: “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”
He is our peace. And he has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.
These words, and the hand that wrote them, knew nothing, of course, of the long and ugly history of slavery and racism that have built such a high wall of separation and hostility between white people and people of color in America. But I pray that I am doing no violence to the text or its meaning if I borrow the words and the thought to apply them to our current situation. For the wall of racism is staggeringly high in so many places. It has been added onto, and reinforced - often by people on both sides. The wall is high and it is thick, and it is surrounded with razor wire, and topped off with broken glass in many places. Often it is guarded (on both sides) by people with guns and grenades. It is a vicious, foul-smelling wall that too often drips with blood. It twists and it turns, and it shows up in places you wouldn’t expect to find it.
It’s more than a little sad for me to realize that that episode of “All In The Family” is nearly fifty years old. What’s clearly changed since then is that you’d be hard pressed to find twenty-nine minutes of such densely packed, blunt, and accurate social criticism in a widely shared popular medium that’s available to and enjoyed by three living generations. And I wonder how easy it is to find anyone who gives voice to his racism with such unaware self-assurance as Archie Bunker, anymore. But it’s not at all clear that attitudes have actually changed. Except that not many people would promote the naive idea anymore that it would be productive, or helpful, or possible to rid ourselves of all distinctions between black and white, etc.
And a version of something Archie Bunker said about Sammy Davis, Jr. remains a pressing question. In this country of ours, is it possible for a person to overcome the unequal-ness of the status conferred by color to become anything other than a star, to be anything other than an exception to the rule? When I look around me in Philadelphia, I observe much evidence to suggest that it is not.
If Christ is our peace, can he really break down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us, even when its comes to racism? In my experience, Jesus is the only hope to break down this wall. Because Jesus is the one who calls us to turn away from our sin, to repent and live our lives differently, which is what is required if we are ever going to address the effects and the reality of racism in our hearts and in our society.
In that long ago episode of “All In The Family,” there can be found at least two signs of hope that we don’t have to be stuck forever on our respective sides of the wall of racial hostility that so easily divides us.
First, Edith. Of course, Edith brings a sign of grace and hope to the situation. Among the most lovely moments in the episode is when Edith first meets Sammy Davis, Jr.. Among all her twittering and fluttering greetings, after shaking his hand and telling him “It’s an honor,” Edith offers her guest not only a handshake, but a try at a little curtsey. It is the most effusive form of respect she can come up with, since as far as she is concerned, Sammy Davis, Jr. might as well be royalty.
The second sign of hope is the remarkable gesture that Archie makes when inviting Sammy Davis to stay for a cup of coffee, and he offers his guest his own chair. “Sit right down here, Mr. Davis,” he says. “Right in my chair. Make yourself comfortable. It’s the best in the house.” His chair, as any viewer of the show knows, is also the territory that Archie cedes to no one, that he guards jealously as his own, asserting his sovereignty there almost as if his life depended on it. Perhaps we have something to learn from Archie Bunker, after all.
Christ is our peace. And he can break down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. I have seen Jesus doing that work at St. James School, and here on Locust Street, too, when we extend ourselves to try to meet the needs of others, without paying too much attention to who’s black and who’s white. For it’s in situations like these that we learn to curtsey to one another - offering the other the respect they deserve; and when we learn to offer our chair to another, even the best in the house - ceding territory that it might be hard for us to give up.
You have to look for these weak spots in the wall of hostility that so often separates us and keeps from seeing one another as we are: as brothers and sisters in Christ.
And I think we need to keep repeating this message to ourselves and to others, as often as we can, to remind ourselves that the wall can and should be torn down, that we don’t need to be divided by hostility, and that Jesus doesn’t want us to be.
For he is our peace. He is our peace. He is our peace.
Lord Jesus, break down this wall, and bring us together, all in the family of your love.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
18 July 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
* “All In The Family” Season 2, Episode 21. Aired Feb 19, 1972. Written by Normal Lear, Bill Dana, and Don Nicholl
