Jesus Was Not a Mzungu

The Swahili word for "white person" is mzungu.  The word for "god" is mungu.  With only one letter difference between them (the z), they sound very similar.

Recently I went to a local shop for bread and other staples.  There were several school children outside the shop and I heard a couple of them saying something with the word mzungu in it.  We hear that word all the time.  We are an anomaly here, and children in particular like to point out the fact that we have white skin.

So it was not unusual to hear children saying, yet again, mzungu as I entered the scene.  At least, I thought I heard the word mzungu.  As it turns out, in actuality they were saying mungu.  Two words that are so similar in sound, and yet sooooo different in meaning.

The children were saying that I was like a god.

I didn't understand the situation at first and I smiled at the kids as they called me mzungu, which is what I understood to be happening.  But thankfully another woman who was standing outside the shop decided to address the very erroneous implication that I was like a god.

She called for one of the boys to come and see me, then told me directly, "They think you are like a god.  I am telling him you are just a person.  Let them come and see you are just a person."

And suddenly I realized the truth of the situation.  They were using the word mungu, and I had been smiling at them as if it was funny at best, truth at absolute worst.  I thank God for the woman who chose to speak up!

When I realized the situation, I also called for the boy to come.  "Kuja, kuja.  Habari yako?"  He came obediently but skeptically, and we shook hands.  The woman said something else in Swahili that was too fast for me to catch, and then the boy went on his way.

The woman was clearly upset and disturbed.  She came into the shop with me and repeated herself, "They need to know you are just a person.  I wanted them to know you are just a person."  She relayed what had transpired to the shopkeeper and I wanted to encourage them both that I was in agreement.

"You're right," I said.  "We are just people, the same as you."

"Yes!  You are the same as us!"

"It can be confusing because there are so many pictures of Jesus as a mzungu, but Jesus was not white."

"Jesus was not white."

"Yes," I said. "Jesus has usually been portrayed as a white person with light skin and light hair.  But he was born in Israel.  He had dark skin and dark hair."

That caused a pause, but I charged on.  "So it's easy to be confused, which is unfortunate, because Jesus was not a mzungu.  I'm glad you said something.  I also want them to know that I am just a person.  I am just like them."

There was a general agreement with that, and somehow we moved on to making our purchases and I left for home.

But I was mortified.  Those Kenyan children thought I was like a god?  Just because I have white skin?  There is no worse thing they could have imagined me to be!  I was absolutely mortified.

I was reminded of Paul and Barnabas in Lystra.  Paul healed a crippled man and immediately the people thought they were the gods come down.  "The gods have come down to us in human form!" they said.  They identified Paul as Hermes, and Barnabas as Zeus.

Needless to say, Paul and Barnabas were horrified.  So horrified, in fact, that they tore their clothes.  They shouted, "Men, why are you doing this?  We too are only men, human like you.  We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them."

Granted, they were likened to gods because they did something miraculous while I was likened to a god only because of my skin color, but the erroneous falsehood remained.  There is only one true God.  Period.

As for the misconception of the school children here, it's easy to understand their line of thinking.  They have most likely seen pictures of Jesus like this:

And this:

And this:

Not only is our Savior usually depicted with white skin, but often His salvific work on the cross has been portrayed with a Savior that's as white as a Scandanavian in the middle of winter.  Look at that pasty whiteness!  It's blinding.

The idea that Jesus was white gets ingrained in us from childhood.  What else would we expect when, on top of images like those above, we produce and read children's Bibles with a white Jesus?

It's actually quite normal to think of others from our own frame of reference.  Therefore, I think it's natural for white children to think of Jesus as white because they're identifying Him with what they know - their own white skin.  But unless they are taught otherwise, they will grow up thinking the falsehood that Jesus was white.  In reality, because Jesus was born in Israel he "would have looked like a Palestinian or Sephardi Jew, with brown skin and black hair."

Which means He probably looked more like this:

Or this:

Based upon my experience with the school children, it apparently remains necessary to continue spreading this truth.

I was also reminded of a story I heard a couple years ago.  A Kenyan friend was telling me about the first time she saw a mzungu.  She was a child at the time and a German missionary had come to the area.  When she saw the white man she immediately thought she was seeing Jesus.  She even went home and told her mother that she had seen Jesus.  As my friend told me this story she was laughing, because she knew how ridiculous it was, and I laughed too.  But my heart ached at the same time.  The perception that Jesus was a mzungu was, and still is, needing to be squashed.

So let me add my emphatic voice: Jesus was not a mzungu!  Jesus was not a white man!  He was an Israelite, a Jew, who came to seek and save the lost, which includes all of us whether we are white or black or anywhere in between.