The EmbRACE Study / 02
This is our second post in our monthly church-wide study called EmbRACE, a repentance and study on race, society, and culture. You can find the first post here.
Revisit our foundational calling.
As we start our second study this week, we must not forget the foundation for bearing with one another in love from the first study. We will come back over and over to remember it is Christ who has brought us together. So no matter how different our views may be, we are called to strive to bear with one another for the sake of the gospel. Before you begin on any "hot topics" we must remember to recommit ourselves to the gospel and to one another.
Separation, Assimilation or Embrace.
From our second EmbRACE sermon, there was a calling on us to not give into two typical ways that society tends to deal with diversity: (1) separation: maintain a "negative peace" by minimizing the likelihood of conflict, (2) assimilation: require that those who are different conform to a particular way of life. Instead the gospel calls us to embrace one another because of our differences and celebrate them. The end of all things points to worship by "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." (Revelation 7:9).
In John 4, Jesus enters into a private (1-on-1) conversation with a Samaritan woman. The text highlights how taboo this was in the dialog and the framing of this conversation (for example, see v.8, 9, 27) By entering into this situation, Jesus put his reputation at risk -- even his disciples were confused. But through his actions, Jesus shows us that our confidence in the gospel frees us to move boldly into unpopular spaces. As we follow Jesus, we are called to count the cost while looking at Jesus. For "the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." (Matthew 13:44). The cost may be high, but Jesus assures us it is worth it. Jesus calls us to associate with the lowly, to seek the sheep who have wandered off, to embrace the outcast and, in so doing, find God more fully. As we seek to live out this implication of the gospel to embrace the other, we become more like our perfect savior who came to seek imperfect and sinful people like ourselves.
Can the church be a place where we recognize and welcome people and trust that the Spirit will do his work in those who he calls to himself? It could be that even those who we'd consider the last to come to faith will ultimately teach us much about our loving God. This Samaritan woman, because she was welcomed by Christ who dared to break social and cultural norms, becomes the first evangelist in the Gospel of John. "In Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Samaritan 'woman at the well' is called Saint Photini and, as Eva Catafygiotu Topping writes in Saints and Sisterhood, she 'occupies a place of honor among the apostles. In Greek sermons from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries she is called "apostle" and "evangelist." In these sermons, the Samaritan Woman is often compared to the male disciples and apostles and found to surpass them.'" (from The First Female Evangelists)
It is my hope that our church can grow in our love and capacity to welcome those who are different. That we would not let our doubts about how receptive or unreceptive we can be hinder the work of the Spirit among us. May God expand our hearts to love as Christ has loved us.
