Love. One. Another. These three words are repeated again and again in John’s letter. And now, we are on 1 John 4. For the third time, John is repeating the subject of love! In today’s passage John commends his fellow Christians to love one another at least three times in this way:
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (v. 7 NIV).
“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (v. 11 NIV).
“The commandment we have from him [God] is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” (v. 21 NRSV).
As I was meditating on today’s scripture throughout this past week, one particular question kept coming back, “Who are my brothers and sisters I must love?” I can’t help but to think about my black and brown sisters and brothers. I can’t help but to think about racial harmony and reconciliation from John’s exhortation.
I Was a Racist
The Presbyterian Church in America defines racism in this way: “Racism is an explicit or implicit belief or practice that qualitatively distinguishes or values one race over other races.”[1] In other words, racism is a feeling or belief or practice that values one race over other races, or devalues one race beneath others. According to this definition, I was a racist. I grew up in a medium-sized city near Seoul, South Korea. Overall Korean people are quite homogeneous. But in my town there were quite a few foreign laborers from South Asian countries, particularly from Bangladesh and Pakistan. My home church reached out to some of them and invited them to church. Of course, we were nice. Of course, we treated them well. Of course, they were invited to our church’s activities. As long as they “knew their place.” Deep in my heart I had a sense of superiority – Korean supremacy. I said I loved them, but I even didn’t know their names. I didn’t much care about, or honor, or respect their cultures, their languages, and their histories. I wanted them to be more assimilated to my culture, but not vice versa. In that sense I was a racist.
Race and the Gospel
I shared my story, not to lay the guilt for the sin of racism to you. But the aim is biblical maturity. The aim is to think and talk and act biblically about race. The aim is to have a biblically sound, balanced, humble, loving, Jesus-exalting, God-centered perspective on race.
Concerning race and ethnicity, the best staring point would be Genesis 1:27:
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (NRSV).
The Bible teaches us that all members of all ethnic groups are made in the image of God. Every human being—whatever skin color, hair texture, age, gender, intelligence, health, or social class—is made in the image of God. The implication is this: All members of all ethnic groups are created equally in the image of God. All members of all ethnic groups are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God (cf. Ps 139:14). So there is no place for racism which values one race over another.
But something tragic happened to humankind. Sin entered. Animosity entered. The animosity between God and humankind, between male and female, between husband and wife, between siblings, between tribes, between ethnic groups. In the midst of all these hostilities Jesus came as the Prince of Peace. Ephesians 2:14 declares this truth:
“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups [Jews and Gentiles] into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (NRSV).
Jesus came to create “one new humanity” and to reconcile both groups [Jews and Gentiles, all of the different ethnic groups] to God in “one body” through the cross. So we are no longer enemies to each other; but instead, we are one people, God’s holy people, members of God’s family. That’s the power of the blood of Christ. That’s the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
That’s not the end. There is more. As Christians, we have a glorious future and hope ahead of us. In Revelation 5:9 the apostle John gives us the glimpse of the future. In his vision John hears the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God, saints from every tribe and language and people and nation” (NRSV).
By his precious blood Jesus purchased his people from every tribe. In other words, racial harmony and diversity and reconciliation is God’s design, God’s intention, God’s purpose. So we hope in God. We dream in God. We have confidence in God. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this!
The Time Is Now
But today we are groaning because of the gap between our “glorious heavenly vision” and our “horrifying reality.” There is a lot of work to be done to make progress toward racial harmony and reconciliation. Concerning racial injustice here in the US John Piper says, “It appears to me that many churches, ministries are more influenced by culture, more influenced by political ideology, more influenced by American nationalism than by the radical demands by Jesus to live as exiles and sojourners and refugees in this alien world called America.”[2]
God reconciled us to himself through Christ. And now God has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18). We are called to be bridge builders, reconciling people with one another and with God. The time is now. There are three steps that I am personally taking and that I invite you to join me.
Listen
The first step is to listen, really listen. Our brothers and sisters identified as black and brown have another history, another narrative of life in America. Are we willing to listen? In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. led peaceful demonstrations to raise awareness about the struggle for civil rights. As a result, Dr. King was put into prison. While incarcerated, he received a copy of a local newspaper that included an open letter written by eight ecumenical White pastors, titled “A Call for Unity.” In that letter they urged Black leaders to be more patient and wait, and criticized that these demonstrations were unwise and untimely. In response, Dr. King wrote what has come to be called “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The following is part of his letter:
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
. . . when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
So are we listening to these voices? Are we willing to listen? From the voices of the first enslaved Africans to the ones of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.
Confess
The next step is to confess. Now is the time to mourn. Now is the time to lament. Now is the time to repent. Perhaps some of us may say, “I’m not a racist.” You may be right. But that is not enough. As Christians, we bear a burden of guilt for the collective sins of our nation. We all have a tendency to rationalize and gloss the sins of our own. Jesus said to those who thought they had progressed out of sins into greater righteousness, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets” (Matt 23:29-30, NRSV). This is a sobering warning for all of us.
In the book of Ezra, we read about how the people of Israel had become unfaithful to God. They practiced detestable customs of their neighboring countries. Ezra, a priest and scribe, was personally innocent of the sins committed by the people, but he still felt the weight of guilt and shame. He prayed, “O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens” (Ezra 9:6 NLT). May God open our eyes, so that we can feel our collective sin of racism and repent like Ezra!
Reparate
The third step is to reparate. But what does it look like to make reparations? The answer would be different for each of us. But I think the story of Georgetown Alumnus gives us a good insight. In 1838, a prominent Jesuit institution, which ultimately became Georgetown University, was struggling with a heavy debt. At that time the school received donations in form of money and also slaves from wealthy parishioners. The president of the school negotiated a deal with the owners of Southern plantations. He’d send them slaves; they’d send him cash. As a result, 272 slaves – black men, women, and children, including the 2-month-old baby – were loaded, locked away like animals, and transported for sale to plantations across the South. One Georgetown alumnus discovered this and determined to take steps to reconcile the history. With the help of a Georgetown history professor, he tracked down the descendants of those slaves who had been sold and was finally able to discover one person, a distant relative, Maxine Crump. He contacted Ms. Crump and shared the history, the truth with her.[3]
What will the school offer in exchange for all that was lost? We don't know the answer. But that’s not really the point. The point is to make personal efforts. The point is to take one step from where we are toward reconciliation – the restoration of relationship. That’s the work of reparation. That’s the work of the gospel.
A Call to the Church
As I close, I would like to share Dr. King’s call to the church from his letter from Birmingham Jail:
There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . . . But the judgment of God is upon the church [today] as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century.
His prophetic voice still rings as true today as it did in 1963. So sisters and brothers in Christ, in humility love let us listen, confess, reparate. Let us love one another. Amen.
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[1] “Committee on Mission to North America, Pastoral Letter on Racism, Approved at the March 2004 MNA Committee Meeting as the Committee’s Recommendation to the Thirty-Second General Assembly.” http://www.pca-mna.org/churchplanting/PDFs/RacismPaperFinal%20Version%2004-09-04.pdf.
[2] “John Piper Breaks Down Where Reformed Christians Have Gone Wrong With Racial Injustice,” https://relevantmagazine.com/god/john-piper-breaks-down-where-reformed-christians-have-gone-wrong-with-racial-injustice/
[3] Latasha Morrison, Be the Bridge (p. 185). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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