We are continuing in our series this morning entitled HOLDING OUT HOPE IN A WOUNDED WORLD.
A series allowing us to face the critical social issues in our common lives and to discover how the Spirit of God is imparting to us a great opportunity; an opportunity to rise above the temptations of either passive resignation, or polarizing rhetoric, and instead prove to be, as Jesus was, salt to the earth and light in the world. I believe God wants to restore in our souls the confidence to be a people who are positively and profoundly distinctive.
This morning I invite us to consider further the opportunity to RECKON WITH RACIAL DIVISION.
Last week we saw that the Spirit of God has indeed set into motion what was intended from the beginning of creation; TO SEE ALL THAT GOD CREATED - EVERY TONGUE, TRIBE, AND NATION, UNITED BEFORE HIM. We saw that our unity amidst diversity is essential to glorifying God.
The priority of our unity is seen…
in the purpose and prayer of Jesus …that we be one;
in the power of Pentecost, when the Spirit first falls upon the church;
in the picture of eternity, given in Revelation, when we see every tongue, tribe, and nation – literally every ethnic group- in worship before God.
This is what the Spirit of God has purposed and is pursuing even now. Last week we began to see the healing at hand in relation to our heritage. Though often we try to forget it, we ARE a COVENANT PEOPLE, a nation founded upon covenants made before God to honor him and honor one another. Whenever we have allowed a particular people to be deceived, degraded, or culturally destroyed…any true restoration and reconciliation awaits our repentance.
God is showing us that we indeed have some unfinished business, some wounds left open. God is not calling us to reject our heritage as a nation, but to RENEW OUR HERITAGE. We are not to focus on our failures. That just leaves us spiritually depressed. Rather we are to recognize them so that we are no longer spiritually repressed. Through recognition and repentance there is freedom; healing for us all.
And in that healing we can RESTORE OUR DIGNITY AND HONOR both as individuals and as a nation. The ability to recognize both our honor and dishonor, our pain and our potential is what distinguished every great leader of change – from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King. They were committed to change, not cynicism. Lincoln had the courage to call for freedom and Martin Luther King dared to declare a dream of equality.
With even greater interest in my own personal heritage I took some time this past week to sift through some records that had been compiled and passed on which trace my lineage and heritage through my fathers mother. It includes English, Irish, French, and German. I don’t know if I should feel like a masterpiece or a mutt!
Began with three brothers emigrating from England before 1643. My GGGGG Grandfather, James Sawyer served as a Major in the Revolutionary War and died in captivity on board a prison ship. He was married to a daughter or granddaughter of a Presbyterian pastor. My Great Grandfather left home when 8 or 9 …worked for a farmer…later became a State Senator of Illinois. “He liked to argue with ministers and to quote the Bible.” His wife’s parents, my great great great grand parents were pioneers in Illinois. In the absence of inns…Abraham Lincoln stayed at their place one night.
His own parents were Scotish Quakers and settled as wealthy families in Virginia. The mother was so opposed to slavery that despite her wealth she refused even a single house servant. Of the other parents family, it is said, the “outgrew slavery and became opposed to it.”
What captured me the most was this statement “they OUTGREW slavery.” Something changed within them.
This leads us to our focus this morning. THE HEALING OF OUR HEARTS.
Having focused last week on our past…our heritage, this week I want to focus on our present…our hearts.
When the Scriptures refer to our hearts, they are referring to more than our emotions; the heart is understood as our inner person, our disposition, the seat of our conviction, comprised of thoughts, feelings, and will.
This is where our approach to racial reconciliation can become so sensitive. We can agree that the injustice, discrimination, and demeaning associated with racism is wrong, but placing responsibility is proving more polarizing all the time.
Call me a racist…or simply imply it in any way, and I want to react. Such a label seems unfitting. I will feel you’ve judged me with a high crime and I want to prove my innocence…and in the process, judge you as well. WE BECOME ONLY FURTHER POLARIZED.
JESUS CAME TO PART THE POLARIZING OF ANY CLAIMS BEFORE GOD OR ONE ANOTHER. In the Sermon on the Mount he reveals that righteousness lies in the unseen heart…our inner disposition…a proposition that gets to the heart of the issue.
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says, to his brother, ‘Raca’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, “You fool” will be in danger of the fire of hell. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:21-24.
Jesus goes on to speak of adultery, divorce, and honesty in the same light. He doesn’t negate the letter of the law, and societies need for laws and labels as such; rather he makes clear that while those may be fitting for social standards, laws and labels fall short of bringing forth true righteousness. He gets to the heart of the issue, and quiets the accuser and defender in all of us. If you ask me if I’m a liar, adulterer, or murderer I may quickly say “no.” But they are all within me… all of them can surface in my heart.
In discovering the Spirit of the law, we discover the Law is not simply a boundary marker of behavior, but a plumb line of the heart. And if we are to search our hearts concerning racial division what are the seeds of separation which we may find?
I believe there are two pervasive seeds we must confront in our hearts.
1. PRIDE…the subtle inclination of superiority and judgment.
I don’t imagine many of us would think outright of ourselves as superior to others; or in a position to judge others; but we are all vulnerable to very subtle perceptions that creep in. As I’ve searched my own history of perceptions I thought back to my childhood…hearing comments about “them” referring very stereotypically about other ethnic groups. On top of this my black schoolmates were primarily “bused” into our primarily white community. While the message of the 60’s kept any overt perception of superiority in check, looking back I think I carried the seeds of “sophistication.”
These seeds became all the more subtle as I overtly rebelled against my affluent background and set out to live simple and serve others, first in San Diego…homeless community, then in French suburb of Geneva, Switzerland where I helped establish a church among the international community. The church was a beautiful sign of God’s Kingdom. Finally I moved to India.
I would later realize the increasing irony of these years…the more humble my setting and sacrifice appeared the more pride filled my heart. There I had been denying the caste system…offended that North Indians who were lighter were looked down on…AND ALL THE TIME DRAWING UPON THIS VERY SYSTEM. Failing to draw the full measure of my security and signs from God, I drew from my sense of being the more sophisticated, educated, white, American male. My humanity had been sown with the subtle inclination of superiority, which judged others as less “sophisticated.” And I would have to face the humility of Jesus and confess my sin. FOR JESUS IMPARTS THE HUMILITY NECESSARY TO RESTORE OUR TRUE HUMANITY.
Jesus, living in response to the Fathers love, showed us how to live:
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:5-8
Christ’s humility is restoring because it is a humility first before God then before one another. That’s the order.
This battle with pride is depicted in the TOWER OF BABEL when we are told the people of earth were first separated due to their pride before God!
In Christ God would provide a new unity based in humility before him. Early Church reveals this new way (Acts 2), but not without a struggle for superiority (Acts 6 – Hellenistic vs Hebrew widows.)
Paul becomes a champion force towards unity. He understood his common humanity in Christ, a humility that lead him to describe how “we are to put no confidence in the flesh.”
God has reminded me that i must come to terms with my own “confidence in the flesh.”
I’m an EDUCATED, WHITE, MALE, in my 30’s which represents 4 elements of the flesh right there. I must continually declare as Paul did, that in Christ, there is neither black or white; male or female, old our young…that I consider these as rubbish, and to value only being in Christ….not that we reject or despise their proper place but their social position and potential pride. Am I an educated, white, male, in my 30’s …who’s a Christian; or now in Christ…as an educated white, male, in my 30’s?
How do you see yourself? Perhaps there are parts of your identity that can take on a sense of superiority or a position of judgment.
The second seed that can lead to racial division is…
2. FEAR…the subtle intimidation of our differences.
Social science experiments have proven over and over the POWER OF FAMILIARITY. Familiarity isn’t wrong in itself…neither is diversity…or preference for styles.
> BUT FAMILIARITY CAN PLAY INTO FEARS THAT SEPARATE US.
Jesus reveals the common ground in which we can approach and appreciate our differences.
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to heath their hostility…In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit…As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with on another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 2:13-16, 21-22; 4:1-3
Jesus levels any real merits of superiority and separation. Coming to us as fallen creatures, he offers his life as a foundation more common than our color or culture…he as our true humanity becomes our bond of peace.
Notice Paul concludes that we are to “make every effort” to keep this unity. Knowing the tendency of fear and familiarity, our unity will require more than a passive acknowledgement. As the Psalmist wrote and the apostle Peter quoted: “Seek peace, and pursue it.”
Many of us may have friendships with those of different backgrounds but we rarely if ever openly explore their experience and perspective.
This past week I realized I had never asked a dear friend Nancy Nishi about her experience as a Japanese woman. Every week she serves us all in providing the book table after service… so humbly and quietly… and never had I stopped to consider her experience as a Japanese American. Perhaps familiarity and fear of trying to understand our differences had subtly blocked her ethnic background from my mind. Needless to say I wept as she told me of she and her family kept in Japanese American concentration camps during the war… and of the names and hostility she would have to endure as a little girl going to school.
HEALING BEGINS WITH AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING.
Let me suggest that in the process, we need grace as we enter the awkwardness of our ignorance. Even appropriate humor can be an important ingredient…a part of the atmosphere of grace that accompanies truth.)
AS WE OPEN UP MORE ABOUT OUR CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES AND EXPERIENCES OUR APPREHENSION CAN BE CHANGED TO APPRECIATION. We can begin to appreciate the beautiful qualities God has blessed each culture with…and woven into our diversity. As I’ve had opportunity both to study and travel…I’ve had an opportunity to appreciate such qualities as the Japanese respect for elders and community, the forgiving spirit of the Vietnamese, the hospitality of Latin America.
In a time of great division, the church has a grand opportunity to shine amid diversity. As a nation made up of almost every other nation, like the day of Pentecost, we are a glorious opportunity for the work of God’s Spirit.
Just as a jeweler places their finest work against the darkest background…so God is preparing for us to shine in the darkest of times.
I believe our individual hearts have the power to make all the difference in the world.
Mother Teresa was once asked how she was able to love the poor of Calcutta and the world. She responded, “I don’t know how to love the poor except one at a time.” With that she became salt and light to the world…she became a discomforting comfort, much like Jesus. She just sought God’s love as her identity and then did the right thing…and many in India have never been able to look at the poor the same. And many in the world have never been able to look at the poor same. But only because she learned to love “one at a time.”
> Who will be that one for you… for me?
