What can cure racism?
by robert Krumrey
Jesus is clear that true followers of his are supposed to pay a price. Not a price that merits salvation or forgiveness or anything of the like, but a price of suffering and sacrifice in response to the free gift of grace given to us at the cross. Last Sunday (5/31/20) I preached on this (listen / watch) and I explained that Jesus clarifies the cost of following him, encourages us to count the cost of following him and finally asks us to pay the cost once clarified and counted.
What are these costs? They are many and could be enumerated at great length. They could be everything from giving financially to gospel ministry to dying a martyr’s death for your witness to that gospel. Everything is on the table as far as King Jesus is concerned, and as was stated in the sermon, the cost is worth it because of our estimation of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ as Savior and King (See Philippians 3:7-11).
One of the costs to be paid by the Christ follower that we may not think much about is the cost of curing racism. Jesus is on a mission to cure racism and it is part of the calling of his church to cooperate with him in doing so. In fact, he’s curing every kind of division that’s found in the human family due to the effects of sin. As Christians, we know that the divisions we see among human beings are not merely the result of unjust systems or corrupt governments or violent police officers. Those problems have at their root, the problem of sin. Sin rears its head over and over again marring image bearers and the communities in which they live.
So what kind of cost needs to get paid to fix racism and every other kind of human division? The biggest cost for fixing all of this has already been paid by Jesus. Racism is one of the things he’s paying for by dying on the cross - the sin of treating a fellow human as less than based on the color of their skin for the benefit of oneself. This is an incredible offense to God and worthy of his just wrath. That just wrath is being poured out at the cross so that racist people can be forgiven and reconciled to him.
His cost doesn’t just stop there in terms of what it affords. He’s also paying that cost to reconcile those who have been perpetrators and have been perpetrated against in a community known as the church. Because of this saving grace, those who have hurt and those who have been hurt are able to acknowledge sin and extend forgiveness resulting in what’s known as reconciliation. Paul describes this in Ephesians 2 when he is describing God’s plan to reconcile Jews and Gentiles:
“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.”
This is incredibly good news! Those who were once hostile toward each other can put that hostility to death because of the death Jesus died for sinners. Sinners who have hurt and sinners who have been hurt. The work that was impossible for us to accomplish has been done. Jesus has died and has made a way for true reconciliation to happen, but like all discipleship, the Christ follower is now invited to pay the cost of obedience to actualize this reality by faith.
Paul knew the difficulty of paying that cost all too well. In the book of Galatians, he tells of an experience he had with the Apostle Peter who didn’t seem all that interested in paying this cost:
“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.”
Evidently Peter (referred to as Cephas here) was breaking down barriers with non-Jews until his Jewish friends showed up. Then he again erected those old dividing walls of hostility between himself and his Gentile brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul is quick to confront him about the matter, because he knew it wasn’t consistent with what Jesus had died to accomplish – a church full of former enemies who are now a tight knit family.
This commitment to genuine fellowship with Christians who are not like ourselves (whoever that may be) is a very important part of living out the gospel. This is one of the most powerful signs to outsiders that God is actually doing something miraculous among Christians in the church. This requires us to pay a “cost” to enter these relationships. All relationships require a cost, but relationships with people that are different from us cost even more. This is a cost that we are willing to pay because Jesus paid such a high cost to reconcile us to him and to each other.
Like all costs that are paid by the Christ follower, it may help to clarify and count those costs. In order to move toward another who is not like us, we will need to be humble, curious, willing to learn, always listening. We can’t assume that values and norms of our culture are held in common by the other person. We need to be able to hear that we’ve done something offensive or hurtful and ask for forgiveness when we do. When we’ve been hurt or offended, we need to be able to extend that same forgiveness. I honestly think a lot of the racial tension in our country is due to the fact that people of different races don’t pursue genuine friendship, even in the church. We post on social media that we think black lives matter, and of course they do, but then go about our days building our deepest friendships with people from our own race and culture.
This cost will have to be paid by both sides in the relationship. Those who are in the majority culture and those who are not. Everyone will be having to work through awkwardness and misunderstanding. Saying hard things and trying not to take ourselves too seriously. This is part of the cost of following Jesus and as with all costs in the Christian life it is worth it. Many of my most meaningful relationships in the church have been with people whose skin is a lot darker than mine. Others whose first language is not English. Still others whose culture is completely new to me. Yet there is a commonality in Christ that gives us a foundation to build on that has caused these relationships to be deeper than many with those who share my own ethnicity. Paul describes this beautiful building up of the Jews and Gentiles in the church at Ephesus on this common foundation:
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
Paul teaches that built on the foundation of the gospel, these very different people groups are being formed into a temple for the presence of God. This is also part of why this is worth the cost. We not only experience the richness of relationships with those who are not like us, but we get to experience the very presence of God as he comes near to obedient disciples who are walking in step with the Holy Spirit in this area of racial reconciliation.
By saying these things, I’m not claiming to have all this down. I need to grow in this area too. I’m also not negating the need for systemic change or raising awareness of racism in America at large. I will speak to that in part 2 of this post. What I am saying is that if we aren’t building true relationships in the church with one another across racial lines, we have very little hope of changing anything in the larger culture. Church, we truly are the only ones who can genuinely bridge the “dividing wall of hostility” so lets commit to paying the cost to do so.