PAPERS F R O M T H E F A L L S C H U R C H

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1 PAPERS F R O M T H E F A L L S C H U R C H GRACE CHANGES EVERYTHING Grace in Practice 6. Grace and Race A sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. John W. Yates, II April 29, 2018 Luke 9:46-48; Acts 10:1-8, (John reads Matthew 18:1-4) Want to talk with you this morning about how we see other people and how we see ourselves, in the light of God s grace. There are various accounts in the gospels about how the disciples argued among themselves as to who was the greatest among them. Luke says, An argument broke out among them as to which was the greatest. Mark says Jesus overheard their argument and confronted them about it. Matthew says that the disciples asked the Lord who was the greatest in his kingdom. Apparently Jesus friends were wondering who he felt was the best of his disciples, who he considered as the chief disciple. Competition among young men is normal, and there was likely some competitiveness among the disciples, harsh enough that Jesus had to step in and deal with it he was not happy about their competitiveness. When you read these accounts it sounds terribly childish, and it was, but surely we all do sometimes make distinctions in our mind between ourselves and others, distinctions between gifted people and needy or problem people; between people we value and people we don t much care for; we distinguish, most of us, sometimes, between people like us and people not like us. Sometimes distinctions like this lead us to feel better, more important, superior Jesus answered them by calling to himself a little child. Mark says Jesus actually picked him up and held him in his arms for a bit. Children in those days were rarely put up before others as examples to follow. But Jesus does just that he said to all of them that in a sense this child was an example of greatness. Whoever humbles himself like this child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The one who is the least is the greatest in my kingdom. Rather than exalting themselves or comparing their accomplishments or abilities, they were to humble themselves. (Humility is a key to greatness.)

2 2 He said to them, basically, this child has done nothing, has no accomplishments to boast of, no rank to flaunt he s just a humble child but he has come to me when I called and wants to be with me and do what I ask. This is greatness from my father s perspective. In God s kingdom greatness is found first in humbly trusting and serving the Lord. Thus anyone can be great according to Jesus any age, any level of ability or lack of ability, any appearance, any background, any race. Jesus is ready to attribute greatness to anyone who comes to him, trusts him, puts themselves at his service. That s the first thing we must see. Secondly, last week Sam Ferguson explained in his message the radical meaning of Christ s gospel of grace for the Jews of that day and how that applies to us. The Jewish people believed that they above all people were God s favorite and that Gentiles, Samaritans, Greeks, Romans were inferior to them. Religious Jews wouldn t intermingle or eat with or even enter the house of a Gentile. Now, from the beginning God had told the Jewish people that their calling was not just to belong to him, live and serve him, but to tell the world about him, the one true God, and call all people into his family. But the Jews were having none of it they stayed apart from others as much as they could. Jesus then told his disciples the same thing. He reached out time and again to men and women and children who were not Jewish, and his final command was to take the good news of grace to all people, all ethnic groups, all types, and bring them into God s family. But they didn t get it either so ingrained in them was the notion of Jewish superiority. I think that there is ingrained in most of us the idea that people who don t look like us or talk like us are not like us. And sometimes we have this inbuilt idea that we are better than they are. Even Simon Peter, the great apostle of Jesus, had this problem. He thought that he couldn t eat what Gentiles eat and he must not go into the home of a Gentile he was to have as little to do with them as possible. According to the account in Acts 10, it took a supernatural vision on the rooftop in Joppa and a supernatural dream in Caesarea on the same day to convince Peter to visit Cornelius an Italian soldier who loved God deeply but was of a different race. The story we read earlier from Acts 10 is remarkable. When Peter arrived at Cornelius house he was probably fearful of entering into the house. (Acts 10:28) God was breaking down a huge barrier in Peter s heart he went into the home and began to listen to this Gentile and he met his family. They got to know one another, and as this happened Peter began to understand the meaning of the vision God had given him earlier that week. (Acts 10:34-36) Peter explained who Jesus was, told him of the resurrection. (10:42-48) When Peter returned to Jerusalem, his Christian brothers criticized him for going to be with Gentiles, but he told them all that had happened. (Acts 11:15-18) And that was truly the moment when the vision of multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultured church began to take hold. But it took a long time for the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians to truly come to trust and love one another, and even Peter himself failed to always live up to this vision. Overcoming prejudice of his background took a long time actually.

3 3 When we sing Amazing Grace it reminds us of how God changes us as we come to understand his gracious love for us in Jesus. But it takes some of us a long time to overcome our prejudices. John Newton, who wrote Amazing Grace had been, of course, a man who traded in human beings, a slave trader who bought slaves in Africa and sold them here in the West. I m told he continued to participate in the slave trade for five years after he first came to Christ in repentance and faith. But it took him 30 years to make his first public statement acknowledging his shame. It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders. It took a long, long time for this great man of God to realize that the Africans were equal human beings, brothers and sisters to him, and when he realized this he was filled with shame and remorse. It can take a long time for the Grace of God to so percolate through us, in our minds and hearts, that we are able to recognize the depths of our sins, our wrong assumptions, our misguided preconceptions. There are two words that describe every human being Dignity and Depravity. Dignity because we are each of us created in the very image of God we can create, we can reason morally, we are spiritual beings, not just physical or intellectual we can know God Almighty. Dignity. But at the same time Depravity. We are sinners from the start, made of clay, wrapped up in ourselves, idolatrous, misguided. Any of us in this room is capable of the most dreadful thought and action, and yet capable of the noblest impulses, too. When you and I hear the Gospel of God s unconditional love towards us and we turn toward Jesus Christ, repenting of our sin and committing ourselves to him, that s the beginning of new life. But years and years and experiences and instruction and failure after failure are needed for us really to begin to resemble our Lord Jesus. I want to talk with you personally about how the grace of God has gradually changed me in my attitude towards people who are different from me, and particularly about grace and race. Sometimes just talking about our personal experiences is helpful that s why we love the book of Acts and gospels. I grew up in a small community in the rural south. There were white people, and what we were taught to call colored people African Americans. Segregation was the order of the day. The blacks worked for the whites they had separate schools, separate bathrooms. The help. Here is what I was taught time and again God loves all of us but the blacks are an inferior people, often lazy, not to be trusted. It was the 1950s. Everyone in my elementary school was white no Hispanics, no Asians, no Africans. High school was the same, and even college in North Carolina, in the early 60s I remember the first African American student I encountered in college his name was Charlie Scott he was one incredible basketball player an All American at UNC the first non-white player a brave man.

4 4 But my attitude towards African Americans remained pretty much the same, until I got to seminary there in Hodge Hall at Princeton I lived across the hall from a West Africa student. His skin was truly black and he had a wife and she had skin as white as mine and beautiful red hair. This I had never seen an interracial marriage it contradicted all I d ever been taught. There were others there of other races some better students and harder working than I. When I became friends with them it was as equals not a superior white man and an inferior black or brown man. The racial stereotypes I d been taught didn t seem to hold up. I began repenting of the racism I saw in myself. The first time I traveled to Israel, my wife and I had the opportunity to tour the West Bank, and we spent a morning with some Palestinian Arabs in a refugee camp outside of Bethlehem. There near the place my Savior was born, I realized these Palestinians had lived as Christians there Bethlehem since the second or third century the fields and olive groves had belonged to them for 1800 years or so, until the State of Israel was formed. I was deeply touched by the depth and sweetness of their Christian faith and I began to realize just how complicated things are in the Holy Land when I think of Arabs, that Palestinian Christian family are the first ones I think of Brothers and sisters to me. When Simon Peter talked about his amazing change of attitude towards Gentiles, it was Cornelius and his family that Peter thought of. Racial barriers will only come down when we enter into relationship with those different from us, and we listen to them and their experiences. And when I spend time with African American friends, I continue to learn from them about prejudices in our country and I sometimes still see vestiges of it in my own heart and I am ashamed. One of my truly dearest friends is an African American pastor in Atlanta one night as we were talking about all the ongoing incidences of young black men being brutally shot by police, I asked him what he thought about it. He hesitated. It was awhile before he spoke and when he did he refrained from any criticism or bitterness. He simply said, John, you know my sons, what fine young men of God they are. John, he said, I sat with each of them when they were growing up and told them what every black father tells his son in America I told them that if they were ever stopped by a policeman or pulled over in a car by the police, they must absolutely, always keep a gentle and open composure. Never speak in a way that is anything less than polite and respectful never talk back always keep your hands out from your body, in the open and never, never argue. He said, John, for young black men, it s always a frightening moment. Another friend of mine recounted being in the home of an African American friend when they were kids and he remembered that friend s mother warning her son that day as an African American boy, he was told by his mother that if he saw a policeman coming, do his best to avoid him, to hide, even if the boy needed help don t go to the police. And my friend remembered his own mother instructing him in just the opposite way telling him as a white boy, if he ever was in need of any sort, try to find a policeman. When people you know and love tell you things like this you have to listen. I have always thought it significant when we left our former church and began this new journey a few years ago, it wasn t white English Christians who came to encourage and help and advise us. No, it was black Africans. I loved the irony that this southern white man (me) was seeking the leadership and counsel of African bishops, that it was the Nigerians who took us on and helped us through our

5 5 troubles. When Archbishop Peter Akinola Archbishop of 20 million Nigerian Anglicans came to church and sat in the very back pew just praising God and worshiping, and then in addressing our congregation he announced he was making me an honorary Canon of his own cathedral in Abuja, Nigeria, a very high honor, it was just such a sweet reversal of all I d been taught as a boy. I could only marvel at the wonder of Christian brotherhood that transcends all racial and ethnic barriers. And this is what we want to be true of our own church. I have been told by a handful of folks that even in our church sometimes people who are not white fell uncomfortable, other. We have said many times that we want our church to look more like the church in heaven as seen by St. John in his Revelation, chapter 7. God allowed John to look into heaven and he wrote these words: After this I looked and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with loud voices, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb! And all the angels were standing around the throne Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen. Last weekend 150 of us men were on retreat in the mountains one of the first impressions I had as we gathered the first night was that there was more racial diversity than I d expected. Every meal I tried to sit with someone from some other part of the world or different background to get to know and learn from them. On the last morning together something unusual happened unplanned, unexpected. What we were experiencing was oneness in Christ we weren t primarily Asians or Mexicans or Hondurans or Africans, we were just brothers just brothers. Jesus said something completely unexpected to his disciples one day. He said that because those men and women loved one another, others would come to believe in Him as well. He said that as they become one with him and one with one another the world would know that He had been sent by the Father and the world would believe. Perhaps our most powerful evangelistic tool in this age of such ethnic unrest is simply love, loving one another in Christ, loving our neighbors. The Gospel must always be explained and proclaimed but it also must be seen in the sort of love that transcends racial barriers. I don t think we are a racist church. It is possible we may have traces of thinking we are better than others. And there may be remnants of racism among us. I think of the disciples arguing, and Jesus having a child stand beside him. I want to be as humble as that, freed from any arrogance, sense of superiority. Free from a spirit of judgmentalism. I don t want people who don t look like me to feel other here. Don t know what it takes to look like heaven, but it s a prayer for us. An audio version of this sermon may be heard through a link on the church s website, It is also available on CD if you or someone you wish to give it to would find that more convenient. CDs are available for $4.50 from the Sermon Ministry, bookstore@tfcanglican.org, or The Falls Church Anglican, 6565 Arlington Blvd., Suite 300, Falls Church, VA