'Lord Jesus, What Would You Have Us Do?'

Complimentary Story
  “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.  Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.  For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”   (2 Corinthians 5: 17-21).
   “Lord Jesus…what would You have us do?” This question reverberated in my mind after reading my friend Rob Pue’s editorial in the Wisconsin Christian News entitled, “The Content of Your Character.”  (WCN, Volume 15, Issue 5).  I called Rob and told him that it was a very troubling and painful read for me. He extended an invitation to reply in rebuttal, and I am very grateful for the offer. But rather than merely rebut, I offer another view of the reality of racism in America in light of what The Lord Jesus Christ would have His people do in response.
   In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul laid out a description of followers of The Lord Jesus Christ. Within these verses we see that:  We are a new creation…we are no longer lost in sin. We have been reconciled to God…we are no longer separated from, but have been brought near to God. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation…we are to show others the reconciliation we have received. We are ambassadors for Christ… we are to represent The Lord Jesus Christ and reach out to those who are still lost. We are to implore the lost to be reconciled to God…we are to lovingly, sacrificially and passionately invite the lost to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and grow in Him. There is no more important mission in the entire world. As followers of The Lord Jesus Christ, this is what we are here for. Nothing should get in the way of, nor dilute this mission or message.
   It is amazing how, as humans, our sin nature so easily comes to the fore.  Both saved and unsaved. How quickly we take sides, draw up battle lines and begin firing.  We fire shots of angry words.  In an attempt to “make our case,” we fire missiles of so-called sound reasoning meant to denigrate and malign. How easy it is for some to engage in a barrage of cold, calloused, incendiary verbiage carelessly flung about the workplace lunchroom. Some share their “righteous ideals” so eagerly by anonymously responding to Internet stories - posting things they’d never say in person. Others spread undocumented suppositions declared as truth in print and broadcast editorials and commentaries. 
   For the Believer in Jesus Christ, is this what we are called to do? Is this what The Lord Jesus Christ left us here for? 
   As much as America is a “melting pot,”  we are a country comprised of a myriad of varied cultures. From North to South, east coast to west coast, urban to rural, rich to poor, Republican to Democrat to Independent…we all have different experiences, dissimilar modes of communication and diverse ways of thinking. This, in addition to the differences that are race based. 
   Having spent most of my life in big cities, my family and I have spent the last seven years in the rural setting of Northeastern Wisconsin. I frequently hear folks talk about how awful the city is. Personally, I’ve always loved city life. More and more, I am learning to love and appreciate the beauty of the country.  But I still love the city.  Conversely, I’ve never gone deer hunting, nor hunted anything for that matter. Yet hundreds of thousands enjoy deer hunting each year here in Wisconsin. It’s part of the culture.  Is one culture better or worse than the other? No. It’s just different. I realize this is a fairly innocuous comparison. Yet the point is that we all are different…from the food we eat, to how we recreate, to the music we listen to, to how old or how young we are, to the traditions we love, to how we worship. We are all different. 
   And where differences are, there is always the potential for controversy and contention. I offer church music as exhibit A. Hymns or contemporary? Organ or praise band…or no instruments at all? While there are churches who have successfully navigated this musical whitewater, there are others who have capsized, or at best, have had their congregational raft badly damaged in this tempestuous river. 
   Differences exist...a reality worth remembering whenever topics of racial strife are addressed. The national debate over Ferguson, Missouri is disheartening and disturbing, particularly with regard to the response of some in the Church of Jesus Christ here in America. People have weighed in on this debate with feelings rather than facts…hearsay rather than reality…fangs-bared emotion rather than heart, eyes, ears and mind guided by The Lord Jesus Christ. 
   With respect to the “Content of Your Character” piece, I find I have to humbly disagree with my friend Rob Pue on several points. While much of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream has been realized, much remains to fulfill that Dream. Likewise, the racial tension in our country isn’t born of people like Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton who report on race issues. That would be tantamount to blaming firefighters for burning buildings they are sent to extinguish. Don’t let likes or dislikes of Rev. Jackson or Rev. Sharpton distort the reality of the race issues they and many other are pointing to…too often falling on deaf ears. 
   Newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals and a plethora of books (“The New Jim Crow -- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander; “Shattered Bonds – The Color of Child Welfare” by Dorothy Roberts; “Racism without Racists – Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, to name a few) are replete with careful documentation of studies and reports from across the modern American landscape that clearly delineate how racism is alive and well. From race-based disparities in employment and salaries, to foster care, to the prison system, an unethical and unjust treatment of African-Americans remains.
   But the issue that captivated the county’s attention for the last four months of 2014 is the situation in Ferguson, Missouri that Rob and even national Christian radio commentator Cal Thomas point to in their editorials. I ask just one question in light of these comments. Do you know why African-Americans are upset? To voice this question neither condones nor legitimizes the subsequent violence in Ferguson or anywhere else, especially the senseless murders of New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Lui in December. I am not asking for your opinion. I’m asking do you know why this is such an issue with African-Americans? I offer this list of unarmed Black men and children who have been in the news recently, all now dead: 12-year-old Tamir Rice…Eric Garner… Trayvon Martin…Jordan Davis…Michael Brown…Timothy Russell & Malissa Williams (137 police rounds shot into their car by Cleveland Police)….Amadou Diallo (4 NYC officers fired 41 shots in 1999. They thought he had a gun)…19-year-old Timothy Stansbury Jr. shot in a stairwell by a NYC officer who said Stansbury “startled him” and he fired by mistake….Oscar Grant killed by an Oakland Transit Police officer who said he accidentally used his gun rather than his Taser.   Then there are those who survived similar attacks like Levar Jones who, while retrieving his license from his car was shot by a South Carolina Highway Patrolman.  And 18-year-old DeShawn Currie, pepper sprayed by police in his white foster parents home because they thought he was a burglar.
   All these men and teens were unarmed. Most had broken no law. None had done anything worthy of being shot to death. Outside of the Diallo incident, all of these shooting and attacks occurred in the last five years. There isn’t enough space in this column to print a more comprehensive list.  Where is the cry for justice?  Where is the Christ-like compassion for the families of these men and boys who were senselessly and unnecessarily killed? And that’s just the tip of the racism iceberg. Housing discrimination and federal sanction of Red Lining in the 1940s and ‘50s created many of the ghettoes we have today. Higher prices in the poorer neighborhoods and struggling school systems are the living legacy of de jure racism. 
   As mentioned earlier, both Christians and non-Christians easily allow our sin nature to come to the fore. As Followers of Jesus Christ, are we to add fuel to the fire, or are we to selflessly use this as an opportunity to share the Christ we love and serve? If we chose the latter, I offer a few suggestions.
   Number One: Look at your own heart.                                                                      Whereas I began my life in inner city Cleveland, Ohio, the majority of my life was spent in suburban Cleveland. God gave me an opportunity to work at an inner city mission. Part of what I did was run a mid-week worship service for women in the community. One severe winter day, early on in my ministry at the mission, I canceled the service because the weather was so bad. Yet about a dozen, mostly elderly women showed up. They quickly took me to task, boldly stating “You don’t never cancel CHURCH!”  Since our speaker and musician weren’t there because the service was canc… uh…rescheduled… we spent the time in prayer. I prayed first. Then these older saints, who apparently had walked with God a long time, began to “talk with” our Father. They talked with God for about an hour. And I was blown away. What a rich time of worship in the presence of God Almighty!  I had this idea that I was “coming down to the city” to minister these poor people.  I had the idea that I was “coming down to the city” to share the Lord with these poor people. God showed me that day that He was not only “here in the inner city already,”  but more importantly, these elderly sisters in Christ had a strong faith in Him, a long service to Him and had much that I had to learn from them!  Even though they were mostly African-Americans -- a heritage that we share -- my heart identified as suburban, somehow elevating myself over the urban.  Upon checking MY heart, I found it filled with pride, ignorance and misunderstanding.  When interacting with people we are different from, we first need to check our own hearts, and ask God to take out the trash.
   Number Two: Let God have your heart...all of it.                                                           Once we’ve asked Jesus Christ to be our personal Lord and Savior, we are said to have “given our heart to Christ.”  And this is true. But this is to be a growing reality. Not that we’re trying to “get saved all over again,” but that we are to learn to give God more and more of ourselves as we mature in our faith.  Meaning, more and more, Jesus Christ calls the shots in our lives, not us.  Many of us are familiar with the Great Commission from Matthew 28. Its twin declaration from Acts 1:8 is worth revisiting. Before His return to Heaven, The Lord Jesus Christ said that His followers were to be His witnesses in “Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Meaning? We are to take the Word of God and witness for the Lord Jesus Christ everywhere…in the city, suburbs, countryside, across the ocean…everywhere. Notice the listing of Samaria, where the hated, much maligned and so-called “Jewish half-breeds” lived.  The Bible says Jewish people had nothing to do with the Samaritans. Yet Jesus’ final earthly words to His disciples were to go to Samaria. God calls us to witness to and love those who are so different from us…even those we don’t necessarily like. That’s why I have to give ALL my heart to Jesus for Him to do what HE wants to do in me, with me and through me…wherever that may be.
   Number Three: Learn from those you are different from.  What I learned that bitter winter day at the impromptu prayer meeting at the mission, was that because these elderly women were poor, inner city-dwellers did not mean that they were poor spiritually. Just like everywhere else, God has His people. Urban, suburban, rural. Here in the U.S. and around the world, God has His people!  We can learn from and encourage each other.
   I won’t pretend that all of this is easy, because it isn’t.  Nonetheless it is the heartbeat of God for His people. And in relation to all of the racial strife that Ferguson, Missouri has shone a bright beacon on, rather than throw more gasoline on the blaze, may we who know Christ have hearts that will use this as an opportunity to reach out across racial lines in the Name of Jesus Christ.
     Pastor Raleigh Washington and Glenn Kehrien -- a Black man and a White man -- have done just that in the city of Chicago, and have achieved success and much fruit for God’s Kingdom, purposely working in cross-cultural settings. In their book “Breaking Down Walls,” they offer Biblical, practical, no-holds-barred direction for those who want to let Jesus have their hearts in cross-cultural ministry. Consider the following quotes:
   “But alienation between blacks and whites has been fomented by hundreds of years of racial agony in our society.  If we expect it to break down by itself without our being doggedly intentional about it, we’re naive. Commitment by itself is not enough. We must be intentional, pursuing a relationship even when it is uncomfortable.” (Page 134) 
   “John Perkins, the founder of numerous ministries committed to racial reconciliation and justice, says, ‘We are all damaged by the evil of racism which Satan uses to separate us.’ The damage to blacks has resulted in feelings of inferiority; the damage to whites has promoted feelings of superiority. Intentionality says, ‘I recognize this damage. I  recognize the hurt you have received. I not only don’t want to cause more hurt, but I want to make the extra effort to help heal the wounds.’” (Page 134).
   “We must recognize as white church members and leaders that if we are not part of the solution we are part of the problem. Denying responsibility means that we refuse to work toward a solution and refuse to admit our role in the conflict. The alienation and separation continue to broaden, moving us closer to an inevitable clash.”  (Pages 238-239).
   “Time alone doesn’t heal. It never has, and it never will.  Racial alienation in this country goes back for centuries and affects everyone.  Effort is needed to bridge the pain of past experience. We who are Christians need a deep commitment to cross the chasm and build significant relationships across racial lines.”  (Page 113).
   Frequently when I preach, I’ll end by asking a question that I’ll ask as I conclude my thoughts here.  “So what’s the takeaway?” 
   First, whatever your racial heritage, take a long look inside your heart and ask God to take out the trash.  Second, give the Lord ALL your heart. Without reservation. Third, be willing to learn from those who are different from you. 
Maybe show some serious ‘Holy boldness’ and consider connecting with an African-American church, explaining your heart in wanting to bring a Biblical, practical answer to the racial problems in our country. Find a Believer of another race to join you.  Be aware that the pastor may fall off of his chair initially.  But be persistent.  Be humble.  Be loving, and willing to listen and learn. The ministry Youth For Christ successfully uses the tack “earning the right to be heard”…a good model for any Believer wanting to follow Christ into cross-cultural ministry. 
   The book “Breaking Down Walls” would probably make a good addition to your library. Remember the authors’ admonition… “pursuing a relationship even when it is uncomfortable.”  And don’t forget to ask God to give you some thick skin, because relational bumps are inevitable.  
   The most precious memories of my six years of inner city ministry, recall Black and White and shades in between coming together…rural, suburban and urban…financially well to do and not so well to do…in service to the Lord. What beautiful ministry and testimony we made together to the Glory of God.
   So the next time the race issue comes up in conversation, maybe just stop…and pray… and ask “Lord Jesus, what would You have ME do?” 

   Michael Fletcher is an announcer for WRVM in Suring, Wis., and pastor of Klondike Community Church near Pound.
   Information gathered from various news outlets including Associated Press, CNN, Cleveland.com, and theroot.com.  

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