Birds and Branches

Apparently, I have already caused enough trouble. I’m not looking for Facebook debate. That’s not what I’m about…I just have this sense that we should use the platforms where people are talking to deal with the issues that matter while we share our funny stories and pictures of flowers and children and sunsets with one another.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “It is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, in Christian America. I definitely think the Christian church should be integrated and any church that stands against integration and that has a segregated body is standing against the Spirit and teachings of Jesus Christ and it fails to be a true witness. But this is something that the Church will have to do itself; I don’t think church integration will come through legal processes.”

You can watch him here:

When I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, I didn’t realize there was a reason why most church-going people went to churches that reflected their skin color. I always loved going to the “black church” or when the “black church choir” would come sing at our church for a revival or a special community service. I didn’t know any better.

I bought my first car in my hometown during the summer after my freshman year of college. Somehow, I got into conversation about church and race with the lady and her husband who were selling the car to me. God only knows how we ended up on that topic! She told me she believed that “God intends for people to go to their separate churches… Black with black, white with white, and so on...” I had never heard anybody say this kind of thing before. I thought things had just always been that way, but I didn’t realize there were actually church-going people who thought it should stay that way!

Some people say, “I’m not colorblind. I don’t see color.” Others have said, “God doesn’t see color. He only sees red for the blood of Jesus” or “we all bleed the same color.” There is some truth in these statements, but they don’t deal with the whole issue. A lot of us grew up singing, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” Well, if this song carries any truth at all, then it has to carry over from “His sight” to “my sight” and “your sight” and it has to grow up from being the “children of the world” to “every person in the world,” whether child or adult.

Pastor David Tucker said earlier today, “If you don’t think racism exists, look at the church on Sunday mornings––not your outreach, not your feeding program––your service on Sunday mornings. Let us not be labeled a white church, a black church, a Hispanic Church, but God’s Church. This is the proof that the church has work to do. True Revival always brought people together.”

Paul wrote to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The problem is that this applies to those who are IN Christ Jesus, so people who don’t claim to follow Jesus have no context for true equality because it is a principle of the Kingdom of God. Our American forefathers were tapping into this concept when they wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The operative words here are “by their Creator.”

The real breakdown is not in our philosophy but in our practice. A lot of Christians would say, “I’m not a racist,” but what they practice would say otherwise. Nobody actually thinks they’re a racist! (There’s a little hyperbole there, but I think you get the point.) The reason why our churches are segregated is not necessarily because we say they should be; if it were about what we say they should be, then perhaps most churches in America would be integrated. The problem is how we deal with racial issues in society at large because this then reflects on the church, itself. You see? It's not that the problem emanates from a church's philosophy or what people say the believe, but it ultimately comes down to how we engage with other cultures in society, on social media, in our schools, and our social gatherings. (Do these settings include people who don't look, think, talk, or were raised like you?)

Speaking as a basically-middle-class, white, college-educated male, I can talk about my skin color. Many of us in the white community often disparage those in the black or Hispanic communities for taking advantage of “the system” or for not working hard enough; we say, “if they worked like I work, then they could have what I have.” Even the comment I’ve read recently saying, “If he wouldn’t have fought back, then they wouldn’t have shot him.” I mean, how atrocious! But this kind of statement simply reveals a deeper problem of the heart.

The freedom in America is based on a Kingdom of God principle that we try to put into an earthly context. It only works when we see things through the lens of the King and His Kingdom. This is why the people of God need to be the most vocal about this and not passively cower away to our corners like we did in the 1860s or the 1960s when slavery and systemic racism were being disputed on the battlefields and in the streets of America. When the people of God do not speak up, secular society will fill the vacuum and take a spiritual principle and turn it into a secular one. It’s not the government’s fault when the Church doesn’t do her job; it’s the people of God’s fault.

The Hebrew writer said, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us (Heb. 12:1). If we are going to see racial reconciliation, then we are going to have to lay aside all of our biases and prejudices. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have them in some form and they have to be shed in order to lay the weight to the side and run the race.

The killing of Ahmaud Arbery concurrent with COVID-19 has shown us that there are other “invisible enemies” that have the capacity to kill besides the coronavirus —namely racism, pride, hate, ignorance, fear—and it takes much more than a vaccine to be protected from these invisible enemies; it takes integrity, courage, humility, and godly love. These are spots and wrinkles that have to be ironed out in order for the body of Christ to become the glorious Church that we are called to be (Eph. 5:27).

Regardless of what you think about Arbery and how he ended up on the wrong side of a firearm, the fact remains that if you err on the side of his killers, you are building a wall rather than a bridge.

Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches" (Luke 13:18–19).

The Kingdom of God is like a big tree where ALL the birds come together and rest on its branches. The Kingdom of God is big enough for all the different colored birds to have a branch. You don’t get to have your own tree; you’re going to have to share.

The people of God must cultivate an environment in our society where those who are poor, marginalized, oppressed, and otherwise disenfranchised can perch on its branches. These are the people Jesus came for (Luke 4:18). We cannot do this if we get caught up in the rabble-rousing of politics and social justice alone. Those are the means by which the purposes of the Kingdom of God can be advanced; but they are not the end; they are the means to the end.

People of God, speak up! Proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God everywhere you go. There is enough room for anyone and everyone who wants to join! Let’s get out of the way and let the King do His work – in us and through us.

Father, we pray with Your Son, Jesus: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).