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The recent and continued racial strife in our country has
deepened the division and separation among our citizens that has existed for
years. As followers of Jesus, we must speak and act in ways that bring
reconciliation and redemption out of the strife, not add to the disruptions. What is our narrative in days like these?
Paul, a
Jewish religious leader who Jesus called out from among his people and sent him
to all ethnic groups beyond the tribes of Israel, faced similar racial
divisions as he carried the good news of Jesus to the global mission field. Many
of the issues in the movement of Jesus centered on social and racial issues
like who could share a meal with whom and who belonged and who did not by the
religious rules they kept. Paul
addressed the corrosive issue of race and its attending social practices when
he wrote to Christ-followers in Ephesus.
14 For he himself is our
peace, who has made us
both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
15 by abolishing the law of commandments
expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place
of the two, so making peace, 16 and
might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing
the hostility. (Eph. 2:14-17; ESV)
Christ alone is
the way for warring, prejudicial groups to become a community. Jesus’ death on
the cross abolishes racial and social
“dividing walls” that create “hostility.” A relationship with Christ creates “one new man…so making peace”
from those who were separated by prejudice and pride. Christ kills the hostility between God and
people brought on by our sin-filled egos through his sacrificial death on the
cross and victorious resurrection from the dead.
Followers of Jesus no longer use labels
like “strangers and aliens,” but we are now in reality “fellow citizens with
the saints and members of the household of God.” (Ephesians
2:19) All people are made “citizens” and family members—no matter their
racial, social or ideological origins—through a relationship with Christ. The new community of the church should be
an example of reconciliation and hope where we live, learn, work and play. New-creation people who are gathered and
scattered as the church should be the pacesetter in demonstrating the suffering,
sacrificial love of Christ toward others in our neighborhoods, schools, and in
the marketplace.
Confess your “citizenship is in heaven”
(Phil.
3:20), which is made possible by Jesus, the Christ. Live like you are truly a member of the household belonging to God.
You live to honor your Father in Heaven and to respect those who are members of
that household. Doing so will free you to hold loosely those external things that
identify you and will help you see past those same things in others. We are to treat all who trust Jesus as one
of the family—no matter who they are—and all others with respect and as
potential family members who can accept their adoption into God’s household at
any moment. I believe, if we do these things, all the other issues that
fill the news and social media will find their proper place in our cultural
dialogue with others.