Would you still call me brother if you knew that Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi wrote the soundtrack to my life and Chancelor Jonathan Bennett gave me the definition of music? If my summer was defined by chain nets and walks to the carry-out? If I told the time by the street lights because my wallet kept my wrist bare? What if Shepard Fairey painted a face that gave me the Audacity to Hope and gave me Change I Can Believe In? What if you knew I was blue and not red?
Would you still call me brother if you saw my sin-scars and the stains of my youth? What if you knew how badly I need grace? Would your view of me change if you saw my ledger, and was made aware of my sins? If you could peel back the curtain and see the brokenness of my soul?
There is difference in all of us. You and I come unique and exquisitely fashioned in diverse ways. Yet, as the illustrious diplomat, T’challa Udaku remarked, “There is more that unites us than divides us.” If a representative of Wakanda can be convicted of this truth, how much more should those of us who have been exposed to the cross of Christ be convicted of this? Yet far too often we as people are predisposed to allow petty things to affect the way we view others.
Many of us live with a nearly diagnosable case of xenophobia. This “others-fear” permeates our world-view and often reveals itself in our daily life. It is as if our culture has conditioned our eyes to view with negativity those that do not live, act, or look like we do. Yet this runs contrary to the way Christ demands us to look at the world. We are to view the world with philoxenia (Romans 12:13) or “love of others.” The more radical the differences, the more our love should cover the gap. If you question what this looks like, look to Jesus Himself. He came and covered the near-infinite distance of heaven to earth, clothed Himself in the corruptibility of flesh, and embraced your curse, to have the ability to enter into a relationship with you. Life became death, light entered darkness, and perfection became clothed in imperfection, all for you. Love covered the expanse of sin, time, space, imperfection, rejection, and death to reach us, so why can it not cover the distance to our neighbor?
In light of this cross-advised truth, let us consider the love we are to extend to the world around us. In Matthew 5:45, Christ relates this love to the sun and the rain. The sun does not choose on whom to shine; the sun just shines. Likewise, the rain does not choose on whom to fall; it just falls. So it is with the love of God. God just loves: indiscriminately and always. To those of us who proudly hoist high the banner of Christ, we too must love: indiscriminately and always. But this should begin to come naturally the more in-tuned we become with the sacrifice of Christ. Differences are obliterated in the shine of the cross. What political preference, race, socio-economic status, profession, ethnicity, nationality, or lifestyle, could possibly devalue a soul that has been given the worth of a divine death?
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Furthermore, consider the nature of the Church. From early in Israelite history the Lord anxiously anticipated the arrival of a borderless and multi-national kingdom. He excitedly talks of a mountain that people of all nations will flock to and where their differences will find resolution (Isaiah 2:1-4). He sees a place where the Assyrian can be with the Israelite and the Egyptian with a man from Judah (Isaiah 19:25). We as a Church are that multi-national, borderless kingdom, filled with the diversity of God’s handiwork. We are the fulfillment of that Divine dream.
God the Artist fashioned a variety of people and used a score of colors, shapes, and brushes to create them. Each one of them stands as a masterpiece to the Creator, and we should rejoice with each one. I do not want a Church of people exactly like me, because that neither reflects the Father’s artistry nor the Son’s ministry. I want a church of the other, the strange, and the alien. I want to revel in our differences, and see Christ shining through our individual uniqueness. I want to be comfortable sitting beside the broken and the blind, to hear from the Savior who healed me and gave me sight.
I am different than you. You are different than me. But we are united by something unshakable and immutable: the love of God. This Love overcomes differences. This Love overcomes politics. This Love overcomes race. This Love overcomes all. We live in a divided, dark, and hateful world. Let us bring this love into it.
Bishop Darby
