Finding True Equality in Christ

 

Jesus was in the business of breaking down barriers and connecting with people that everyone else had cast aside.

In John 4 we find Jesus travelling from Judea to Galilee. This journey would take him through Samaria. Samaria was where people of mixed descent lived. They were not the pure-blooded Jews that lived in the other areas of Israel. Many Jews despised these Samaritans and would take a longer journey around Samaria in order to avoid coming into contact with them.  Jesus made it a point to pass through Samaria.

Along the way he took a break at a well around noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water and Jesus asked her to give him a drink. She was surprised at this because Jews typically have nothing to do with Samaritans, but Jesus was there for the specific reason of talking with her. He preached to her of living water, the forgiveness and healing that he was offering. She took him up on his offer and well of water springing up unto eternal life up erupted in her soul.

Jesus was not concerned about what kind of ancestry this woman had. He did not care about the color of her skin or national heritage. What he saw was a woman created in his image and who needed forgiveness and redemption. He saw her eternal spirit shining through her dusty robes of flesh. She tried to bait him with political and religious controversies between her people and his, but he didn't care about any of that. He just wanted her to learn to love him worship him.

It should also be noted that Jesus did not make it a point to visit her simply because she was a Samaritan.  His attitude was not that these people are more oppressed and victimized, therefore they needed his ministry more than the Jews. His ministry focus was primarily on the Jews, but he preached to anyone and everyone who would listen. He did not single out people as being oppressed or marginalized and spend more time on them. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, majority or minority, the Lord did not care. Everybody needs forgiveness and salvation. He never put people into categories or status, if he saw a person who needed and wanted healing and redemption he went to them, it did not matter if they were privileged or not, poor or not. He met people where they were and called them to faith in him.

Paul wrote this in Galatians 3:26-28: "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.  For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

Paul declares plainly that in Christ we are all equal. It does not matter what gender we are, or what race or nationality we are. We are all children of God by faith. Regardless of our background, we must repent and put our trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross.

This equality is rooted in the idea that we are all created in the image of God. We are living icons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this gives each and every one of us tremendous value. This value has nothing to do with our ethnicity, family of origin, or economic status. Each individual is worthy of dignity, respect, and redemption.  God never looks at us through the lenses of race, color, or nationality. These categories are a human thing based in pride, fear, and hatred.

When I was a kid, I never cared what color of skin my friends had. I had White friends, Black, Asian and Hispanic friends. It never occurred to me that I should avoid someone or not be friendly with someone simply because of their skin tone. It also never occurred to me that they might be oppressed or victimized because of their skin color. Perhaps that sort of thing happened in far-off times and places, but not anywhere near me. I always saw people treated fairly (for the most part) regardless of their race. I certainly never thought that I should feel guilt because minorities were oppressed by people who had similar skin tone to me at some point in time.

For many years it seemed as though our nation was heading toward the ideal that every race is essentially the same, and we should all be treated with the same level of dignity and respect. We all carry the same red blood and have the same eternal spirit within us. We were heading toward that ideal that Martin Luther King, Jr. taught, that people should be measured by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We should effectively be "color blind."

But in recent days there has been a regression. Now there are those who want to rebuild those walls of division. To put people into boxes and keep them there. They want to call some oppressed and others oppressors. To create ongoing guilt over past harms and demand recompense for what may or may not have happened to their ancestors, and to punish the ancestors of those who caused harm. They want to give advantages to some and withhold them from others based solely on the level of melanin in their skin.

People will dig up the past and throw it in our faces as if those crimes were still happening today. But in Christ all things are made new. None of us should be made to feel guilty because of what our ancestors may or may not have done, and none of us should feel victimized or oppressed because of past harms that have happened to our people. The past is history, we should leave it there.

In the book of Revelation we are given a vision of the future, eternal state, and we see every race, color and nation bleeding into one might chorus, "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." When we get to heaven no one will be concerned if we are Black, White, Asian, Hispanic or anything else, all we will be concerned with is giving glory to God for all of eternity.

Jesus calls us to love our neighbors. This means that if my neighbor is struggling and hurting, I should help him, no matter what nation he calls home, what language he speaks or how brown he is. We should strive to have a society where every person has equal opportunities and access to work, education, housing and so on. We should work to feed the poor and make sure that the most vulnerable are clothed and sheltered.

But Jesus never taught us that we should make sure that everyone has the same outcome regardless of their race. There will always be those that have more wealth, opportunities, and influence than others. We will never truly level the playing the field and all our attempts to force it will never work.

If we do have some economic success, we should use those resources to meet the needs of others and provide for the work of God around the globe. As we are thinking about how we should give, we should not allow our preference for skin color to influence this decision. We should not ignore the struggling White person on our doorstep so we can go across town to help the hurting Black or Brown person. Though perhaps the best thing is to help them both if we can!

We are called to be unified in Christ, to live as one body in him regardless of our nation, language or skin color. 

If each and every one of us learned to love each other, and to see through our skin to the image of God and that spark of Divinity within us, then every racial barrier would come down. Only when we allow the love of God to fill our hearts and to shine out into the world will we see hatred and bigotry start to break down. It is only in Christ that we can find true equality and peace.

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