Intro of Joel

Several weeks ago, George Fox University was the center of a media storm; and not for reasons you get excited about.

4 students hung a cardboard cutout of Barack Obama from a tree, with a sign that attacked a leadership program on campus called “Acts 6”.

It was an act that brought to mind horrible acts done in our nation’s past. It made a political statement. And it was an attack on the 17 living, breathing, Acts 6 students on campus.

I thought the University responded extremely well. Robin Baker did an outstanding job reminding George Fox and the world that as a Quaker university, we have always stood for equality and social justice, and that behavior like that would not be tolerated.

The Acts 6 students have been articulate and courageous as they’ve addressed this in multiple places. Joel Perez is in charge of the Acts 6 program. He and his wife Jennifer are a part of our church, and he’ll share in just a minute some of what God has been doing in his life through this incident, and how God has shaped him to come to this place at this time.

We thought long and hard about how our church should respond.

Rather than respond immediately that following Sunday in worship, and run the risk of thinking that we were just having a reflexive movement to the hot topic of the day, we wanted to address the entire topic of diversity and unity in the wider life of the church.

We knew there would be a time when it would come up, and today in Galatians 3 is the time.

Our commitment as a church to equality, to celebrating the differences God has put into human beings, is a core value for us.

We are called to be agents of God’s peace and love to everyone

We are called to work for justice and to be agents of peace in a broken world. Whether situations of conflict and confusion be personal, national, or global - within the church or beyond it - we are called to be agents of the same healing and love we have received from God.

READ Gal. 3:26-28

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” Colossians 3:11, NIV.

“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” 1 Corinthians 12:12, 13, NIV.

Message

In heaven, we’ll all be together around Jesus’ throne.

“After 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. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” All the angels were standing round the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honour and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”” Revelation 7:9-12, NIV.

This is our future! The body of Christ as diverse as the world is, worshipping God all together!

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he gave them the familiar words of the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done…on earth, as it is in heaven.”

Part of our life prayer is to ask God to do here and now what he will do forever in heaven.

We ask for God to reign now like he will then. We act in ways that match up with our future in God’s presence.

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Sometimes it’s really important to remind ourselves of the most basic of things. Humans make divisions, and all of the possible divisions we can come up with are broken in Christ.

Paul is in the middle of a fairly elaborate argument in this letter to the Galatians, trying to help them see the futility of living by the law. He’s reminding them that everything began with God’s promise and grace, God’s gift to Abraham. The law God gave through Moses was something that kept things neat and tidy until the promised Messiah came.

The law excluded the Gentiles completely from God’s chosen people. But heaven isn’t going to be just for the Jews. Christ broke down that dividing wall the law had in place.

That’s the point Paul is making, but it gives him a chance to broaden and expand. It’s not just Jew/Gentile, but ALL divisions that are broken down.

Now, present tense, they are broken down in Christ Jesus.

Skin color, political party, size of bank account…we still create and maintain all kinds of divisions.

But it’s important to remind ourselves…this is not our future…and therefore it should not be our present.

“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

We probably could add something to the “bad word” list.

It’s a four-letter word, just like many of the “bad” words are. It’s a word that doesn’t have a future in God’s kingdom.

The word is “them”.

We are capable of rationalizing almost anything when we use the word “them”. Being different is not the same thing as being “them”. As soon as I make a distinction between “us” and “them”, as soon as I put “them” over there, I can do horrible things.

I hate the Yankees. They are definitely a “them”. Several years ago, I watched them destroy the Mariners wonderful, storybook season; the Yankees became a “them”. And it changed what I noticed and how I thought about both teams. Making the Yankees a “them” caused me to see all the decisions the umpire made for the Yankees as some kind of plot to increase T.V. ratings. It caused me to notice all the high priced free agents the Yankees have bought. It got to the point where I saw the stupid baseball games as good vs. evil, with the Mariners the epitome of virtue and the Yankees the personification of evil itself.

We do it all the time with rather insignificant things: Coke vs. Pepsi, our high school vs. our high school’s rival, Ford vs. Chevy. Those who like what we like become “us”; those who don’t like what we like become “them”.

We can do it as well with more significant things:

Republican vs. Democrat, Caucasian vs. African-American, heterosexual vs. homosexual, Christian vs. Muslim. Once we put the “other” camp in the “them” category, everything changes. No rules of order apply, because “all is fair in love and war.” When we make people “them”, we justify our own actions and devalue their opinions, and see everything through that filter. It colors our vision, our perceptions, our view of reality. Rather than see “them” as people, like us, who simply think differently, we de-humanize “them” and justify any of our own actions as right and theirs as evil.

“Otherness” and “different” can become “them”…or, otherness can become the Revelation picture of beautiful people gathered around Jesus together.

In Galatians, Paul says baptism–the complete immersion into Christ–means we also clothe ourselves with Christ. We act like him.

Jesus is the best example of someone truly “other” than us.

He was perfect, good, selfless, and loving. He chose to understand and identify with us by becoming fully human, walking and breathing and sweating in a body just like the rest of us. His actions showed us we are not a “them” to Jesus; when Jesus became human, we became “us” with Jesus.

That is the power of life with God. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28) “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” (Eph. 2: 13-15)

There are many more passages of scripture like that, ones which take the worst possible divisions of “us” and “them” imaginable, and tell us that even those have been made one “us” in Jesus Christ. Jesus’ attitude, and the attitude we are called to model as well, is to refuse to label those different from us as “them” and undeserving of God’s grace and love. Instead, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5: 8).

How might you treat those who are different from you if you view them as “us” rather than “them”?

Rather than a huge push today for civil rights, or a discussion about how our church might better reflect our diverse future in heaven...(all good topics, by the way)…rather than those big huge topics, I’m drawn to a simple one.

How do we treat people who are different from us?

Basic hospitality and decency are fundamental building blocks as we encounter those who are different. When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor? Who do I have to love?”…when he was asked that question, Jesus told a story that changed the focus.

He told a story about the worst division of his day, between Jew and Samaritan. And he made the bad guy the hero. The story of the Good Samaritan is a story of a “them” showing hospitality and decency.

Jesus changes the question after the story. Rather than, “Who is my neighbor? Who can I love, and who can I ignore?” Instead of that question, Jesus says, “Go BE a neighbor. Go act like a neighbor to even the worst “them” you can think of.”

In the turmoil at George Fox, the rancor of this election…

Galatians is reminding me Christ broke all barriers between us, now and forever. He is drawing all people to himself.

I might as well join the party now! We remind ourselves and show the world that the walls between us have been torn down by Jesus.

And part of the way our prayer for God’s will to be done here and now on earth as it is in heaven is to be a neighbor to those who are quite different.

Hospitality and kindness are never too basic to make an intentional, daily part of our lives.