A few years ago I began to pay attention to the tradition of family reunions in African-American families. I think it may have been when I learned that the Faulkners were driving to Massachusetts to meet other Faulkners. Or maybe it was when I found out that the Hairstons rent an entire hotel and drive the desk clerks crazy trying to figure out which Hairston goes in which room. Or maybe it was when I saw a Bailey family T-shirt that pictured a large flower with many petals, and each petal was an offshoot of the original couple. No, I’m sorry, I have it wrong. It wasn’t the Faulkners or the Hairstons or the Baileys that first taught me about family reunions; it was the Savage family, Cecelia Dade-Winfield’s family of origin, because we had a long laugh about what it was like to go to a convention attended by “savages”!
I rather envy this tradition, because I don’t know many white families that do it. Mine certainly has not, not since I was a teenager. I am sorry to say that I don’t even know where some of my family members are. You’ve heard of somebody being your cousin, once removed or twice removed? I just have cousins, removed! I am not even sure whether some of them are dead or alive. That’s not good, is it? I applaud the family reunion tradition, even though it sure does take a lot of you away from church in August! It’s good because you know that you were formed in a family, and that you neither can nor want to escape that. You were formed in a family, and that is so much a part of who you are that you make it a priority to be at the reunion.
But I am here this morning to say that there is another family reunion on its way, and I surely don’t want to miss this one. There is another family reunion, one bigger than any you have ever attended, and we don’t want to miss it. Nor do we want anybody else to miss it. That is the reunion of the whole human family. The gathering together, when time shall be no more, of all God’s children. As the spiritual says, “On that great gettin’-up morning”. We don’t want to miss that one, do we? God’s family; you were formed to be part of God’s family.
That is the most empowering, the most inclusive, the most exciting statement we can make. You were formed to be part of God’s family. You were not formed for isolation; you were not made to live alone; you were not set out here with no connections. You were formed for fellowship with God and for relationship with one another. You were formed to be part of God’s family.
The text for today is all-embracing, “From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth.” That’s everybody.
I
But the problem is that diversity divides us. Diversity divides. When you live in a diverse and multicultural city like Washington, at any given time there are a huge number of people from all the nations of the earth, speaking all sorts of languages, and it’s a little hard to think of ourselves as one human family. Diversity divides us.
About a week ago some of us went down to the mall to serve with the D. C. Baptist Convention, handing out cups of cold water in Jesus’ name. We were given a place to set up on a key pathway between the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean War Memorial. Because this year is the 50th anniversary of the end of hostilities in Korea, that pathway was filled with Asians – Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and so on. I said to Pat Bolinger, “It looks more like Seoul or Shanghai than Washington.” We offered these folks water and literature; Keith Taylor, who is a born salesman if there ever was one, shouted out the word, “free”. “Free water, free literature.” But many of them just smiled and walked on. They did not understand what we were saying. Diversity divided us. Communication was difficult. It was hard to see ourselves as part of one human family.
By the way, it was not only Asians we had trouble talking with. One group came up and several of our folks took a look at them and tried out their high school Spanish. But it didn’t work. Everybody in the group just smiled, drank the water, and went on. We all thought our Spanish must have been pretty bad; but then I saw the tour guide’s umbrella. It said, “Ciao, Italia”. I guess Spanish is not all that close to Italian!
Diversity divides us, human and limited as we are. I am sure that was what was going on that day in Athens when Paul stood on the Areopagus and tried to speak with those who came to that busy place. Jews and Greeks, Athenians and foreigners, all sorts of people. And not only different languages, but spiritually diverse, too. Epicureans and Stoics, philosophers and skeptics, religious and irreligious, all gathered there. Diverse and complex. Don’t you just love Luke’s note about what it was like on the Areopagus? “All the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” Wow! That’s us! That’s Washington. The latest gossip, the juiciest rumor, the faddish style, and the up-to-the-minute philosophy. It’s all here in this city. The market place of ideas, the clash of cultures, the rough-and-tumble of politics, and, certainly, since 9-1-1, the hostility of competing ideologies. All of that is here, and all of that divides us. It keeps us from feeling that we are all formed to be part of God’s family. Diversity divides.
II
But the truth is that God has given us to one another. If diversity divides, then understanding unites. God has chosen to enrich us by putting us in a place where we can teach and learn from the rich diversity at our fingertips. God has called us to live in this metropolitan, multicultural, multireligious, multi-everything city, and is therefore enriching us beyond what people in many parts of the world can expect. Diversity may divide; but we have the opportunity to understand. And understanding unites.
Have you been out New Hampshire Avenue extended? The spiritual diversity on that one road exceeds even old 16th Street. On New Hampshire Avenue, after you pass White Oak, you can see a Vietnamese Catholic Church, a Liberian Baptist Church, a Korean Presbyterian Church, a Spanish gospel church, a Muslim center, a Buddhist compound, two different kinds of Ukrainian cathedrals, plus the plain vanilla Lutherans and Episcopalians and Methodists. Oh, yes, over in the corner is a little establishment I think they call The People’s Community Baptist Church! Diversity! Confusing? Yes. A sign of our broken witness? Of course! But enriching, nonetheless. We have been given a tremendous opportunity.
You see, on the Areopagus, Paul taught, but Paul also learned. Paul taught the Athenians about Jesus, but Paul also learned that the Athenians understood Jesus in their own framework. When they heard Paul talk about Jesus and the Resurrection, they thought he was talking about two more gods to be added to their lengthy list; oh, let’s build altars to Jesus and to Anastasis! So Paul had to back up and learn to communicate better. He taught; but he also learned. Diversity divides; but understanding unites.
Because you and I are formed to be part of God’s family, we need to learn from others. We need to interact with a wider human family. And we are impoverished when we do not. When I was a seminary student in a rather large institution of that sort – the average seminary today has less than 200 students, but mine had about 1200 at that time – do you know that 95% of us were white and male and American? Despite the occasional African or Asian, the world I inhabited as a student, trying to learn about God’s plan for humanity, was almost all white, all male, and almost all American! How boring!
Think about it! I am trying to learn about God’s plan for all humanity, and I am not the least bit exposed to even a few representatives of most of the world!? Seems wrong, doesn’t it? And it was wrong. It was limited. It was confining. But that was the way it was in a Southern Baptist institution in Kentucky in the ‘60’s. It was an expression of our limited sight. It was much less than the family for which you and I were formed. I praise God that the seminaries our members have been attending are much, much more diverse than that, because understanding unites.
I want to urge you to today to enlarge the scope of your learning. I want to encourage you to learn from somebody who is different. Different in age, different in culture, different in language, and yes, even different in religion. I am not afraid that if you engage a Muslim in dialogue, you will get swallowed up in Islam. I am not scared that if you strike up a friendship with a Buddhist, you will end up in Nirvana. If you and I attempt to meet others, with complete respect, not only will we bear a witness to Christ, but also we will become better Christians. I urge you to find somebody – and it shouldn’t be hard in this city – somebody who comes from another country, another background, another religion. For all of us were formed to be part of God’s family. Diversity may divide, but understanding will unite.
In this week, as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the historic March on Washington, I need to say a word about race, because the specter of race and the threat of racism continue to hang over our heads like the storm clouds of August. The word I want to offer about race is simply this: that, despite our national history, despite the proclamations of race-baiters of all colors, it remains true that the concept of race is the single most bogus, most phony, most divisive, most unnecessary, and most vicious concept around! Race – what is that, anyway? Biologically, it won’t stand up; there is no “pure race”, at least not where we live. I understand that when anthropologists want to study ethnic characteristics, about the only place in the Western world they can do it is the small isolated island nation of Iceland, where there has been only a little intermarriage. But the rest of the Western world is an amalgamation of all sorts of blood lines. “Race” just doesn’t exist! You look at me and say “white”, as I look at many of you and say “black”, but the truth is that many of us, myself included, have strong mixtures of native American, and lots of other things. So let’s give the lie to the old notion of race as somehow a way to define ourselves or label ourselves. It’s a historical relic that ought to be thrown away and forgotten about, except that as we are parts of differing cultures and differing social networks, we do have much to learn from one another.
There isn’t time for me to develop this today; I will do so at the right time. But I just want to remind you that the heritage of this church as multiracial and multicultural is much too valuable a thing to lose or to misuse. I personally believe that any church that defines itself as for one color of people only has perjured itself and is not really a church of the Lord Jesus Christ. For we were formed to be part of God’s family. So the only race I want to be a part of is the human race. The only race I want to share in is the one about which Dr. King had a dream, where black and white, boys and girls, adherents of every religion and followers of every philosophy become my teachers and enrich me. For we are formed to be part of God’s family.
Diversity divides; but understanding unites.
III
Nevertheless, there is another aspect of this. There is something else we have to deal with on our way to becoming family. If diversity divides, and if understanding unites, then it is also true that the fragmented family is finally fixed by faith. If diversity divides, and if understanding unites, then it is also true that the fragmented family is finally fixed by faith.
If we do not talk to each other; diversity will divide us. If we avoid being captured into using labels like race that don’t mean anything, understanding will unite us. However, in the last analysis, in that great gettin’-up morning, the fragmented family is finally fixed by faith.
Brothers and sisters, if we care about this human race, the best thing, the most important thing we can do is to share the knowledge of a savior who is able to save everyone, no matter where we have come from or how far we have fallen. If we care – if we care about others, if we care about ourselves – we will do our very best to share the truth about Jesus Christ.
Paul stood on that Areopagus and found it was tough to communicate. Yes, the diversity of that place was divisive. But he stayed, and he spoke, and he tailored his message to his audience. His message was Christ and Him crucified and risen. His thrust was that God wants to draw together the whole human family around the redeemer. Paul said to the Athenians, “I see you are very religious.” But he did not say, “Since you are so religious, that’s fine, just keep it up and you’ll be all right.” He said, “I want to tell you about Jesus Christ and His redeeming death and His glorious resurrection.” That is the basis on which God wants to unite the whole human family. For there is no other way. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we may be saved, than the name of Jesus. It is in Him and by Him that the fragmented family will finally be fixed by faith.
Oh, you know, it’s easy to proclaim Christ as Lord within the walls of the church, where there will be no serious challenge. But out here on these streets, in this multicultural city, in this changing neighborhood, we are tempted to shrug it off and say, “Ah, well, to each his own. He’s a sincere Muslim. She’s a practicing Buddhist.” Or sometimes it’s, “Well, what can I say? He’s a nice guy. Do anything in the world for you. Not a Christian, but so what? God will understand.”
Oh, but that is not the basis on which God has chosen to bring His family together. That is not the foundation God has ordained. Let’s not get so caught up in our nicey-nice notions of sweet old grandpa God who would not hurt a flea that we forget that if heaven is real, so is hell. If mercy is real, so is judgment. So Paul announces, so that nobody miss it, “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Do you hear? God has waited for us to come home. But now it is judgement time, it’s lay-in-on-the-line time. If we are formed to be part of God’s family, then our task is to reach out and include others in God’s family. Let nothing that I have said leave the impression that, oh well, in the end, everybody gets saved anyway. That is not the case. That is not true. Just as because of my neglect I do not know where some of my cousins are, so also by our neglect and our indifference, by our shyness or by our spiritual weakness, we have left out family members living right next door, right across the street, right around the corner. We think they cannot be reached; but they can. All it takes is for us to reach out, to speak the truth in love, and then to leave it to the Lord. You know, Paul didn’t have much numerical success at Athens. Some scoffed at him; others said, “Not today, maybe later”. But some became believers. Some – that’s enough. That’s better than our “none”. Some – because the family of God was being repaired. Some – for the fragmented family will finally be fixed through faith.
I spoke of family reunions – those great gatherings of people who share a common heritage. Some of you have read the book about the Hairston family. You’ll know that for many years there were two Hairston branches – the white Hairstons, so-called, and the black Hairstons, so-called. They had as little to do with one another as possible. But about twenty-five years ago, the federal government decided to designate the old plantation, Cooleemee, as a National Historic Landmark. When the ceremony was scheduled, they invited white Hairstons and black Hairstons, and for the first time, all the Hairstons found one another. They embraced one another, and since then they have found in one another a sense of family.
Brothers and sisters, at the cross, Jesus Christ broke down every wall that separates. At the cross, he brought together those who thought they had no reason to be together. The fragmented family was being fixed in faith. We expect to make it to heaven, but heaven is not going to be half as wonderful as it could be if we haven’t even invited parts of the human family. Heaven is going to be strangely silent and awesomely empty if by faith we do not fix this fragmented human family. If you care about the family, if you care about yourself, you will invite others to God’s family through Jesus Christ.
You were formed to be part of God’s family. How will the cousins come to the reunion if we do not reach out and invite them?
