Race Sermon

Introduction

For my dad’s 80th birthday, I gave him a list. A list. I know, it doesn’t sound like a great birthday present, but this wasn’t just a grocery list or a to-do list. This was a record of significant events that had happened during each year of his life. You see, my dad was alive for the better part of the twentieth century, arguably the most transformative century in human history. We’re talking about a man that is closer in age to Thomas Edison inventing the phonograph than he is to his own son. So, for his birthday I catalogued all these things that had happened during his life. 1939: WWII breaks out. 1946: The commercially available microwave. 1985: The release of Super Mario Bros. 2007: The release of the iPhone…. Some were insignificant like the invention of microwavable popcorn bags or Pokemon Go, but others were monumental. My dad was born during segregation. He witnessed Truman desegregating the armed forces in 1948. Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that started school desegregation happened during his school years. The segregated school system he had grown up in only began to change during his last years of high school. In 1964, he witnessed the enactment of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited many significant acts of discrimination. He’s been alive during affirmative action, and he’s lived to see a black man become the President of the United States. Our nation has made tremendous and meaningful progress on race relations just during my dad’s lifetime. But, you see, racism and ethnic prejudice aren’t things that can just go away, certainly not through legislation or education alone. You see, my dad has also witnessed red-lining, the War on Drugs, continuing racialized violence, and the whole host of ways that racism and ethnic prejudice continue to plague our society.

Our world shows the symptoms of our sinful, divisive, ethnically-prejudiced natures. From George Floyd to anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, from the murder of Ahmad Arbury to ethnic violence in Ethiopia, racism and ethnic prejudice are clearly not behind us. The check engine light is still on. We need to talk about this, this whole nexus of complicated issues, and not just in this one sermon. To walk our people through repentance on these issues (and to live in repentance ourselves) will take more than just one sermon reminding everybody how bad racism is. I’m convinced that for the church to live and function as God intends will require a great deal of persistent prayer, painful introspection, patient dialogue with brothers and sisters of different cultures, ethnicities, and skin colors, prayer, and intentional effort.

So, we need to talk about race and ethnicity because it is such a salient social issue, but we must be cautious because there are many bad ways to talk about race. Paul calls us to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:16) and edifying words that give grace according to the need of the moment (Eph. 4:29). The Proverbs remind us of how good a word in its season is (Prov. 15:23). In just the last year, some pulpiteers chose to carelessly conflate peaceful protestors with the violent rioters before offering painfully one-sided sermons on how totally depraved people are or sermons that remind us of our responsibility to submit to governing authorities. All biblical statements, but I wonder if they really gave grace according to the need of the moment. I wonder if they were too one-sided. Maybe they didn’t force me to consider how I must repent, because I could instead think about how bad everybody else is. Such sermons might be true, but they don’t challenge those who need to be challenged, and they don’t comfort those who need to be comforted. On the other side, though, it is possible to lose sight of the gospel in the pursuit of social justice. There’s the temptation to preach the power of policy instead of the power of God, to proclaim the salvation of social reform instead of the salvation of the gospel. In sum, there are a lot of bad ways to talk about race, but we can’t just act like it isn’t there. Our hearts are sick. Our world is sick. We must step out onto the tightrope and seek to be faithful. Not by offering our own words or insights, because, I don’t know about you, but I don’t bring much to the table. The best we can do is to humbly receive a word from God and seek to share it with his people.

I. We Have Unity in the Triune God

And, today, that word will be from Ephesians, so you can go ahead and turn there, and we’ll start in chapter 2. The truth that God has taught me through these texts today and which I hope to share with y’all is that we must, by the Spirit, strive to maintain the unity that the church has in God through Christ. Now, the fact that we must strive to maintain our unity indicates that we have unity presently. Christians, brown, black, white, whatever- you name it- have unity in the Triune God- Father, Son, and Spirit- that transcends our racial and ethnic differences. We already have unity in God, through Christ. That work has already been done. So, let’s see, starting in 2:11, how that happened.

A. The Ethnic Division and Hostility

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’ (which is done in the body by human hands)- remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. The Ephesian church was composed of Jewish and Gentile Christians. Now, you know the history there. Sam went over this on Tuesday, so we don’t need to re-hash that. There was hostility between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews could say that our God is the true God, your people don’t even know him. The covenants came to my people. The words of God came through my people. You’re unclean. Don’t come near me. An uncircumcised Gentile like you doesn’t belong here. You’re an outsider. You’re a foreigner. And the animus was mutual. The Gentiles may have disliked the Jews because of their stubbornness, pride, and unwillingness to make sacrifices to the emperor and the gods.

B. Walls

This was the reality for these believers before Christ. They lived in this world of ethnic division and hostility for years and years. Like Paul says later on, there was a dividing wall of hostility and there was distance. The Gentiles were excluded from the temple and from full participation in the community. And isn’t that the point of a wall? To keep undesirable things out, to keep them away from me. These walls protect us from the elements and pests, but walls can also separate us from other people. The Great Wall of China kept out raiders from the North. The Berlin Wall separated the democratic West and the Soviet-controlled East. Even more recently, Trump wanted to build a wall along the southern border to keep migrants from illegally entering the country. If you want to keep something or someone out, walls have typically been the choice throughout human history. And that’s the way it was for Jews and Gentiles. We all know that the Jerusalem temple had literal walls that separated the spaces where Gentiles could and could not be. But there was also an interpersonal wall, a dividing wall of hostility.

C. Unification (2:13-19)

But now, in the Ephesian church, these Jewish and Gentile believers are rubbing shoulders on Sundays. How? In Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by the one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.

D. Basis of Our Unity = Christ’s Redemptive Work

The main thing I want you to see here is that the basis for our unity is Christ’s redemptive work. Our unity is not in our skin color. No, it transcends that. Our unity is not in our heritage or language. No, it transcends that. Our unity is not in a political ideology or a shared sense of oppression. No, it transcends all that. All of those are insufficient foundations for the church’s unity, because our God is the God of the whole world, and Christ’s church encompasses every tribe and nation and tongue. God’s kingdom transcends our petty little dividing lines. Thus, our unity is based in Christ’s redemptive work on behalf of every tribe and nation and tongue. Again, look at the language Paul used: By the blood of Christ . . . he is our peace . . . in his flesh . . . reconciling both of them to God through the cross. In his death, Christ’s cross became like a sledgehammer, tearing down the dividing wall of ethnic hostility.

E. The Wall Has Been Destroyed.

Catch the intensity of Paul’s language. Jesus destroyed the barrier. Jesus put to death their hostility. This isn’t “incremental progress.” This isn’t a political “give and take.” This is absolute and definite. Knocking down a wall can be exhausting work. You may pound away at the brick, strike after strike, with only slow, minor progress. You may need to take breaks. You may want to give up. You may want to leave the job undone. The good news, however, is that Jesus finished that work. “It is finished,” he cried. And that finished work didn’t only refer to the payment of our sins, so that we can be justified before God! No, because it is also through the cross that he put to death ethnic hostility, reconciling both Jews and Gentiles to God in one body (2:16). The hardest part of overcoming racial and ethnic divisions has already been done, for the basis of our unity is the Triune God. We are united in God through the Son and by the Spirit (cf. 2:18).

F. Mystery and the Gospel (3:1-13)

To put it another way, ethnic and racial reconciliation ought to flow from the Gospel. This is why we shouldn’t pit pursuing racial reconciliation and justice against “just preaching the Gospel.” Did you guys see those quarrels among Christian leaders last summer, where some tried to pit “social justice” against “just preaching the gospel?” Friends, ethnic reconciliation is intimately connected to the gospel! Look at what Paul says in chapter three. Paul begins talking about the “mystery of Christ.” The Spirit had revealed this mystery more fully to the apostles and prophets (3:5), and God had graciously charged Paul to preach it and make it known to everyone (3:9). What was this mystery? (Verse 6): This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. For Paul, the work of overcoming these ethnic hostilities was not divorced from the gospel, but it was actually a part of his work as a minister of the gospel. Friends, if you are called to “just preach the gospel,” then recognize that you are also called to show how that gospel overcomes ethnic divides and then labor for that reality to become manifest in the church today! Don’t fall off to one side or the other. Don’t ignore the powerful effects of the gospel and don’t just become a social activist. It is only through the gospel that true unity can exist, and we must also help our people to live out that unity in their lives, so that the church can be the model of ethnic diversity and unity that God intended.

Transition: Isn’t that what Paul does? Did he just write these great doctrinal truths of chapters 1-3 and leave it at that? Did he fulfill his calling simply by writing “by grace you have been saved through faith?” No, Paul wanted to help these Ephesians to live into the reality that they have in Christ. He didn’t just stop at the theoretical, but he got into the nitty-gritty. He talked about the practical, because how we live can strain or strengthen our unity. So…

II. We Must Maintain the Unity that We Have in God

We must maintain the unity that we have in God. Our unity is spiritual. Our unity is in Christ, so on one level, there is a bond between all believers that we could never truly sever. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t functionally deny that unity by how we treat each other. Since this unity is our reality, Paul urges us to live like it. He isn’t calling us to do anything more than be who we are in Christ. But at the same time, he can tell us to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit, because it can be so easy to divide and fragment, especially when we have different cultural values or different experiences shaping our thinking or different worship styles.

A. Rebuild those walls

It can be so easy to rebuild the walls of ethnic division, to fall into ethnic prejudice. Slowly, the way that we have done things can become the way to do them. We become so used to our culturally-conditioned way of thinking and functioning as a church, that we may begin to rebuild walls that keep other people out. My middle-class, white American way of preaching, of singing, of praying becomes the way to preach, sing, and pray. You may remember that PBS broadcast a few weeks ago on the black church in America. I hope you guys watched that. This phenomenon that I’m talking about, the blending of cultural practices, church worship, and a sense of ethnic superiority, was one of the things that they described. As African slaves became Christians, many of their native practices and beliefs shaped their Christian worship in distinctive ways that many white Christians tried to suppress. They even mentioned how the differing worship styles of southern and northern black Christians created conflict during the Great Migration of the 20th century. We end up rebuilding walls when we make our cultural preferences into rigid absolutes to divide over.

Now, we all do it, not just white people. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and this couple was talking about the relationship between grocery stores and ethnic superiority. It was a little different that church worship, but it proves the same point. You see, some grocery stores may have an aisle labeled “ethnic foods,” but it usually contains Latin or Asian cuisine, as if all food isn’t ethnic. What has happened is, the dominant culture has assumed the status of “normal,” and everything else is just a deviation from that “normal.” Now, this lady, a Latina, from Mexico specifically, shared a story of going to a Latin food store and seeing the exact same phenomena. The “normal” food was Mexican, and the other Latin cuisines, Cuban, Guatemalan, etc., were lumped together under a general label. That is just a small example of how we elevate our own cultural preferences to an exalted, superior status. Of how “our way” becomes “the way,” which can lead to further division and sometimes pain.

Isn’t that our default? We are comfortable with what we grew up with. We may not even realize that there are other legitimate ways to do things. We think our opinions are right, and we want to remain unchallenged. So, we tend to stick with those who think and act and look like us, because…it’s just more comfortable. It’s less messy. But, you know what? Slowly, but surely, we start to sort ourselves out into our various groups, and we become divided, and the beautiful unified diversity of the church, the manifold wisdom of God, gets obscured. It gets overshadowed by our self-imposed segregation. Instead of being Christ’s church, we end up with a black church and a white church, who so often view the world in radically irreconcilable ways, despite their unity in the gospel. That, friends, is why this instruction is so necessary. So read with me in chapter four, verse one.

B. Prisoner

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. First, recognize how Paul addressed the Ephesians. He isn’t speaking from a position of comfort and detached privilege. As a prisoner for the Lord. He’s in jail. He’s didn’t drive in his Mercedes to sit in a cushy pew. He is suffering. Why? Earlier, in chapter three, he reminded them that he was a prisoner for the sake of the Gentiles. Remember how Paul was arrested in Acts 21. Paul visited Jerusalem, and when he had entered the temple, some Jews recognized him and seized him. What was their charge? He teaches against our people and our law and our temple. They even accused Paul of bringing Gentiles into the temple (21:30). Later, when he was addressing the crowd, Luke tells us that the crowd listened to him until he started talking about his divine call to minister to Gentiles (Acts 22:20). Paul was in prison because of his ministry to the Gentiles. One early church writer says, “When Paul recalls his chains his intent is to encourage his hearers to rise above their own infirmities to moral excellence. It is as if he were saying: ‘Remember that it is in relation to you that I am in prison. Suppose I had refused to preach. I would have been free of all this.’”[1] Paul didn’t preach safe sermons. He gave himself sacrificially to this work, and we must do likewise. He is an example for us to live a life worthy of our calling as Christians. Not a cozy life. Not a life in a good neighborhood, with good schools, and neighbors that look like us. He calls to live a worthy life- not “the good life.” In this context, a life worthy of our calling means to live according to the unity that we already have in God. We are united. Our Triune God has accomplished that, we just need to be who we are. Be who you are.

C. How We Should Live with Each Other

But that’s broad. That’s general. The tension and conflicts of real life warranted more than that general instruction, so Paul went into more detail about what this must look like. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient. Bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

For the church to maintain the unity that it has in God, we must have humility. There are so many ways that this applies. We must not act like we have all the answers to really difficult racial questions. Understanding the dynamics of gentrification and community development- that’s complicated. Understanding the lasting effects of historical racial oppression- that’s complicated. Understanding the differences in treatment toward people of color in education, criminal justice, and employment- that’s complicated. We fail to live humbly, if we are unwilling to learn. There is so much that I don’t understand and had never really considered. There were so many assumptions that I had accepted without ever challenging them until I was willing to humbly learn from other people. We need to humility to receive correction. We must pray for the humility to learn from other people and other ethnicities. So, listen to podcasts. Read broadly. And, perhaps most importantly of all, cultivate meaningful friendships with people of different backgrounds. Have the humility to realize that you don’t understand as well as you think you do and recognize that you may need others’ insight.

But this work also takes gentleness and patience. When someone says something that we don’t agree with or don’t like, we may want to rush in with our correction or criticism. If someone said something insensitive, do we label them a “racist” and blacklist them? If someone tries to have a serious conversation about systemic racism, do we stop listening and shout them down with charges of “critical race theory!” I feel like there is so much disunity in our churches and denominations regarding race, because we won’t even be patient and gentle with one another. Friends, how will we ever shepherd our churches toward ethnic unity, if we can’t even engage in civil dialogue with each other? How can we hope to restore our unity across racial and ethnic lines, where our differences are deeper and can be more difficult, if our own denominations and church members are fighting internally about race.

Can’t we bear with each other in love? One of the biggest challenges to building and preserving multi-ethnic and multi-cultural churches is the diversity of opinions and desires. Which style of music will you use? How will the preacher preach? Or maybe a fellow member said something ignorant and insensitive that really hurt you. Maybe the pastor never mentioned, let alone prayed for, a terrible racist act that just happened, when you couldn’t stop thinking about it. Maybe the sermons’ applications are relevant for the stay-at-home soccer mom, but don’t help the single-mom on food stamps. It can be difficult and painful. People are wounded by things that I had never even realized could be hurtful. We must bear with one another. And that doesn’t mean that minorities just continue to accommodate mistreatment from white folk by turning the other cheek. That also means we sit, listen, and grieve their pain and frustration with them.

Guys, this is hard. It is not natural, and it isn’t something that we can do through our own fleshly efforts or programs or legislation. Even when Paul calls us to make every effort to maintain unity, he is talking about the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace that we have in Christ. So, remember, that this is not something that we can accomplish on our own. You cannot do this in your own strength and wisdom. I can’t give you three practical steps that will solve all our problems. But I do know that we must be led by the Spirit and grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because divided, hostile, even physically violent, genocidal people do not become unified through our fleshly efforts. Just as our unity is in God, so also our efforts to maintain that unity must be in the strength that God provides. Though it is hard, though our flesh resists it, this is something that we must pursue. Let us make every effort in the power of the Spirit to maintain the unity that the church has in God through Christ.

Because

III. Our Unity Affects Our Witness

We shouldn’t be striving for ethnic unity just because social unrest is scary, and we don’t like riots. We don’t do it because a stable, peaceful society is good for our stock portfolio. We don’t it to feel good about ourselves, like some white savior. No. We, the church, should be striving for unity because it affects our testimony to Christ. Remember what Jesus prayed in the garden the night before he was crucified. The man, literally so disturbed by his impending crucifixion that he was sweating drops of blood, prayed for our unity. That we, his disciples, might be one as he and the Father are one, so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus (John 17:21). Unity is important, because our division hinders our mission. And this is not something that we can just ignore. Though I’ve seen some Christian bloggers reject the idea of a public witness and make appeals to divine sovereignty to excuse their indifference, I am convinced that Paul, who probably understood the sovereignty of God better than all of us, was deeply concerned with how his actions affected his mission. He didn’t want to hinder the gospel among the Corinthians, so that man worked as a tentmaker- even though he was entitled to financial support. He would rather work a side job to support himself than hinder the gospel. Paul would give up meat, if it caused his brother to stumble. And have you read 1 Timothy? Paul’s concern for the church’s reputation and witness pulsates throughout the letter! From an overseer’s reputation to the support of widows to his instructions for men and women to addressing the false teaching- it all goes back to the church’s mission. Paul cared about the church’s witness and mission, so we should, too. Therefore, unity across ethnic and racial lines isn’t some insignificant issue we can just ignore... I have the privilege of talking about this stuff with my coworkers, and this is an actual issue. The church’s disunity and terrible complicity in racism repels people from listening to the gospel. People want to know why they should care about the faith of their ancestors’ slave master, an instrument used in their oppression. Do you know how much fun it is to try to answer that question?

The point is, unity is not just some abstract goal or an added benefit. Unity is essential to our witness, so if our churches are basically segregated, if they are promoting ethnic prejudices and divisions, if they are rebuilding dividing walls of hostility, then we are hindering the gospel and dishonoring Christ. We can’t “just preach the gospel.” To try to “just preach the gospel” while ignoring or even actively contributing to the walls of racial division is like trying to feed someone after you’ve put a muzzle on them. You are hindering the very work you claim to be doing. Friends, we must by the Spirit seek to maintain the unity that the church has in God through Christ, because our unity, including our unity across ethnic lines, is so crucial to our witness.

IV. Conclusion

It is essential to our witness, at least in part, because of how our churches are meant to reflect eternity. We call people to be reconciled to God. We call people to set their hopes in heaven, where Christ is seated and from where he will return. We call people to submit to Christ as Lord in their lives now, just as he will reign forever. The hope of the gospel is eternal, so the church ought to, as much as possible, reflect that eternity. Our churches ought to be little windows into eternity that draw people into the household of God. So, we must seek restoration and justice. We must show God’s love. We must pursue the redemption of all people. And we must strive to demonstrate the unity- across every ethnic and racial divide- that we will have perfectly, fully, and purely in eternity. And what will that perfect unity look like? John gave us glimpse in Revelation 7. “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 before the Lamb . . . and they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the lamb.” That is a scene of unity but not uniformity, of diversity but not division. John recognized discernable differences- God had saved people from every nation, tribe, people, and language. How could John have recognized that if our diversity doesn’t persist? I won’t stop being white when I get to heaven. I suppose this text even suggests that I might still speak English. God has saved a diverse group of people. We are not all exactly the same. The crowd that John saw was not uniform, but they did all cry out together. Let that be our goal. Unity, but not uniformity. Let us not colonize people with a gospel that we have corrupted with our own cultural and ethnic prejudices. Let us not simply invite different colored bodies into our church services, so long as they’ll leave their heritage at the door and conform to our ways. That’s the challenge of the multi-ethnic church. To stay diverse. To not become uniform, because we don’t seek uniformity. We don’t seek a superficial unity where we only come together on Sunday mornings or for classes at Beeson a few times a week. Rather, we want to have deep meaningful unity born out of relationship, where our lives are interpenetrated and integrated, where we can listen to each other, mourn with each other, and rejoice with each other, where we don’t just coexist, but where we love each other for who we are in Christ.

And that is hard work. It’s messy. And it’s complicated. And we’ll probably be wounded at some point. It will require humility and gentleness. Patience. It will require bearing with one another in love. It will require being eager to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. But, friends, that is our charge.