Is Racism a Discipleship Issue?

I can’t remember a time when discussions about race relations have ever penetrated public consciousness the way they are now.

Race has always played a role in discussions about issues like voting, education, and criminal justice. And those discussions continue today.

But now race is playing a role in discussions of topics as wide-ranging as health care, sports, public monuments, and the names of US military installations. We are thinking together as a nation what role racism has played in not only in our history but also in the status quo as we know it.

Why would a blog devoted to matters of discipleship (following Jesus) say something about race relations?

There are three reasons:

1. Race relations play a prominent role in the pages of the New Testament. The issue wasn’t skin color in the first century church, but the divide between Jew and Gentile was ancient and deep and filled with mutual suspicion.

It was when Gentiles began to turn to Christ and fill the churches that the sparks began to fly. We see the New Testament’s account of how the church dealt with racial tensions not only in the Book of Acts but also in Paul’s epistles, where he instructs and admonishes believers not to let race stand in the way of what God was doing among them.

He wrote to the churches in Galatia: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

He wrote to the church in Ephesus: “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh… were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 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… that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace…. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2).

Racism in the church is a discipleship issue because our union in Christ means that the usual demographic distinctions take on a secondary role; they no longer define our relationships with other believers.

Our primary identity is found in Christ; for the Christ-follower, every other demographic marker is a distant and irrelevant second. This means that we are Christians before we are Americans, before we are white or black or Hispanic or Asian, before we are men or women. We are Christians first; everything else is details.
 
2. Racism matters because of the second greatest commandment. When someone asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment, he quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Loving God is Job One for every Christ-follower.

But Jesus went on to answer an unasked question. He knew that in the name of love of God, fallen men are capable of committing great acts of hatred toward other men. So Jesus added the second rail to the track: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

But his questioner that day was a legalist who was eager to set limitations on that obligation to love our neighbors, so he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

In answer, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, a story in which two Jewish religious types ignore the needs of a wounded man on the road and pass by – unwilling to disrupt their own status quo. It was a Samaritan who stopped to help.

The bad blood between Jews and Samaritans was ancient, even in the first century. So when Jesus chose to make the Samaritan the hero of the story, eye-brows were surely raised. It would be like telling a story in which a black man stops to help a white supremacist in need.

And the Samaritan didn’t just tend to the wounded man; he took him to a lodging house and told the owner that he would cover the expenses of caring for him.

Then Jesus turned the question back on his questioner: “Which man proved to be a neighbor that man?”
A typical racist Jew of his day, the legalistic questioner couldn’t even bring himself to use the word “Samaritan.” But he had to admit that it was the compassionate man, not the religious man, who was a neighbor the man in need.

In telling that story the way he did, Jesus made it clear that our obligation to neighbor-love transcends race and class.

Racism is a matter of discipleship because racist motives, racist words, and racist actions all are different ways of defying of Christ’s command to care for one another as diligently as we care for ourselves.

This kind of overt disobedience to the Lord Jesus is, of course, not an option for Christ-followers.
 
3. Racism is a matter of discipleship because of what God is making out of us. And this is the best part, the best of all.

When the church was taking shape in the first century, it constituted a new kind of social grouping. There had literally never been anything like the church before, a community composed of people from every nation and every social class. Before Christianity, religions had always grouped around ethnic and regional identities, and no one ever envisioned a community where slave and free and men and women would worship together as equals.

But the church was so very different. In the church, God was gathering a people for Himself from every tribe and every nation and every culture. Peter tells his readers, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God” (1 Peter 2:10).

This is still true today. Christ-followers are part of a vast, multi-ethnic, international tribe.

It is no exaggeration to say that I have more in common with my Christian friends in Mongolia than I have with my unbelieving neighbors. My Mongolian brothers and sisters in Christ celebrate the same Lord’s Supper, worship and serve the same Lord Jesus Christ, read the same Bible, and look forward to the same Kingdom as I do.

The Muslim world is centered in the Middle East. Buddhism is centered in eastern Asia, Hinduism in India. And those geographical centers influence the predominant ethnic makeup of those religious groups.

But the church of Jesus Christ is without question the most diverse community on the planet.
And this is just the beginning. John gives us a glimpse of the multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural people of God gathered before the throne, worshiping our Lord Christ: “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!’” (Revelation 7:9-10).

Racism is a discipleship issue because it is a rebellion against God’s ultimate purpose for His people: that we stand together with one voice in many languages praising our Lord Christ.
 
So is racism a discipleship issue?

A disciple is a Christ-follower who is constantly about the task of bringing every aspect of life – including his attitudes toward other ethnic groups – into obedience to Christ.

If I try to compartmentalize my faith, if I attempt to give Jesus full control over every aspect of my life except my response to people not like me, I am being willfully disobedient to my Master.

So, yes, racism is a discipleship issue.

Persevere.
Paul Pyle

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