“I see everyone the same. In fact, everyone should just be purple in my eyes.” Yes, those were words that have come out of my mouth. Growing up in a racially divided yet diverse area seeing everyone “the same,” was given a hand clap and seen as the greatest form of acceptance and love of Christ. However, as my journey of racial reconciliation continues and my study of sociology grows, I am quickly being humbled by God that “seeing everyone the same” is not, in fact, at all how God sees each of his children. The reality hit home when at our City Vision Group today, Carolyn, who was leading the group on racial reconciliation in the city of Richmond, asked a follow up question to the statement of seeing everyone the same. She asked, “you see everyone the same as who?” The answer to that question is that we see everyone the same as us. As a white, upper middle class, southern female, that is my standard of measurement. I would expect everyone to live up to those mores and codes of culture in order to ever truly be like me. In my heart, I believe I want people to be like me. That would make this world easy. But only easy for me.
In fact, the term being “color blind” even reached popularity and continues to plague the way many people think of race relations. “If we could just get past race and start to see more than that about a person, we would be better off,” “I don’t see color when I see a person,” and “why cant we all just get along,” are all phrases that I have heard and said when thinking of race relations and how God wants us to handle this broken aspect of the fallen world. Carolyn even pointed out a song by Michael W. Smith, a christian recording artist, who sang a song entitled “Color Blind.” He asks…
“Why can’t we be color blind
You know we should
Be living together
And we’d find a reason and rhyme
I know we would
’cause we could see better
If we could be color blind”
Michael W. Smith, myself, and many others I know have claimed these same thoughts. Being color blind would just solve everything. God doesn’t really see color does he? Aren’t we all the same in his eyes? If that is how God sees us, then shouldn’t we look at other people the same way? Isn’t that what reconciliation is all about, seeing people as God sees them?
The way to start on the journey to racial reconciliation is to answer some of those questions posed above. A question that encompasses most of those thoughts and ideas is “what color will we be in Heaven?” Percy asked many of the CHAT kids, who are all black, that same question along with many others to create a racial reconciliation video tipping the edge of this major issue. When asked what color they would be in Heaven, some responded white, some black, one said brown. Do you think you will be the same color in Heaven? How would you feel beleiving that you would be changed into another race in Heaven?
“So, are there different races in Heaven?” one City Vision participant asked after watching the video. Revelation 7:9-10 answers that question…
“9After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
Every nation, tribe, people and language are standing before our God. What a picture of Heaven we are given in Revelation! Therefore, our motivation on earth should be to make that picture of Heaven a reality. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught the disciples to pray saying “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We, as God’s disciples, should bring His kingdom here to earth.
So how does that happen? How I bring the kingdom of Heaven onto earth regarding racial reconciliation and the multiethnic culture that God sees as so valuable. This can only be done by God’s love grace. Carolyn pointed out that in 2 Corinthians 5 Paul explained one part of creating Heaven on earth through the message of reconciliation:
“14For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
But this message of reconciliation is hard. As I talk to a friend of mine from home, we talk about how we hate the city and would rather live in the wide open spaces of the country. I have had a house picked out on the county line since I was 10 years old. It is a beautiful white house in a wide open space with a lake and a front porch. What more could any good North Carolinian ask for? And as much as I prayed to God for that house on the county line, I also prayed to God to be a part of His will on this earth. Part of his will is serving the poor, reconciling people to Him, and loving my neighbor. That is what reconciliation means. It means stepping outside of what is comfortable, giving up what I thought I wanted, and intentionally forming relationships that serve our loving and powerful God.
Is that easy? No, it is not easy. But are we as Christians suppose to go after what is easy. Take a look at the major players in the Bible. Did they go after easy? Did God call them to walk to easiest route, to fight the easiest battles, or teach the easiest lessons? No. God called his follows to take risks, to challenge society, to love regardless, to take up our cross and follow him. That means as followers of Christ we should be a part of righting the wrong of race relations in America. It means moving to places where we are the minority and loving those around us. It means using our money for serve others. It means making the gospel a reality. That is what reconciliation is about. That is what Christ is about. It may not be easy but we are Christians should not be about what is easy but be about bring the kingdom of Heaven to earth despite the cost.
No comments:
Post a Comment