It's Worse Than We Thought
Everywhere you turn there are headlines, social media posts, and water cooler conversations about the state of race and hatred in this country. While I am actually concerned about the outcome and the turning of injustice in the world at large, my particular focus is on the reaction of the Bride of Christ.
Where the world has its own methods and slogans, the church is called to a far different response than even the most sincere activist or champion. Our response to injustice and hatred is rooted deeply in the core beliefs we claim to espouse.
Far too often lately I’m hearing my white brothers and sisters justify, dismiss, and downplay the events of the past. No, I didn’t do it. No, you didn’t either. But it happened. It was awful and if we want to keep statues to “remember and not repeat” history, then we also need to remember and not repeat the tragedies perpetrated in the church, too.
In my lifetime I’ve seen a black family told they would be more comfortable at some other church, I’ve been told by some old-timers black people were the result of the curse of Ham/Canaan (wow, that one floored me even as a child), I’ve seen church by-laws need to have segregation clauses stripped out (and not that long ago), I’ve heard family and friends use the n-word, seen interracial relationships forbidden, and the list goes on and on.
But this problem goes beyond color, heritage, and background. The willingness for people to hate others is a deep and debilitating sin. A sin present in the church since its inception in the first century.
I’ve been in the ministry for roughly 25 years and I’ve seen wonderful things from God I can’t even begin to explain. I’ve also seen a side of humanity, supposedly redeemed humanity, that makes my stomach turn.
I’ve had church members take the time to glue a sign to the church sign that read “NO PASTOR” because they didn’t want me serving there. It took a few years, but I finally burned that sign.
I’ve had deacons get angry because we “helped a bunch of Mexicans instead of hearing about mothers on Mother’s Day” (his words). I’ve seen church members stay home when we invited a local black church to join us for service and I’ve been asked NOT to preach at that same church years later simply because I was white. This issue transcends any one group.
All this sheds light on something; something sinister. Something rearing its ugly head over and over in CHURCHES across America. That something is hate. Sometimes it is targeted at black people. Sometimes at white people. Sometimes at Mexicans. Sometimes at city people, Yankees, other denominations and on and on it goes.
There are those within the body of Christ right now arguing over whether or not racism is real, who is to blame and posturing with one another over who is right. The point isn’t whether racism has existed or even still exists in the body of Christ. If you don’t believe it, you haven’t visited enough churches and aren’t talking to enough people. Else, you are blinded by your own bias, whether conscious or unconscious, and refuse to see it. At any rate, the problem is far worse than just color.
Hate has found its way into the church since it began and the conflict between Jew and Gentile predates that. The sin of hatred runs far deeper than anyone defining issue. In this sense, it really is a deep heart issue, not ONLY a skin issue.
Satan has sought to destroy the bride of Christ since it started. He has tried to divide us in every way imaginable. It is, therefore, incumbent on each and every one of us to do our part to make sure this type of hatred, whether targeted at the pastor, a person of color, or some other silly cause of the day, is forever eradicated from the hearts of those proclaiming to know and follow Jesus Christ.
Up to now you've probably nodded and said Amen a few times. It's easy to condemn hatred. But what about the hidden bias in your own heart? What about the hatred that lies dormant in your own soul? You know, the times you laughed at a racial joke, used a racial slur, or intentionally allowed bitterness to live and fester in your heart.
What about the anger you felt in your heart and then justified with things like "I don't hate them all, just the bad ones." If your white daughter wanted to date a black boy, would it bother you? We can talk about ways it “isn't us” all day long, and believe me, I've done my share of that over the past 2 weeks, and maybe we are right, but the fact is we've allowed subtle and not so subtle forms of hatred for fellow image-bearers to go unchecked in the church for a very long time. Jesus has called us to better things!
It isn’t hard to condemn hatred. The hard part is rooting hidden hatred out of the dark recesses of our own hearts, even from places we didn't know it existed. That’s why we need bold Kingdom people speaking into our lives every day, calling out sin when they see it.
This problem is bigger than we thought.
And the answer is still the same. His name is Jesus and He died a long time ago, rose from the dead, and ascended to Heaven to secure the eternal forgiveness and freedom of ALL people.
The answer is to love Him and love others in the same way He did.
The answer is to be willing to peer into the recesses of our own hearts and ferret out this darkness and do what the Bible says to do to our sin: Put sin to death from within. (Romans 8:12-13)
The answer is to teach our children to love; love without measure, love without reciprocity, love without condition.
The answer is to practice loving our enemies, not burning them down, or spewing hate towards them, or somehow trying to justify our own hatred by pointing out all their faults and failings to salve our own conscience.
We also need to feel no shame for being sad that our forefathers in the church perpetrated a terrible scourge on our brothers and sisters of color through implicit and complicit degradation. It is not shame to lament the fact that pastors and their families have been burned up, burned out, and torn apart because they dared to speak the truth.
We DO need to take time for biblical lament over what has been lost and let that spur us on to the glory of what can be obtained, to the glory of what HAS ALREADY been obtained through Jesus.
The unity spoken of in John 17 is the very thing by which the world will know He is from God and we are loved by God.
The other day I told a man “I wouldn’t kneel for something I didn’t do.” The Holy Spirit said to me, “Jesus did.” He washed their feet, even Judas’, then he died a death I deserved … and He never did anything wrong.
This is bigger than we thought, but Jesus is bigger than this.
