I Have a Vision
I Have a Vision
As I told those who would be writing for this issue, we are treading through a landmine. We expect that we will anger those who are on our left, and that we will do the same for those who think they are on our right. We know that with one wrong step, we could lose a leg, or a life. We know that too often when we address issues of race, too many of us see not black and white, nor grey, but red. We address the issue, however, because it is black and white. We address it not because it is infused with such irrational emotions, but because it is not addressed with biblical care. Though we expect to make no new friends, we are, in fact, trying to help.
It has been said that in the cultural propagation of any set of principles there are four stages. It begins with a man, a man with a vision. From there it grows to a movement, as the vision catches a wider and wider audience. Next, however, it becomes a machine. Here the focus is not on the vision itself, but on keeping the apparatus running. Finally, when the founder dies, the last stage is the memorial. Now the vision is not only not propagated by the founder, but is obscured by his memory. Now we remember not what he stood for, but him.
Martin Luther King Junior was a flawed man. Both his plagiarizing and his womanizing are well known, and documented far better than his dissertation. The man with which the vision began had feet of clay. The machine, likewise operated with cold-blooded efficiency, as it mowed down not only shameless attitudes of the heart, but established customs, and the rule of law. The memorial has at the same time descended into iconography, as the man sits high and lifted up, the victim of apotheosis, a secular saint, and reached the heights of bumbling buffoonery as Jesse and his gang of sharpies try to keep the machine running.
And so the vision becomes as faded as last week's dreams. We remember the man. We remember the speech. But we have forgotten the message. On the left we have reached a level of race consciousness that makes George Wallace look color blind. Race determines everything. On the other side of the aisle modern day Bull Connors have had their worst fears confirmed. They're living in accord with the protocols of the elders of Compton. Tupac is singing an anthem to a multicolored banner, while Jimi lays down his licks.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin's dream? The dream is gone but it's not forgotten. As he spoke to that ocean of humanity at the mall in Washington, King touched the conscience of the nation, if only for a moment. He did this because he spoke the words of the King. My dream is not because Martin dreamed it, but because Jesus commanded it. We, of all people, must be a people who judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Why should that be so difficult?
Because we don't know whose we are. I have always puzzled over the definition of race. When we pre-registered at the hospital before the birth of our first child, I embarrassed my dear wife when, in filling out the forms, I listed under race: human. When the latest census came around they kindly provided a toll-free number you could call if you were puzzled over what race you were. I called and listened to a recording explain, more or less, that you are whatever race you want to be. Once again I put down, "human." Race is not something you can easily define. White is a color, even if it isn't my color. (One young black student I knew puzzled over this as well. He was coloring while I visited his class. As I looked over his shoulders he looked at me, looked confused, looked down at his box of crayons, and then proudly declared, "You'se peach.") The best definitions I've seen recognize that race is less science than family, less nature than nurture. They have affirmed that all race is is extended family. I look Scottish, act Scottish, think Scottish, bleed Scottish and dream Scottish not because there is a Scottish race, but because there is a Scottish family. They are my people. And of course it follows that the Irish are closer kin than the Polish and the Polish more than the Zulus.
Except for the work of Christ. One of the weaknesses that comes from a Gnostic view of the gospel is that it leaves the world as we found it. If Jesus' only function was to make my soul right with the Father such that when I die I get to live in paradise, then the here and now doesn't much matter. But Jesus did not come simply to redeem or to recreate me or you. He came to redeem reality, to remake it. That work, He promised us, would remake the most fundamental of institutions. The government, as we remembered in our last issue, is even now upon His shoulders. He is the king of kings and lord of lords. The church, He told us, would be built upon the rock, and would be wherever two or three are gathered in His name.
He promised also to remake the family. This re-creation, we must remember, is not always nice. Psalm 2 tells us that those kings who will not recognize His reign will be broken with a rod of iron. They will be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel. The temple, that symbol of the old order, was left after His judgment in 70 AD without one stone upon another. And He promised early in His public ministry, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household." (Matthew 10:34-36). We call this a problem passage, but we are the problem. We find this a hard saying precisely because of what else He spoke to us, "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." That's us exactly. Worse still, when we determine upon whom we will place our love, we decide that we will love our third cousin four times removed more than Jesus.
Oh we would never say such a thing. Those whose identity is found in their "race," whether the more noisy variety, or the more smug, insist that their first devotion is to Christ, and family comes second. Once again, however, we miss the scope of the work of Christ. For He came not only to redeem us, but to remake us. And to remake us He indwells us. And because He indwells us. And because He indwells us, He is in union with us. And who are the us? Red and yellow, black and white, all those who are precious in His sight. If we would love this Jesus, we must love all those in union with Him. That is our new family, for He is the firstborn of many brethren.
Because He has mad us citizens of a different nation, our loyalty is to Him, and not to the stars and stripes. And because He has placed us in a different family, our loyalty is to that family, not the racial one we claim to have left behind when we first took up our cross.
Which brings us back to our dream, our vision. We, because we believe He is making all things new, see a future where men are judged not by the color of their skin. Neither, however, are they judged by the content of their character. Rather, they are judged by the character of Him who redeemed them. To be faithful to Christ, I must treat the faithful as Christ. I must see Him in them, whatever their skin color. We are colorblind because we are blinded by the glory of the Son who indwells our brothers. A day is coming when the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. I have a vision.
The we will have a shared culture. We will love the same music, for it will be the music of the heavenlies. We will wear the same clothes, for we are dressed in the righteousness of Christ. We will eat the same food, because the same Lord will feed us. We will wash in the same waters, because we have been washed in the same blood. We will dance the same dances, because we will be led by the Lord of the Dance. We will worship together, because we worship the same King. I have a vision.
Our call, however, is to reflect that future in the here and now. We bring forth a colorblind world by living in a colorblind way. We practice a godly simplicity that never needs to take color or race into our calculations, because such no longer matters. Indeed, it never mattered at all. If there is neither Jew nor Greek, we need no longer ask, "What about the Jews?" or "What shall be done with the Greeks?" No, in Christ, we can live simple lives. When seeking out a church we have but one simple test, "Is it a faithful church?" When hiring an employee, we have but one simple test, "Is he a diligent worker?" When men come for our daughters there is but one simple test to pass, "Is he a godly man?" I have a vision.
As we exhort the church to fulfill the mandate to be set apart, to be holy, to be separate, we separate from those who would have us separate on the basis of anything other than Christ. We recognize that because all of history is the great battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, that all who are the seed of the woman are our allies, and all who are the seed of the serpent are our enemies. How might the world change if we who are neither Jew nor Greek, were likewise neither black nor white? What would it mean to the spread of the gospel, if we managed to be what we are called to be? Jesus has already told us—they will know that we are His by our love one for another. In our love may we chasten those who would yoke us together unequally, not with those whose pigment differs from ours, but with those whose destiny differs from ours. I have a vision.
Given the mass confusion in the world around us on these issues, here too we must strive to be deliberate. Picking out this group or that for specials favors is not the loving thing to do. Chasing after this demographic or that, either because you want to build another yuppie church, or you want to build one that satisfies the quota mongers of our age, is mere pious folly. No, once again the path to deliberateness lies in not being deliberate, in banning issues of race from our minds. We need to commit simply to judge men by the content of their character, a task that is neither complicated, nor easy. But it is the will of our Father in heaven. I have a vision.
Millennia ago God spoke to our Father Abraham. He made covenant, promising to be a God to him and to his seed. He promised a land, a nation, a son. But He also promised that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. that means all the nations. The conquest of our Lord is nothing more than bringing every nation in, discipling every nation. That is where we are going. He is bringing in the sheaves, and let not one bundle ask another to bow down to it. For all are bowed before the King. Christ is Lord over all, all men everywhere. And all who confess the name of Christ are His subjects. All are first class citizens. All are my brothers. In that kingdom, the King has told us, there is neither Jew nor Greek. I have a vision.