According to the Associated Press, the top news story of 2014 was the killing of Eric Garner and Michael Brown by the police in Missouri and New York City.  The deaths of Garner and Brown have sparked widespread debate about police force and race in America. Our country has a very complex history of race relations and, as we have seen in recent months, race continues to be a hot button issue in our culture.  And as our country as a whole has had a unique experience of race, all of us individually have been shaped and conditioned by our own experiences.

I remember the first time I heard someone use the “N-Word.” I was 12 years old in my bedroom when a music video came on and one of my friends referred to the performer as the “N-Word.”  My parents never used that language, so I had no frame of reference for its meaning. As I progressed into high school, I never really considered the differences of race. My high school was a good representation of the national culture. I played sports and my teams were always mixed and that seemed normal.  It was not until I was in college when I really started to consider the issue of race.  I remember taking a class on race in America and it was the first time I remember in my life having an open, honest, very blunt conversation about race in a mixed environment.

During that semester, I remember going on a retreat with Campus Crusade for Christ.  The speaker spoke on race and asked us to analyze our hearts and thoughts.  My best friend was black and I after the talk I looked at him and asked, “Am I a racist?” He looked back and laughed. I did not live like a racist or act like one, but God was revealing things in my heart. He was showing me my underlying prejudices and thoughts that were not in line with God’s Word. 

These revelations, led me to the inner city of Washington, D.C. where I became a teacher at Dunbar Senior High School after college. Dunbar was the first African-American High School in the United States. It had a long and storied history. My first year there I was the only white male teacher.  I got a glimpse of how it felt it live as a minority.  It is hard to explain all that God did in my life during that time, but he used my time there to give me a passion for racial reconciliation.  I spent 5 years in D.C. living and working primarily in the black community. After five years in D.C. I was never accused of being a racist, but within my first few months in South that is exactly what happened.

  My experience in the Midwest and Northeast was very different than my time in the South.  Before moving into the pastorate, I ran a group home of teenage mothers who were in foster care.  A very common question that I was asked by people from the community was, “Are the girls there mostly black?” Their underlying assumption was that unwed, impoverished mothers were black.  And yet, during my five years, the residents of the group home was always diverse.  For ten years of my life adult life, I lived in a multi-ethnic community. 

That is only part of my story with race.  Everyone here has their own story about race.  It would be naïve to assume that my experience is similar to someone born in the 1920’s or 1930’s and being raised in the South.  We all have our own story. We all have our own preconceptions and prejudices.  The challenge for all of us is live in light of Romans 12:1-3:

We have to view race and ethnicity from God’s perspective. We know from Genesis 1 that God designed dignity for every race.  Genesis 1 is the foundation for every conversation of race. Here is the account of the 6^th day of creation:

Every person, male and female, black and white, Latino and Asian, were made in the image of God.  Every single human being has dignity. 

This has to frame every conversation of race. Any conversation where one ethnic group is viewed as less than another is against the Word of God. Any language that degrades, denigrates, or disparages another race is not of God, but of the devil.  To speak down against another race is to forget God’s Word that they were made in the image of God.  Humanity as God’s image-bearers is one of the reason we do not lie to each other.  People who bear the image of God deserve the truth. This is why we do not gossip or slander someone, because people who bear the image of God deserve respect. 

As we look back at the creation account, at the end of each day God says, “It was good.” After God made the roses, tulips and perennials, he said that it was good. After he made, lions, turtles, and giraffes, he said that it was good.  After he made dolphins, blowfish, and sea horses, he said that it was good. God delighted in the diversity of his creation.  If God delighted in the diversity of fish, don’t you think he also delighted in the diversity of us who were made in God’s image?

We may not mind diversity, but do we delight in it?  Do we view diversity more as an inconvenience or an expression of the mind and heart of God? Diversity often makes us uncomfortable. We are creatures of habit. We want things the same and things that are familiar. Do you delight in the diversity of music or would you prefer everyone to conform to your preference? We must transform our minds to delight in the diversity of our world.

Although we should delight in diversity, we must always remember that all humanity shares the same parents.  All humanity came from our first parents, Adam and Eve.  If we trace our family line all the way back, we will get to common parents. In our DNA, we are more “like” other ethnicities than “not like” other ethnicities. It may appear on the service that our cultures are very different and distinct, but our blood still bleeds red and we are all in Adam. Theologian and author, David Clark, writes, “From the unity of the race, ancient rabbis rightly inferred racial equality. “Why was humanity created a single, solitary human being? So that it might not be said that some races are better than others.[1]”  Our common ancestry in Adam equalizes us because we all are fundamentally similar rather than different.

And because we are all in Adam, we all share the nature of Adam. We are all sinners.  Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” We all are sinners.  We share the same fallen nature. It is hard for us remember that we are more similar than dissimilar. If we are so similar, why does it seem like we are so different? Genesis 11:1-9,

            Salvation has been promised to all people through Christ. Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The offspring of Abraham would bless all the people of the earth.  The blessing is offered to every tribe, tongue and nation through Christ. The offering of salvation is for every person, from every nation under heaven.  For “whosoever believes should not perish but have eternal life.” (John3:16) “For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)  “Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2) “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:22b-25a)

One of the greatest issues facing the early church was racism. The church had to deal with the unity of a diverse community, Jews and Gentiles, living together.  Peter was showing favoritism to the Jews over the Gentiles so Paul rebuked him because his “conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel” (Gal 2: 14). The first problem that arose within the church documented in Acts was one of racial tension. Acts 6:1, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” The office of deacons was established to create unity in the diverse community of faith.

The church should be the most unified diverse community on the planet.  Jesus Christ died to break down the hostility of our differences to unite us in his blood. Those who do not desire unity in the body of Christ do not truly understand the gospel.

            Our church community should be a reflection of our heavenly community.  We are no longer strangers and aliens, but we are fellow citizens and members of the same household of God.  We are called to display the glory of God in our unity here on earth as a reflection of how our life will be there in heaven.  In Revelation 5:9-10, the heavenly community sang,

           

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