It is President Abraham Lincoln's birthday and the kids are out of school. I am in the office early thinking about a wonderful play I saw yesterday and giving thanks for many things...
As a little boy my mother invested in a series of books called Value Tales by Spencer and Ann Donegan Johnson. These children's books teach values such as "determination," "patience," and "courage" by mixing some imaginary play with the true stories of amazing people. Through Value Tales I was introduced, when I was just learning to really read, to Louis Pasteur, Helen Keller, the Wright Brothers, Elizabeth Fry, Chochise, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, and--most importantly today--Jackie Robinson.
After all these years I have few artifacts from my childhood...but I have a number of the Value Tales, and I am reading them to my children.
The Value of Courage: The Story of Jackie Robinson made a particular impression upon me (I was probably in third grade when I first read it.). Through this book my mother began to teach me about fairness and courage and the evils of racial prejudice. There is so much that most of us adults do not remember from our childhoods, but I remember this book and from the time of its first reading I have had a very visceral, gut-level disdain for racial prejudice...even when I find it in myself.
I grew up in very white communities. This homogeneity often led to simple human xenophobia (fear of foreigners). Over the years I have learned that all types of communities are xenophobic. Country people often have a "fear" of city people, and city people of country people; Mexican communities often have a "fear" of Anglo-Saxon communities and vice-versa; etc., etc. The root of this xenophobia is raw, sinful, pride, and pride--in its essence--is the worship of self, the notion that I am the center of the universe and the rightful judge of all that is right. Every baby of every culture exhibits this; every toddler's little "fit" is an expression of pride. The truth is that as we "mature" we simply learn to veil this pride, which--again--is at its core self-deification: believing one's self to be "god."
So it is that in our basic, human, sinful pride we have within us the implicit judgement that we --and those "like us"--are the proper measure for what a true human being is. Again, this truth is often veiled, but some times it breaks out crassly. I have heard young people of Asian decent make comments that make clear they believe Asians are superior human beings, and I have heard similar things from Americans and Swedes and Malagasi's about others, and from "blacks" and from "whites."
However, the truth that cannot be denied is that there is a much greater biological difference between, for example, those who have detached or attached ear lobes than between those who have lighter or darker skin. (Thanks to Ken Ham and his team at Answers in Genesis for defending this point so powerfully, both in biological and spiritual terms.) Race--the color of one's skin--is, biologically, practically irrelevant. It is simply a matter of infinitesimal difference in a pigment.
My mother didn't teach me this by means of biology, though she could have. She taught me by means of the story of Jackie Robinson.
Yesterday, at Centre-East "Youth Theater" in Skokie, Illinois, the Dallas Children's Theater Touring Company helped me cement this truth about the irrelevance of race to my eldest daughter and the other upper-grade students at St. Philip Lutheran School. They taught by means of wonderful theatrical play about Jackie Robinson's life entitled, "Most Valuable Player." It was thoroughly excellent, well-explained and well-performed. I was not able to greet the actors after the performance--the schools were quickly ushered-out to the busses--but if I had been able I would have given them most hearty thanks and congratulations. I suspect that Most Valuable Player will be for many of the children in that theater what The Value of Courage: The Story of Jackie Robinson was to me. Certainly, I pray that this is the case.
I pray that this is the case because the Holy Scriptures make clear--in spite of the sometimes sordid history of Biblical interpretation--that there are not degrees of humanity. In fact, the Scriptures make clear that there is one human race and that the Kingdom of God is for all. The Lord Jesus made this clear in His ministry to both Jews and Gentiles, and Christ's Church evidenced this when--at its "truest"--it carried the reconciling mission of Christ's forgiveness, literally, around the world, from North Africa to the Far East to Scandinavia to, eventually, the Americas...
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I have come to understand that the process that led to my call as Pastor of St. Philip Lutheran Church was controversial. Much of this, as I understand, had little to do with me. Nevertheless, feelings were hurt and people offended. Some have left St. Philip. Many have come back. Many are visiting for the first time. Many are giving St. Philip a second look. All that I know is that when I looked at the row of kids that I escorted to the play yesterday I saw a glimpse of heaven, and the kids around me could not know it, but I was profoundly affected, just like I was when I looked into the classrooms during my call-process visit here in May.
As a little boy in homogeneous white communities I was taught by my mother that race is irrelevant and that anyone who says otherwise is a liar. Later, when--after a long season of rebellion against Christ--I was returned to the Church, Christian friends helped me study the Bible. In the Bible I learned something beyond the biological truth. I learned that God's forgiveness in Christ is for all, regardless of what they looked like. I learned that God rejoices in the repentance of every prideful person, and I learned to hear with joy St. John's account of worship in heaven:
" 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 a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”" (Revelation 7:9-10, ESV)
So, this morning I am thanking God for bringing me here and realizing a dream that was slowly revealed to me: "Lance, you who were taught as a boy the truth that shades of color do not matter, will preach the reconciling Word of Christ to one of the world's most racially diverse neighborhoods."
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for bringing me to St. Philip. Lord, only you can truly bind the wounds of those impacted by sinful pride. Lead us to repentance, to reconciliation, and to the joy that is discovered when people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation worship You as one.
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