Wilderness Wonderings

Wilderness Wonderings

ephesians

Unity Above Diversity

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“And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:17-22 ESV)

Unity. It is an ideal that we all claim to aspire to. It is even embedded in the name of our country – the United States. It is a principle that is embedded into the name of various Christian denominations like the United Methodists. It is an ideal and a virtue that we champion even on our darkest of days. However, all too often, we confuse unity with uniformity.

Uniformity expects compliance into a specific mold, whereas unity accepts and celebrates our different giftings, abilities, and backgrounds for the sake of a common purpose. The apostle and great missionary Paul of Tarsus also expressed this ideal this way: “…if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant that yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:1-4 ESV)

Nowhere in Paul’s writing does he ever call for the church to be separated by superficial labels of race, ethnicity, or even denomination. In a scientific sense, the genetic differences between the different ethnic races is so infinitesimally small that it is considered “statistically insignificant.” However, in our selfish humanistic thinking we have put up a dividing wall of hostility between us on the basis of so many different superficial and insignificant levels that we have built our own temple to our humanity instead of growing “into a a holy temple in the Lord”. We have become so focused on “cultural diversity” as a higher ideal that “cultural unity” has taken a back seat by elevating pride in our individual differences.

There is one Holy Spirit that unites us to the Father through His Son Jesus Christ. One. Our purpose in this world is be united in Him to the point that we are not strangers towards one another within the body of Christ. We are all members of His household eating at His table. A household built on the example of the apostles (past) and saints (present) with Christ as the chief cornerstone upon which it is all built. The cornerstone of our devotion to Christ is what builds our structure and joins us together.

As a result, consequently, if we are divided it is because we have built a house that is not built upon the example of the unity of the apostles and saints. We have not grown organically into a holy temple in the Lord because we have trusted in our own wisdom and selfish ambitions rather than lived in humility with one another and submission to Christ first. If we are to ever to know and experience the joy of unity in the body of Christ, we must somehow return to the foundation. We must repent of abandoning our roots and building a house that does not have Christ as the cornerstone upon which everything else is built. It is the cornerstone that gives us our bearings and point of reference. It is the cornerstone that provides our stability and strengthens our resolve. And it is the cornerstone of Christ that is capable of unifying us all into one body, joined by one Spirit, serving one Lord for the advancement of One eternal united Kingdom.

Killing the Hostility

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“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 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, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:13-16)

Growing up in the deep South, I am no stranger to the evils of racism. I’ve seen it perpetrated upon others. I’ve experienced racially motivated hatred towards myself from members of other races. All of it born out of a spirit of distrust between us all, in spite of personal best efforts to demonstrate an attitude contrary to the prevailing culture of the time. As a result, it perpetuated a continuous cycle of hate upon hate and hostility repaid with hostility.

I still remember the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election. It was my first opportunity to actually vote in a governor’s race. The options were between a known felon with connections to the mob who was later convicted of RICO charges and a former Grand Wizard of the KKK. Evil versus evil. And thus was my first introduction to the phrase “the lesser of two evils” as it pertains to politics.

I can recount innumerable times throughout my childhood, adolescence, and young adult life in Louisiana where race politics were not only expected, they were the norm. I have not followed Louisiana politics nearly as closely since 1996 because that is when I left the state for Texas, only returning briefly for 2 years to finish my undergraduate degree. At one time, I even entertained the fainting notion of running for public office due to my own youthful idealism only to realize that I would not have been able to stomach the perpetually spewing hatred from both sides of the aisle. Nor would I have been able to bring myself to do what was necessary in the realm of Louisiana politics to win a seat at the governing table.

Looking back over the years, there are a handful of people from my Louisiana days that I would have easily counted as friends who were of a different race than myself. From elementary school through high school, one such friend was Toni “Tee” Banks. She was and is still today a bright, intelligent, and supremely insightful young woman. I can recall some of the most challenging and educational moments of my academic life were conversations she and I would share back then. I can honestly say then and now that she was my friend.

In college, for one year I was a member of the intercollegiate debate team. My debate partner, Edwin Robinson, became one of my best friends in the world and that relationship still holds true today. I know now, as I did then, that if I ever needed anything in this world, even though we are hundred of miles apart, he would move Heaven and Earth to be there for me. And the fact that our different skin colors wouldn’t make a difference because it was our mutual love for one another and our love for Almighty God that binds our friendship for eternity.

In 1997, while I was in the midst of my own wilderness wandering period, abandoning my faith, I was befriended by a young Hispanic Lutheran ministry student named Mark Aponte. One day on my way to my bus, he picked me up and dropped me off at the stop and he asked me if I had a place to worship that evening. I politely brushed it off, but he firmly and lovingly reminded me of God’s command to not neglect the assembling together. To this day, I count him as one of my dear friends because he was one of several people in that one week that prodded me back into the family of faith.

Today, there are many colleagues that I work with of different races across the board. All of them, I carry with me the utmost respect and admiration for the integrity they bring to their jobs and their passion for the people that they work with is unmatched. One such friend is Michael Clayton. Last year he was diagnosed with cancer and my heart broke for him. As he chronicled his fight with cancer and I watched him and got to know more about him, I grew to admire and respect him even more. He is my friend and he is a survivor as he was recently declared to be in remission from his cancer. But what I appreciate the most is his love for his Lord Jesus that binds us together in brotherhood.

Last year, a dear sister who was one of my wife’s best friends for over 20 years, Brenda Gloria, from San Antonio went on to be with the Lord. Her uncompromising, but merciful and gracious spirit still resonates with my own. Her brother, Pastor Roland Gloria of Hard Rock Church in San Antonio, is a friend who I have the utmost admiration and respect for as his spirit and dedication to our Lord continue to be an inspiration for his congregation – a direct result of Brenda’s influence on his life. This loving Hispanic family will always be in my heart because of the direct impact that Brenda had in my life.

I attend worship at Great Hills Baptist Church here in Austin, TX. Our pastor often points out that we are a mutli-ethnic, multi-national, multi-generational body of believers. My Connect Group (Sunday School, Bible Study class) is made up of a wide variety of believers from around the world. Our teacher, Velu Kadirvel, who I count among my dear friends and as a mentor, hails from the Tamil region of India. Velu is one of the most intelligent and kind-hearted men that I know. His heart for God’s Kingdom and for seeing people know Jesus fuels his spirit with kindness and grace. There have been many times that I have needed that grace, and he has been loving enough to be there to provide arms of comfort, shed tears of grief, and cheer with me in my victories.

The common thread among all of these dear friends that allowed us look beyond our racial differences is our mutual understanding of the grace of Almighty God and our mutual understanding that we are all His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them. We have a clear understanding of our value as children of our Creator and that we have a responsibility to steward that relationship for the sake of His kingdom because it is the good work that God has called us all to in Christ Jesus. It is the blood of Christ that allows us to stand together in unity because that is what has broken down the wall of hostility that society tries to put up between us.

It takes more than words and pithy sayings to break down the walls between us. There are centuries of humanistic logic that has built up these walls by elevating pride and ethnicity over humility and humanity. It takes a supernatural vision of faith, hope, and love that fuels kindness, mercy, and grace to tear down those walls and see each other for the fearfully and wonderfully made creations that God has made us to be. We can issues all the shallow, obligatory political statements in the world, but they are nothing but empty words unless they are backed up by a vision that sees people for who God created them to be. All the empty gestures in the world that do nothing but call attention to how good we want people to see us are meaningless, until we back it up with action that transcends our superficial differences and gets to the heart of the matter and reconciles one another in relationships that reflect the Divine Abba Father’s love for us.

Say what you will about the times as they are, but until you are willing to cross the street and help the downtrodden and create a relationship that means something, keep your mouth shut. We can all say what we think, but we all live what we believe in our hearts. And it’s high time our hearts undergo a transformation that only His grace can provide.

We Are His Workmanship

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV)

Mercy. Love. Grace. Kindness. Faith. Salvation. The great attributes that all of humanity aspires to know and experience, yet so few of us truly understand that they are all interdependent upon one another. Mercy extends from a heart of love. Kindness extends from a heart full of grace. Salvation extends from a heart of faith in the Father. Salvation fuels a heart that is filled with love, which feeds mercy. A merciful heart is a kind heart which extends grace. But without faith to be the spark that ignites the fire of salvation, the other attributes are shallow and empty.

It must first begin with faith in the Father and in His word and His promises. He is our Creator. And He created us all for His purposes which He ordained before we were even a twinkle in our Abba’s eye. We were created for His joy, not His judgement. We were created to live lives that are worthy of His grace and love and mercy and kindness. But grace and mercy both imply brokenness beyond merit. Grace and mercy both require us to love one another more than we hate the offense, just as God loves us more than He hates our sin. So much does God love us that He was willing to go to Calvary in the form of His Son, Jesus, to reconcile us to Him and pay the required price for our sin in our place. While we were not created for judgement, our sin requires judgement in order to facilitate reconciliation and the sacrifice of Christ on a trash pile outside of Jerusalem satisfied this debt.

But unless we have faith in this satisfaction and are reconciled to Him, we will never understand what it means to experience genuine forgiveness, grace, and mercy that begins the cycle of love and kindness to our fellow man. Without faith in Him we can never understand the required transformation of our heart to even be capable of genuine grace and mercy and Godly kindness that looks beyond our human weaknesses to see the person beneath the brokenness.

Until we look upon each other as the workmanship of the Almighty Abba and Creator of us all, having faith in His goodness, we will never see the potential value that we all have for the Kingdom to bring peace and hope to a broken world that is beyond human repair. Our humanistic efforts have failed and fueled our pride giving rise to our hatred that reigns in the hearts of man through all of time. Perhaps it is time we finally examine the evidence before us all and admit that our humanity is broken and that we need Someone greater than us to make us whole again.

WE are HIS workmanship
CREATED in Christ Jesus for GOOD works
which GOD prepared beforehand
that WE should WALK in them

We. Not you. Not I. We. All of us together are His workmanship. All of us together, regardless of our gender, ethnicity, our national origin, our skin tone, our disabilities, our abilities, our sin, our weaknesses, our failures, our hopes, our dreams, our selfish desires, our sacrifices, our imaginings, our fears, our ambitions. WE ARE ALL HIS WORKMANSHIP!! WE ARE HIS!! HOW DARE WE TREAT ANY ONE OF HIS CREATION ANY LESS!!!

This year I have cried more tears than I can count. More tears than I can remember over the last decades. I’ve seen friends become gravely ill. I’ve lost a grandfather. Many of us lost a hero to our faith. We’ve all lost a connection with our neighbors. And our nation and world is burning down around us because of fear, anger, and the baser emotions that God has called us all to overcome.

We are His workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, not destruction. He prepared our works for us beforehand, but we are ignoring His mandates to kindness, love, mercy, and grace. And I dare say there are precious few of us that are walking in those mandates.

It is my prayer that I am continually re-examining my own heart to ensure that my faith that ignited my salvation fuels my heart with kindness and love so that I might show grace and mercy. Those are the good works that we were created for. Anything less is rubbish and fit for the fires of hell.

To all my brothers and sisters and friends of color, I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I offer you peace that can only come from faith in Him. I offer you a hand of friendship and arms of comfort. I share your pain. I cry out to our Father to take it away. And I hear my Abba gently saying to my heart that it is our responsibility to perform the good works that He prepared so that We might ALL walk together in them in kindness and love, showing grace and mercy to one another, for the sake of His Kingdom.

To my brothers, sisters, friends, and family who wear the blue and carry the badge. I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I pray peace that can only come from Him. I pray wisdom upon you all that you might execute the responsibilities of your office to the best of your ability. I pray for your safety as you go about your duties to serve and protect those in your charge. You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should all walk in them, for the sake of His Kingdom.

To our elected leaders and officials, I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I pray that Godly wisdom will find its way into your hearts and minds to do the right thing. I pray that you recognize that we are ALL God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that we should all walk in them. That includes you as well as you consider your legislations, as you consider the enforcement of our laws, as you ruminate over the judgements that you hand down. I pray that your hearts are ruled by kindness and love that are informed by a faith that produces salvation in your own hearts so that you are capable of extending transformative grace and mercy.

To the Church at large, I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I pray that your faith is genuine and real, and manifests the fruit of repentance that is characteristic of the salvation you profess. I pray that your hearts are fueled with kindness and love that extends grace and mercy from our Abba Father to all around you. For this is our mandate. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I can never say it enough. We are His workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. He prepared those good works for us to walk in them. It’s high time that we all get up off our our couches, turn off our televisions, seek out our neighbors, and show the world what the love of God is really all about. Until we do, nothing will ever change.

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