race
Lamenting the Very Good
By Linda Rex
June 7, 2020, HOLY TRINITY—Lately it seems as though this has been a long, drawn-out season of lament. There have been repeated reasons to feel and express sorrow, to regret, to mourn over the loss of lives to mass shootings, natural disasters, and the most recent pandemic.
The exact figures of the lives lost just to COVID-19 are unknown, but according to the World Health Organization website on May 28th, there were 357,736 deaths reported worldwide. Where were these 357,736 people last year at this time? What were their lives like? How many lives did each one touch? What about their families and friends, work colleagues, and teachers? If we do not make the effort to lament, to grieve the loss of each of these people, then we lose our ability to value the worth of each human being we meet.
Our cellphones and other devices make it possible now to interact with a large number of people immediately, creating a response by what we post on social media or on websites. We can affect thousands and even millions of people simply by what we say or do, what pictures we take, and what movies we create. In the midst of this freedom of expression, we find ourselves exposed not just to the best of humanity, but also to the dredges.
Most recently a wave of protest erupted over a film posted which showed the unlawful use of power and authority by police against someone of color. The violent response of many to this event echoes the reality that here in the U.S. we still have not learned the true value of a human being. The fact that we still create artificial divisions between us using race, ethnicity, gender, income, intelligence—the list goes on—shows we still do not know our story and our identity as humans.
It is important that we lament our failure to love our fellowman. We fail so often to love our fellowman simply by refusing to give him or her the status of fellowman. By refusing to treat every other human being as an equal, we actually diminish our own dignity as human beings. We make ourselves less than what we were created to be—image-bearers of God himself, the One who did not think it beneath himself to come to earth and take on our human flesh, becoming what we are to bring us into union and communion with himself.
The COVID-19 crisis has exposed even more of our inhumanity, simply by putting leaders and caregivers in the position of having to decide who gets treatment and who does not, who is protected and who is not. It seems that, in reality, the decision being made is, who is expendable? Is it true that someone who has lived a long good life does not have the same value as someone who is just starting out? How is it than we can place a value on a human being based simply on their age or productivity?
Do you see the issues here? We are forced into a corner where we must make these impossible decisions, but at some point we have got to admit that we have made someone less than human in the process of trying to decide who lives and who dies. As human beings, we really have no excuse, for God has been trying to tell us for millennia that we are made by God’s love, to love him and one another. We must pause and lament our failure to love God and one another—we have failed to be the image-bearers of the Triune God we were meant to be.
In my book, Making Room, I talk about how we as human beings find our identity in the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. This God was revealed by Jesus Christ to be three Persons in one Being—each unique yet equal to the others while united in unbreakable communion. This communion in which they exist, this perichoretic love, is the overflowing abundant source of our existence as human beings. We are made to be image-bearers of this God.
This is the same God who, after creating the cosmos, the earth and everything in it, pronounced it all very good. Even though he knew that we had the capacity to turn away from his love and attempt to live apart from his abiding presence, he still pronounced us very good. He still sought conversation and fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. And even when they chose the knowledge of good and evil over real life in intimate relation with him, he covered it all with his love and grace as he covered them with animal skins.
In coming into our human flesh, the Word of God did not isolate himself from those who were less than him or who were powerless, but rather joined himself to them and gave them his presence and power. In Christ we have God restoring us to the very good which was ours in the very beginning. This above all things should teach us that to offer ourselves to those whom society deems less than or weaker than, giving them our strength, resources, and support, is to more accurately bear the image of the God who made us.
God is teaching me that one of the biggest obstacles that stands in the way of our offering ourselves to one another in this way is fear. Fear occurs when we do not know one another well—when we make assumptions based on past experience, hearsay, gossip, or someone else’s opinion and do not make the effort to get to know the person ourselves on a one-to-one basis. Our Scriptures say it is perfect love which casts out fear—that he who fears is not made perfect in love.
If God, in and through Christ and by the Spirit, can love each and every person on this earth enough to join us in our humanity, live the life we were meant to live, to die our death and rise again, and then come in the person of the Spirit to enable us to participate in the heavenly Triune fellowship, then I would say God has given us everything we need to begin to live in loving relationship with one another. The apostle Paul calls to us, “Strive for full restoration…be of one mind, live in peace.” We do this as the God of love and peace is in us and with us by the Spirit.
Let us lament our failures to love our brothers and sisters. Let’s turn away from ourselves and our stubborn willful independence and turn towards the One who offers us his grace and love, Jesus Christ. Receive from him the gift of life in union and communion with the God who made and sustains all things.
It is in this life with our Triune God, with Jesus as our Mediator between God and man, that we find the capacity and power to love and understand those whom we normally reject and fear. It is Christ in us by the Spirit who binds us together in oneness, enabling us to be likeminded and to live in peace with one another.
It is Jesus living his life in us who works to restore the image of God in each of us, bringing us to completeness, enabling us as human beings to properly reflect the image of the God who is three Persons in one Being. It is in the name of this Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit—we are baptized, and it is at his table we take communion, gratefully receiving all he has done for us in Jesus. We live our lives from then on, showing those around us what it looks like to live in loving fellowship with God and our fellowman as image-bearers of the Trinity.
Abba, thank you for loving us in spite of our inability and unwillingness to live in loving relationship with one another. We are so dependent upon your grace and forgiveness for our prejudices, our hatred, our fear, our murder and abuse of those who you have given us as brothers and sisters. Lord, if you do not lift us up, renew and restore us, we have no hope—we trust in the finished work of Christ. Let your kingdom come, your will, Abba, be done here on earth, in every city, state, and nation, as it is in heaven, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.” 2 Corinthians 13:11 NIV
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. … By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Genesis 1:31a; 2:2 NASB
“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” Matthew 28:18–20 NASB
Our Unifying Distinctions
By Linda Rex
Lately at Good News Fellowship we have been talking about things we believe about God which are not according to the truth revealed to us in the Person and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the lies which seems to raise its ugly head from one generation to another is the belief we are, in our uniqueness as a particular color, race or ethnicity, God’s chosen people. This lie puts us in direct opposition to those which are “not like us”, and creates division and even hostility between us.
What we don’t seem to realize is God never meant our differences to divide us, but rather to bind us closer together. What makes us distinctly unique is meant to be an important part of a complete whole which celebrates the wonder and glory of our divine God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God himself in his Being teaches us it is our uniqueness which binds us together. It is never meant to divide us. God as Father, Son, and Spirit has distinctions but these distinctions in God’s Being do not cause division. Rather they describe the interrelations in God’s Being. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. Rather the Father is the Father of the Son—this is their oneness in the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father, nor is he the Son, but he is the One who is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.
I remember hearing and being taught as a child the belief I as someone of light complexion was part of a special group of people chosen by God, and those of darker hue were somehow part of the human race who were cursed with Cain. This teaching created a sense of cognitive dissonance in me because I had friends in school of much darker hue than me, and they did not seem to be any different than me. How is it they could be less than or inferior to me when they were actually the same as me?
Since that time God has taken me on a journey of learning and healing in which I have come to have warm and meaningful relationships with people of many different races and ethnicities. I have come to see the truth—we are all one body made up of different members. We each have a role to play in the common humanity of God’s creation.
Indeed, I believe the apostle Paul hit on something really important when he began to talk about the different parts of the body within the body of Christ. I believe this concept extends beyond the walls of the church. Our common humanity is made up of all different sorts of people, and none of us really looks exactly the same, though some of us may look similar to one another.
This morning it occurred to me again that if there were no such thing as brain cells, how would any of us think? If there were no nerve cells, how would our brains communicate with our bodies? If there were no skin cells, how would our muscles and organs stay where they belong, protected and held in place? These cells are each unique to one another, and even have variances in between them, but each is necessary to the whole—the body would not function properly if any of them were missing or were not properly fulfilling their function.
There is a reason we are the way we are. There is a beauty in the human race which is expressed in all its different hues and distinctions. These differences were meant to create joy and celebration as we share them with one another. Instead, we allow them to create fear, hate, and hostility against one another. These distinctions were meant to create a greater, more blessed whole, but we have allowed them to divide us and to cause us to destroy one another.
We forget or ignore the reality God’s Son, who was completely other than us, took on our humanity—joined himself to us permanently—so we could share in his Being. Jesus Christ became sin for us so we could become the righteousness of God in him. We share in Christ’s being because he took that very thing which has divided us and destroyed our relationship and used it to bind us to himself with cords of love.
God was not willing to be God without us. He did not allow whatever differences between us and him—which are vast and unmeasurable—to cause us to be permanently separated from him. He did not consider himself to be above us, but rather, he humbled himself, setting aside the privileges of his divinity to join us in our broken humanity (Phil. 2:5-11). He humbled himself, even to the point of allowing us to crucify him. What we did to try and permanently separate ourselves from God he used to bind us to himself forever. Such an amazing love!
In binding us all to himself with cords of love in Jesus Christ, God also bound us to one another. We all share in the common humanity of Jesus Christ and there are no longer any divisions between us. We are all one in Christ Jesus. Whatever we may artificially place between us is now caught up in Christ’s humanity and reconciled with God, and we in Christ are all reconciled with one another. There may be distinctions, but in Christ we are all one.
God is calling to each of us to respond to his Spirit as he works to bring this oneness to full expression in our individual and common humanity. The Spirit calls to you and to me to not only respond to our reconciliation to God, but also to our reconciliation to one another in Christ. There are to be no divisions between us. Whatever distinctions may exist are meant to be a cause for giving praise, glory and honor to God for his wisdom and glory, not a cause for fear, hate, and hostility between us.
May we turn from, or repent of, our human proclivity for racial and ethnic superiority and inferiority, and stop yielding to the evil one’s efforts to divide us and so to destroy us. Let us, rather, build one another up in love. Let us look for reasons to share and celebrate our differences and distinctions, and to make them ways in which we can come together to create a stronger, whole humanity.
Instead of allowing our distinctions and differences to cause fear, distrust, hate, and hostility, may we actively work to make them the very thing which binds us to one another. Sometimes this may require the same path Jesus trod—through death and resurrection—but the result will be something we will not experience otherwise: a taste of the kingdom of God here on earth as a reflection of the love which exists in our Triune God as Father, Son, and Spirit in heaven.
Dear Abba, forgive us for all the ways we create division and discord in our world. Forgive us for the ways we demean one another, and the arrogant and prideful ways we have of living and being. Grant us the humility and dignity of our true humanity in Christ Jesus. May we, from this day forward, always treat others with the same respect, kindness, and graciousness with which you have treated us, through Jesus our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body.” 1 Corinthians 12:18–20 NASB
A Crisis of Faith
by Linda Rex
Is it possible for a human to do what only God can do?
What a question! But what if a person does not believe there is a God and believes it’s all up to us as humans to save ourselves? What if we do have to rescue ourselves from this mess we’ve created and there is no help to be expected from any other place?
I suppose too, if a person did perhaps believe there was a God, but believed this God was indifferent or condemning, we would still be in a very difficult position. After all, it has been our choices as humans which have brought us to the place we are facing ecological disaster and economic, immigration, racial, cultural issues—you name it, we are facing it, and it’s due to our decision to do things the way we see fit.
But it is interesting how people have responded during this election season to the question of who should lead our country. It seems on the one hand many people were happy to give the candidates the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time their supporters are expecting them to solve all the issues which face the American people. But can any human being actually do that?
Others are adamant we are just getting what we deserve as Americans because of our decadence, hedonism and greed. So they are assuming God is executing his judgment on our nation because of our sinfulness. But is that really the way God works? What kind God would act like that?
I was reading an article this morning which explained all the changes the president-elect promised to make once he was elected. In the article, it explained how difficult it would be to do any of these things due to the checks and balances in our government, the entrenched bureaucracy and not to mention the immense baggage created by all the leaders before him. No matter which person would have been elected, he or she would have faced this same problem, and would have struggled to bring about lasting change.
The thing is, all any human leader can hope to do is to temporarily alter the physical circumstances of the people in the nation he or she is leading. Bringing about real change requires so much more than just electing a human being to an office in a human government. Giving someone the position, and I suppose even the power, to lead and govern others does not guarantee all of the problems people are facing will be solved.
What is missing from this whole discussion, I believe, is some true introspection about the human heart and mind. Caught in our own humanity, we are blind to the spiritual realities. The best way to bring about change in a nation like ours is to begin with an internal change within ourselves. We need to come to the place in which we realize we are powerless to change and heal what needs to be changed and healed. We need to acknowledge the reality we are broken humans who cannot properly and effectively govern ourselves, much less others.
As long as we seek to be self-sustaining and self-governing, we end up in the same place. Our best efforts to govern ourselves and to discipline our human flesh keep bringing us to the place we are dependent or co-dependent when we seek to be independent. This is because we are missing the point of the whole process which is to live interdependently with God and each other in a relationship of love and grace. We need to understand we are only who we are because there is One Who is above and beyond us and Who has included us in his life and love.
It’s not about creating more rules or getting a bigger police group to enforce those rules. It’s not about punishing people whose race, religion, culture, life choices and life styles differ from our assumptions of what is good and what is evil. It’s about an internal transformation which happened over 2000 years ago in spite of us—a heart transplant given to every human being. Will we live in the truth of that new heart which was given us—the true spiritual reality of our identity as children who are persons in the divine Persons?
The real question is how can we? And that is a really good question—because we cannot. We need to realize we are the humans here, not the God. We need our Messiah to come even now. We need rescued. We need saved. But how? If Jesus isn’t going to return tomorrow, how are we able to go forward into an uncertain and maybe even dangerous future?
See, the thing is, we live as though we and God are separate. We think and act as though Jesus is off somewhere and we need him to come here to fix things. But that is not the case. It is my personal testimony, and the testimony of many others, that God is present here and now in you and in me, in us and among us by his Holy Spirit. He is at work in every situation, and acutely aware of every fear, every bit of guilt and shame which plagues us. Jesus is present, real and near to us—speaking to us his words of hope, encouragement and guidance to our hearts and minds.
We see people interceding for the oppressed and the needy, providing for the hungry, and healing the sick—God is at work in this world. He doesn’t always work the way we think he should work—after all, his perspective is eternal not temporal. But he is busy tending the garden, pulling weeds, tying up vines and trimming off branches, and is working in and through human beings in the process.
Yes, there is a lot more work to be done—so let’s get in the dance and start dancing! As we respond in faith to God’s Word to us in Christ and the inner promptings of the Spirit, we will find our world and ourselves being healed and transformed. We will begin to have a vision of life beyond this life, being able to accept the reality this world is passing away and our true life is waiting for us beyond the grave.
It is our response to the leadership of the Spirit which is the issue here rather than our need to find the perfect president for our country. Are we willing to trust God to do what we as humans cannot and have not done to heal our land and to heal us as human beings? Perhaps we cannot—but that’s okay. Because it is not our faith which saves us, it is the faith of the Faithful One Who did save us, Who is working to save us right now, and Who will save us in the future. He will finish what he has begun in us—growing us up into the fullness of our Christlikeness, the image of God we were created to reflect, as we respond to him with humility and love in gratitude.
Lord, we acknowledge we cannot save ourselves, we cannot keep ourselves safe, we cannot govern ourselves as we ought. We hurt and disrespect, abuse and misuse, ourselves, our earth and each other. Forgive us, Lord, and grant we may live according to the truth of our being and begin to reflect your image as we ought, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord while I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, Who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; Who keeps faith forever; Who executes justice for the oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry. the Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord raises up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous; the Lord protects the strangers; He supports the fatherless and the widow, but He thwarts the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever, Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!” Ps 146:1–10 NASB
Terms of Peace
By Linda Rex
It seems in many places of the world today that the very foundations of our society and our earth are being shaken. We are facing challenges in how we care for our air, land and water, and in how we care for one another.
The current upheaval in the United States as well as in other nations regarding how we treat people different than ourselves—whether it be a difference in race, in culture, in belief system or national heritage—has some pretty significant implications for the future.
We’re seeing people groups being moved en masse from one place to another. We’re seeing people lose everything of personal value due to economic devastation, political upheaval or natural disasters. And we’re seeing the continued curse of genocide and prejudice and persecution wherever people live today.
It seems that none of these things are new events. If we were to look back through the history of humanity, we would find that all of these things have in some form or fashion happened before. Indeed, as was recorded in Ecclesiastes millennia ago, there is nothing new under the sun.
But it seems that there are a whole lot more of us around today. And we have access to a lot more information about one another than we ever had before. In so many more ways we are interconnected to one another whether we like it or not and whether we want to be or not. We cannot escape the reality that we are all individually and collectively responsible in some way for what has happened, is happening and will happen to one another moment by moment.
It seems that the harder we try to create peace in the world, the more guilty we are of enslaving, harming and destroying one another. We find that even our “peace officers” are accused of being murderous and abusive. And unfortunately, it seems that such accusations are too often justified.
Some of us long to be just left alone—to be left in peace. We want a lifestyle or religion that will give us some inner tranquility, some rest from all this inner and exterior distress. We’d like a safe place where we won’t have to worry about someone taking advantage of us, or harming us, or disrupting our world.
One of the hardest things for us to come to terms with, I think, is the reality that we were created for relationships, and that relationships are, in all honesty, messy things to live in. There’s no such thing as a perfect relationship, since—at least as far as I am aware—there are no perfect people in the world.
We have expectations of one another, and of God for that matter, that are far from reasonable or realistic. We step on toes without even trying because—whether we like it or not—we are all different people, with different personalities and opinions and upbringings, and we seem to inevitably rub against one another in unpleasant ways.
And our humanity—our inclination to live, walk and talk in unhealthy and unkind ways—seems to be really good at destroying our inner peace as well as the fragile peace with have with other people. This is why God didn’t leave it up to us to create peace. He knows that peace, whether peace among people or peace within ourselves, is something we as broken human beings cannot come up with on our own. He knows that no matter how hard we try, we are going to mess up our relationship with him and our relationships with one another.
And so God made his peace with us—a covenant of peace with Israel that included all humanity in Jesus Christ. And Jesus, in breathing on us the Spirit, poured into our hearts God’s peace. His words of peace echo through the ages:
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:26–27)
Peace is a gift from God. It is something that happens when the real presence of God is welcomed and embraced by broken human beings seeking to live in peace with God and one another. This is why a group surrendered to Christ and seeking to live in love with one another and with God can be such a stunning and rare vision of peace and harmony in the midst of a broken and chaotic world. They are living in response to and are participating in the gift of peace they have been given by God. They are a reflection of the divine.
God has not and will not change his mind about the gift of peace he has given to all humanity in Jesus Christ. He has made a covenant of peace with all humanity in his Son and calls each and everyone of us to participate with him in this divine life and love. As long as we are living in this broken human flesh and in this broken physical world, we will struggle. But in the midst of our struggle, God offers us his peace.
Question is, will we submit to his terms of peace? Will we give up trying to create peace on our own, and surrender to his way of being and living? Will we let him call the shots in our relationships and in our lives? Will we wave the white flag and yield to the Prince of Peace?
Holy God of Peace, we acknowledge our inability to create and sustain peace in our hearts, in our relationships, in our families and in our world. We agree that we desperately need your peace. Wash away all that divides us and pour out on us anew your gift of peace in the Holy Spirit. We surrender and accept your terms of peace, through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit. Amen.
“’For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake,’ But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you, and My covenant of peace will not be shaken,’ Says the LORD who has compassion on you.” Isaiah 54:10 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 