Two Things I Learned in Sunday School (And One of Them Was Wrong)

A Sermon for Ankeny Presbyterian Church by Ken Rummer
Acts 10:34-48
April 12, 2026

Intro

Sunday School every Sunday was the expectation in my family during my growing up years, though I remember one Sunday morning on a summer vacation trip, driving through the mountains of upstate New York. Just as my parents and grandmother were discussing which town up ahead would be a good one to stop in for church, my sister got car sick and threw up in the back seat. Her dress took a hit, as did my grandma’s church clothes and my shoes. And that was the end of church plans for that Sunday.

Barring such a miraculous intervention, it was church and Sunday School for us every week.

I wasn’t always eager to go, but I am grateful now for the faith foundation I received. I did learn some things in Sunday School and I want to speak about two of them this morning.

The Song

One was a song about Jesus and the children. I still remember the refrain:

Jesus loves the little children,

all the children of the world.

 Red and yellow, black and white,

they are precious in his sight.

 Jesus loves the little children

of the world.

In my crayon-informed world, I wasn’t sure what to make of the colors, but it was explained to me that they referred to Indians and Chinese, and people from Africa, as well as children who looked like me. Whatever their race, Jesus loved the little children, all the children of the world.

With some recent researching, I discovered that Clarence Herbert Woolson wrote the song and set it to an old Civil War tune (Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching). It was published in 1913 and became widely popular.

Over the years, songwriters have come up with other versions. One updates the line to be more racially sensitive: “Every color, every race, all are covered by His grace.” One brings the song into the space age. “Pink and purple, green and blue, Jesus loves the Martians, too.”

The color scheme seems dated now, but I learned something from the song that stuck with me, a touchstone for me when it comes to thinking about race, that Jesus loves all the children of the world. I learned that in Sunday School.

The Picture

A second thing I learned in Sunday School came from a picture on the wall. It was a print from a painting by the German artist Heinrich Hofmann, one he brushed in 1881. What did I learn? That Jesus looked like me. Pale skin. Northern European facial features. The teachers didn’t point it out, but I learned an unintended lesson, that Jesus was white.

Since the Bible gives no description of Jesus’ appearance, and since no pictures of Jesus were painted at the time, artists have had to use their imaginations.

As Christianity spread around the globe, Christian artists portrayed Jesus as one of the locals, in dress, in hair style, in skin color. The Korean Jesus looks Korean. The Coptic Jesus looks Egyptian. The Cameroonian Jesus looks Cameroonian. All this makes sense as a way to convey that in Jesus, God became one of us. And maybe that was the intent of the Sunday School pictures, to show that Jesus wasn’t a space alien, but a human like us.

Unfortunately, I was growing up in the United States, where distinguishing between black and white has been built into the way people relate for over 400 years, and not in a good way. I inherited the glasses that show everything in black and white. And I saw a Jesus who was white like me.

Different Views

Over the years, I bumped into differing views. In a seminary class, the professor spoke about the picture of Jesus we’ve all seen, one often displayed on the wall of church, the one showing Jesus with a narrow nose and long flowing hair. The professor said, “You know, Jesus didn’t look like that. Jesus was born in the middle east, not in northern Europe.” I put an asterix by my mental picture of Jesus. “Probably not how Jesus really looked.” But I didn’t replace it with a better picture.

When I served as a pastor in Corning, we had a doctor who came from the country of Jordan in the Middle East.  He was a Christian belonging to an ancient and eastern branch of the faith. His hair was dark and his skin was the color of tea. He liked to tease his Christian patients, “You know, Jesus looked like me.” It was hard to imagine, but probably closer to the truth than the picture I grew up with.

Jesus was born a Jewish child in first century Palestine. He looked so much like other Jewish men living in first century Palestine, that those sent to arrest him had to have Judas identify him. So what did a Jewish man living in first century Palestine look like?

Richard Neave did a forensic reconstruction based on three skulls of Jewish men from that time and place. This is the process of starting with the bones and then building up the muscles from where they attach and then adding the skin and hair. The picture he came up appeared in 2001 as part of a BBC documentary titled “Son of God.” His Jesus had short dark hair, a wide forehead and a broad nose, and brown skin.

My professor, my doctor, and Richard Neave, all telling me that what I had learned in Sunday School was wrong. That Jesus wasn’t white. Where was I going to find corrective lenses for my glasses?

Peter in Acts

Peter, the apostle featured in our scripture reading this morning, also inherited black and white glasses. In his world, the racial division was between Jews and non-Jews, the ones Jews classified as gentiles. And looking at the world through Peter’s glasses, it was clear that God liked Jewish people best. They were the chosen. They were special. And they weren’t to have anything to do with gentiles. So, for Peter, surely the message about Jesus was for Jews, and not for gentiles.

But then Peter had a vision. A large sheet came down from heaven and it held the kinds of animals that Jews were not permitted to eat, but the voice of God invited Peter to eat them anyway. Peter objects that they are unclean. And the voice of God says: Don’t call unclean what God has declared to be clean. And just for emphasis, the vision comes again, and yet a third time.

Then visitors show up at Peter’s house, inviting him to come and speak to Cornelius and his household. But Cornelius was a gentile. Peter, taking the vision to heart, goes anyway.

And he begins his message with this statement of his new understanding about the racial division of his day: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every people anyone who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him.”

No partiality with God. But in every people, every nation, every race. Even Gentiles. And by the end of the day, the Holy Spirit had graced the gathered gentiles, and they had received baptism and they had invited Peter to stay and tell them more about Jesus.

Peter learned that God’s love and concern were not just for Peter’s in-group. They extended beyond. God wasn’t seeing people with the same black and white glasses that Peter had inherited. God was seeing in living color, and now Peter was beginning to see that way, too.

Closing

So, I’m looking to God for the corrective lenses to help me see in living color, not only Jesus, but all the children of the world.

I consulted with our own cosmetics guru, Midge Slater. I asked her, “How many shades of makeup do you carry to go with all the skin colors of your customers?” She said, “More than 30.”

Really!? That’s over 30 skin tones, just in our county. Each one special to Jesus, each one beloved by God. Living color, indeed.