As I have begun to get to know Merchantville and its environs (Pennsauken mostly), I have been struck by the diversity around our church. There was the moment of using Google translate to explain to some folks who spoke only Spanish when the Thrift shop was open (the translation algorithm called it ‘clothing store’). Then on a contemplative walk, saw three folks over in the park on the far side of City Hall, offering free Bible lessons in Spanish. Pretty sure it was an evangelism team of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Pastor Dan is working with an active portion of our
community with the New Covenant Church.
Stopped in at Aradia’s Treasures Metaphysical Giftshop on my
walk (noticed it previously but it wasn’t open). Love the Halloween trappings!
And the vibe of spirituality. And discovered that there is a Jain Temple in the wider community.
Jainism usually makes it into the ranks of world religions, but is one of the
smallest of that ranking. The nonviolence that they practice could teach us a
few things as we come to Jesus’ views on the world.
Different languages, different faiths, what is different
about us can spawn two possible reactions (but there may be more). The first is
that we are different, by which I am not trying to be obvious but rather to
name ‘us and them’. Being different is
what divides us. Could be language, religion, skin color, the barriers between
us and them, those people, are as endless as the human imagination.
The second reaction is that we are diverse, that there is
diversity among us. What that means for me is that we are one, but many within
the one. What makes us one is more than enough to overcome what humans create as
ways to divide us.
That’s a hard sell. The Bible has long and detailed passages
that lean into differences. The people of Israel were God’s Chosen People,
which made them different from everyone else. There are those who have come to
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, who have received forgiveness for their sins,
and there are those who are not. The trouble comes when these biblical examples
become the basis for negative attitudes, from condemnation to shaming to outright
violence and murder.
There are some Biblical universals to our diversity. We are
ALL Children of the Living God. How we moved to the universal from the ‘particular’
of God’s Chosen People of the Earlier covenant is another post. Another
Biblical universal is that Jesus died for ALL humanity. I am NOT claiming anything like universal
salvation, because there is a piece of this that God has left to our free will and there is such a thing as human responsibility but... (again, another post or two, God’s perfection and human free will).
But it means that we, the church, must treat the world in a
unified way, recognizing diversity of course, being intentional in seeing it
and loving it (because that’s what makes this world SO interesting). We are not
in the business of establishing “us and them”, of dividing the world to those
worthy and unworthy, saved and lost. That’s God’s business, WAY above our
paygrade, and we need to trust in God who is love to sort it out.
In Christ, there is no “us” and “them”, there is us, whom Jesus died for, who are the Children of God. Another way to say it is that Jesus is in every face that we see.
Under the pinions of God's wings,
Pastor Pete
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