Jump Start # 1729

Acts 10:34 “Opening his mouth, Peter said, ‘I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality”

  His name is Ivory, and he is black. He worships with us and is a kind, gentle and compassionate friend. He dresses sharp on the outside and is insightful and reflective on the inside. We talked the other day. The conversation turned to a discussion about prejudice. He spoke, I listened. I don’t understand prejudice. I guess I am color blind when it comes to things like that. I know about prejudice. I graduated from a high school that was infected with racial problems. Fights were nearly daily. Police were often called to the school. I have seen the fear in neighbors as a white neighborhood sells out and flees to the suburbs and that neighborhood becomes black. But what I don’t understand is how there can be prejudice in the church. I have talked with several black brethren and have asked them what was it like in the 1960’s among brethren. The answer is universally the same, PREJUDICE. But what is even more amazing, is to see these families not be destroyed by this hatred nor to use these events to play the victim card. Most would have never said anything, had I not asked. You would never know what these good folks endured by the reckless tongues of their own brethren.

Our passage is one of multiple verses that shows what God thinks about prejudice. God is the one who made us the color we are. Peter’s trouble in our verse wasn’t the color of Cornelius’ skin, but his ethnicity. Cornelius was Gentile and Peter was from a Jewish background. Peter admitted that it was unlawful for a Jew to visit a “foreigner.” God had to send three visions for Peter to get it. Even later on in the N.T., Peter stumbles on this point and caves in to the pressure of Jews. He and Barnabas alienate themselves from Gentiles. The apostle Paul confronted Peter, face to face with this hypocrisy.

God loves all. We are to love all. The curse of Cain was not a change of complexion. The Bible doesn’t tell us what the “mark of Cain” was. If it was, how do we know that the curse wasn’t turning him “white.” Too many assume that God is white and that God is American and that God has an American flag on His pickup in Heaven. Wrong on all counts. God is a spirit. Our souls do not have color. God is not American.

Prejudice is born out of the fact that we are different. So what? Prejudice is fed by our fears and our up bringing. The N.T. faced many social challenges. Galatians lists many of these when it reminds us that we are all one in Christ. There is not male, female, master, slave, Jew or Gentile. Each of those where huge cultural and prejudicial differences. Can you imagine, during worship, a master serving his own slave the Lord’s Supper? Can you image a Jew serving a Gentile the Lord’s Supper? Or a man serving a woman? Those were mountains to climb for those early Christians. The very master who might serve his slave during worship, would then go home and the slave would serve the master dinner. What a twist of events and what re-wiring of their minds and hearts. They somehow worked it out. They did it. They saw that God wanted a untied church. God wanted brethren to be of the same faith and same heart. God wanted the church to be a spiritual family. All would be welcomed. All would be cared for. All would be loved. All would be accepted.

These many years later, we ought not to still be struggling with prejudice among brethren. But we do. Fewer things are more toxic to a church and more destructive to our message and more insulting to our God than for brethren to ignore, avoid, look down or roll their lip at someone who Jesus died for and is now God’s child. Prejudice comes in many ugly forms. It can be against the color of skin. The nationality of someone. There can be prejudice toward age, young and old often struggle in the same congregation. It’s time we killed prejudice in the church. It’s time we stopped tolerating it in the church. It’s time to show some the door and if they no longer what to manifest the spirit of Jesus, be disciplined.

Stop the “color jokes.” They are insulting. Stop talking about the color of our current president. You may like or not like him based upon policy decisions and philosophy, but to discount him because of his race, is prejudice. Stop referring to your brethren who look different than you do as, “them.” Once you start the “them” and “us” talk, you being the process of dividing. Stop it. It’s time to pray that God will change your heart.

Stop excusing prejudice. When someone says, “You can’t teach an old dog, new tricks. That’s just the way I am,” he is not even trying to do what Jesus said. You are not a dog. You are a soul created in the image of God and the Lord wants you to be conformed to Jesus. If you want to be an old dog, then maybe the best place for you is out back in a dog house.

Stop saying, “Well, that’s just the way I was raised.” Have you heard of repentance? Change. God demands that. By justifying your hateful spirit, you are allowing the next generation to carry on—because that’s the way they are being raised. I have seen and heard prejudice among family members. We have in our family history someone who belonged to the Klan the same time he belonged to God’s church. A person can change if they want to. We walk with Jesus. The same Jesus who healed the Gentiles. The same Jesus who went to Samaria. The same Jesus who invited himself to the home of a tax collector. Jesus didn’t see color. He saw souls. We need more and more of us to walk with Jesus.

Stop defending prejudice by tying it to Nascar, being a redneck or Southern. You are a Christian. Period. First and always, a Christian. You don’t have God if you can’t love your brother in Christ. That passage doesn’t read, “Your white brother.” It’s all brethren. It’s the Indian. It’s the Asian. It’s the black. It’s the white. It’s the inner city brother. It’s the country brother. Just drop all the labels, titles and realize we are one in Christ. Become color blind to the world.

I hug Mr. Ivory every Sunday out in front of our building. I do so because I love him. I do so because I want cars passing by and folks leaving the building to see a white preacher hugging a black man. I do so because I believe Jesus would have hugged me.

I am embarrassed and ashamed of how some in the church have treated others in the past. I hope this Jump Start begins a serious look within. I hope you will realize that you can lose your soul for being so hateful and ugly toward any of God’s people. I hope you can see how wrong all of this is. I pray for the day when we stop defining churches as “black church” or, “white church.” If this doesn’t stop, you may find at eternity, those that you were prejudiced against in Heaven and you not being allowed in. Our attitudes, spirit, body language, friendliness and acceptance of one another illustrates our character and whether or not we truly walk with Jesus.

I saw a sign on a church building that said, “God loves you, and we are trying our best.” I think we can do better. Don’t you? Maybe you need to hand this Jump Start along with an apology to some in your congregation. What would Jesus have you to do?

Roger