Christian Compassion without Culture Wars, episode 5 transcript
Centering Christ Not Race
www.CrossCulturalVoices.org
John Yoder: Greetings everybody. John Yoder here. Welcome back to our series, “Christian Compassion without Culture Wars”. Today's title is “Centering Christ Not Race”. As Christians, we want to see all people walking together in love, harmony, and unity. At the end of the Bible, we have a beautiful picture of people of all ethnicities coming together as one, and what unites them is not a discussion of race. What unites them is shared awe and wonder and love of Jesus Christ. Let's listen in.
Revelation 7:9-10: After this, I looked, and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb”.
Folks, that passage is so powerful that Christians have been working together for 2000 years to try to turn it into reality. One of the friends of our ministry who serves with us in that process is the Reverend Dr. Victor Belton. He's an African American pastor with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and he is project manager for Rev 7:9, a ministry named after the verse that you just heard. So I asked Victor what it is that pumps him up about that passage. Here's what he had to say.
Victor Belton: Every nation, every tribe. Man, if we really believe that, it changes the way that we talk about one another. It changes the way that we view one another. If I appreciate that your tribe's gonna be there, our tribe is gonna be there, the tribe that both our tribes disliked and hated is going to be there, it changes our perspective on one another.
John Yoder: As we look at this beautiful picture, what is it that brings those people together? It is not a conference to discuss reconciliation, justice, or unity. In fact, the people gathered together are less aware of each other than they are of the God whom they have come together to worship. Our guest for the podcast series “Unseen” is Dr. Michelle Lee-Barnewall. In page 159 of her book, “A Longing to Belong”, she says this,
Michelle Lee-Barnewall: How can we get from the mess we have here on earth to that blissful, idyllic scene in heaven? Should we start by trying to get all these different groups together? Does one group bear more responsibility than the others?
Is there a special method of communication or conflict resolution technique that those saints learned that brought them together?
As helpful as answers to these questions might be, I believe the scene itself contains an important clue about where that unity all begins. Something that makes our efforts rather perilous if we miss it.
That clue is the throne of God. Being in the presence of and standing or kneeling before God's throne directly impacts us. Before that throne, there is no pretense of our own righteousness, or illusion of our supremacy over others. God's throne humbles us. It breaks down our defenses and shows us the futility of self dependence.
God's throne is the great equalizer for sinners. Crucially, God's multicultural people in Revelation are gathered in worship before the throne. Their hearts are oriented to their creator, fully aware of their complete inadequacy and his all surpassing adequacy. Being before the throne may be the position, the only position that allows us to overcome all the pettiness and meanness that causes or division and pain.
John Yoder: When you and I focus our attention on each other, we see the things that we are not satisfied with. We want change. We want an apology. But when any of us focus our attention on Jesus Christ, we see not the sins of other people, but our own. Here's an example,
John 8:3-7: The Scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. And placing her in the midst, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say”? He said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone”.
In this story, powerful Jewish leaders bring to Jesus a woman who was caught in adultery. The law said that she should receive the death penalty, and Jesus does not disagree. But he changes their gaze from her to himself. And he says, if you don't have sin, you get to throw the first stone.
As long as they looked at the woman, they saw her weaknesses. As soon as they looked at Jesus, they saw their own and their charges against the woman dropped. There are those that listen to stories like this, and conclude that Jesus stands up against the powerful, the influential, the wealthy, and stands for the powerless. But the truth is that when it comes to confronting personal sin, Jesus is equally firm with the powerful and the powerless.
In John chapter four, Jesus met a woman by the side of a well. In today's language, this woman was triple intersectional: she was female, she was minority ethnicity, and she was minority religion. Jesus was male, majority ethnicity, and majority religion. But he called out her sin. He began by calling out her sexual sin.
John 4:17-18: Jesus said to her, you are right in saying, “I have no husband”, for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.
Not only does Jesus call out her sexual misdeeds, but he says that her religious beliefs are incorrect.
John 4:22: You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Jesus was saying to her that she did not even understand the very nature of who God is. Now. Jesus loved this woman. He forgave her. He made her his daughter. But he did so after he called out her moral failures and her theological error. Jesus equally calls out the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, and we must all acknowledge that we are equally broken and unworthy before him.
Romans 3:23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
When each of us in our spirits understand and embrace that truth, when we see how unworthy we are to enter heaven, we will be deeply in love with Jesus who has loved and saved us, and we will have less ground to find fault with one another.
Here's what Michelle Lee-Barnewall says in page 181 of her book, “A Longing to Belong”.
Michelle Lee-Barnewall: What strikes me here is that of all the images of Jesus in Revelation, he is worshiped as the slain sacrificed for us Lamb of Revelation five and seven. Not the fearsome rider on the white horse of Revelation 19. Not the one like a magnificent Son of Man in Revelation one. Not even as the powerful lion of the tribe of Judah, of Revelation five. All of these would seem like more natural fits for a majestic throne room scene, and yet the lamb still bearing the marks of slaughter is the focus of worship.
There are two different types of greatness and awe here. One type relates to the God who is so amazing and all powerful and holy, that I feel completely overwhelmed and unworthy in his presence type of awe.
The other is connected with Jesus. His humility, which leads to a, this makes me see how selfish and self-centered I am, which makes me want to become a better person type of awe you get when you are in the presence of pure goodness and selflessness.
The first is awe of God on the throne. The second is awe of Jesus who suffered and died for us. Both give a piercing reflection of our shortcomings and compel us to change by pulling us out of our small perspective to what matters much, much more. Both help us know our true place, both transform us.
When I am painfully aware of my smallness and pettiness, I have to ask myself, what grounds for superiority or personal demands do I have over someone else? If I were to really know my true place, how could I not love and care about my wounded neighbor who is equally valued by God and created in his image?
John Yoder: In our conversations, if we center whiteness or blackness or racism, we will not accomplish reconciliation, but more division. But if we center Jesus and the unworthiness of any of us to enter heaven, we have a basis for unity.
As we do this, it's important for us to understand what is the nature of the gospel. Here is how the Apostle Paul sums up the core of the gospel.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4: For I delivered to you as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
Paul is very clear that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is our understanding of that, and our readiness to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord that makes us Christians. Nothing less, nothing more.
I frequently hear that conversations about race are gospel conversations. I need to respectfully disagree. There are many things that Christians need to do as part of obedience to God. Christians are required by God to tell the truth, honor our parents, give generously, build loving families, uphold sexual purity, and love people of all ethnicities. These things are our result of salvation. They are the obedience that God asked for all Christians, but they are not part of the gospel.
The gospel is not the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, plus opposition to pornography. The gospel is not the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ plus honoring your parents. And the gospel is not the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, plus racial reconciliation.
I understand the concern that by saying this, it sounds like I could be minimizing the importance of racial unity. But my concern is that those ministries that center race and not Christ minimize the gospel. I follow Christian ministries whose objective is focused on racial unity or other political agendas, and these organizations never, and I do mean never come around to the place of saying that all have sinned.
We deserve the eternal punishment of God and that our only hope of eternal life is through faith in Jesus Christ. And the deep burden of my heart is that many who follow these organizations may accomplish very worthwhile goals in terms of racial unity, but may miss heaven and face eternal judgment because they have not followed Christ as Savior and Lord.
Our hope of eternal life is not found in being reconciled to one another, but by being reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. We need to focus our gaze on Jesus and not on ourselves or others. Here is how the Apostle Peter got himself in trouble by focusing on himself and others instead of focusing on Christ.
John 21:17-22: Jesus said to Peter, “Truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go”. This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. And after saying this, he said to him, “Follow me”.
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. The one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you”? When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man”? Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.”
Jesus is saying to Peter that he is going to suffer on his behalf. And Peter does what you and I would do. He looks at the next guy over and says, “What about him? If I have to suffer, what about that guy”? The reality is that there will always be somebody else in the kingdom of God that's better off than us, and that has something that we don't.
If we focus on them, we will have a heart of jealousy and covetousness, but if we focus our attention on Jesus, we can have hearts of joy despite the hardships he gives to us.
Now friends, as I share these difficult things, I want you to understand it's not true of everyone. There are always those who need to have another argument about microaggressions, intersectionality, DEI, CRT, and more. But despite that, there are millions of people building healthy, wonderful cross-cultural relationships by following timeless principles Jesus taught: love one another, listen to one another, forgive one another, and center Christ.
You are quiet. You're not in the media. You don't make headlines. But you are there by the millions. Here is what Dr. Belton says.
Victor Belton: And so the fullest expression of that is when Jesus cracks the sky. But the foretaste of the feast to come is me in South Georgia, ministering to a congregation where nobody looks like me, has my perspective. They're country folks. There are people from farms, that now all live in the South Georgia. No one's from Washington, DC.
It's already occurring that people from different ethnicities and languages and cultures and traditions are joining together. And the common thread is the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's already happening. It among the people of God. Unfortunately, where our society would have us focus is on all the places it's not happening.
John Yoder: So friends take heart. Regardless of what you hear in the media, there are those out there in large numbers building healthy cross-cultural relationships.
As we close, Pastor Moses Saldivar shares with us how God takes people of many different ethnicities and binds us together as one new people
Moses Saldivar: We can get hung up on the way that we've grown up, our cultural background, the languages that we've grown up speaking, the communities that we've grown up in, whether they're affluent or not as affluent. We can come up with a whole bunch of reasons for our current state and situation, whatever that may be. But if we allow those things to define us rather than Christ, it's gonna be very hard to pursue any type of unity.
The thing that what I've always found interesting about that picture in Revelation is yes, you see the distinctions, but also it feels like the Lord creates a new people group. He creates a new people that still carry these marks of their cultural distinctions, but they're tied together in unity around Christ. And that is the primary thing that ties 'em together.
John Yoder: And so friends, the greatest question to each one of us is not, “Are you walking in unity with your neighbor”, but “Are you walking in unity with Christ”?
So let me ask, “Who is Jesus to you”? Is he at the center or the periphery? Is his gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, central to your hope or at the periphery?
Jesus invites each one of us to follow Him as Savior and Lord, but he will be at the center of our lives. Not our race, not our gender, not our politics, not our denomination, but Christ.
Becoming a follower of Jesus Christ is not a matter of joining a church. It's not receiving baptism or communion. It's not adhering to a moral code or to a theological statement. It is personal faith in Jesus Christ. All you have to do, you do not have to find the person to teach you the right words, is come to God in repentance and faith and promise to make Jesus the center of your life.
Today you've heard words of encouragement from Pastors Victor and Moses, that there are Christians building healthy cross-cultural relationships. Next time. Our focus is not on individuals but churches. And we want to assure you that there are churches out there that are building healthy cross-cultural ministries.
Now we know that many are racially divided, and we know that many are monocultural, but there are a growing number of churches out there that are multi-ethnic and emotionally healthy. We're going to share with you about them next week. I call them welcoming churches.
All of our blogs, podcasts, transcripts, are on our website, www.CrossCulturalVoices.org. I'll talk to you next time.
