So here I am in Rochester, New York, getting ready for bed when I realize it’s Sunday night and I don’t have a Catch yet for tomorrow. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve had a nice conversation with my sister, emailed a few folks, talked to Marti and realized it was after midnight, of course that’s just after 9 p.m. on my clock, but the morning is still going to come sooner than I expect. So I think I will tell you what am I going to tell eighteen hundred students tomorrow at a Christian college whose chapel theme for the semester is “COMMUNITY: UNITY AND DIVERSITY.”
I’m going to tell them that our Christian community has become far too isolated from the world. That we run from diversity because it makes us too uncomfortable and that our Christian community has become far too homogeneous and “cliquish.” Our community has lots of unity, but for all the wrong reasons – because we have in our community only those who agree with us. It’s one of the requirements for belonging to this group.
And yet there is a world we live in that is a community as well, and unfortunately Christians have not been a part of this wider community for some time. We have gotten comfortable with being labeled as conservative evangelicals, and as having a political agenda that in many ways runs counter to the world community that surrounds us. We have built walls around us and are proud about our separation from the world. Yet this is not the separation Jesus talked about. He talked about being separated by the truth in our hearts, while still living in community with the world around us. And how many Christians purpose to live in community with the world? Not enough.
It’s time we realize that as Christians, the world we live in is part of our community too. This is, in fact, where the diversity comes from, and that the thing that makes us part of this community is that we are human.
Christians have been running from the world community – running from our own humanity – for as long as I can remember, and it is time to stop running, turn around and embrace our neighbor for the beauty of who he/she is and who we all are, because we are all the same. We are all sinners who need Jesus. We are made, like everyone else, in the image of God. People in the world, therefore, are not our projects to convert, or our enemies to defeat, but our fellow-human beings to love.
It’s time to take up our place as Christians in the world. It’s time to get involved in the world community. It’s time to knock down some walls.
That’s what I’m going to tell them, or something like that. Now it’s time to go to bed.
John Fischer The Catch 
John, this speaks to the heart. I have heard from too many Christian leaders that I should not mix with this one/that one or continue going to night clubs or other such ‘dens of iniquity’, and in ‘rebellion’ (or so i have been told!) I have continued to be ‘me’ in the hope that my own testimony would come thro to the people I have continued to mix with. Does this make sense?
How can you love people if you are never with them?
Absolutely!!
Nice one John. What do you supose it is, that keeps us so chronically isolated? Is it fear? Are we afraid that we might find the definitions we grasp to are actually the shorter straws? Are we lazy? Are we addicted to comfort? Are content or asleep or blind or even racist? Maybe we are exhausted… Time for me to go to sleep. Keep writing it down and sending it out there. I’m glad to have come across your email, even at. 4;30 am.
I think all of the above! I like your term, “racist.” I look back on my upbringing and honestly feel we were taught to be prejudiced against non-Christians.
Why isn’t it enough to belong to God? Why do so many feel the need to be “right” or to be His favorite? This seems to only bring separation. I can’t imagine watching my own children be in constant turmoil over who I love the most or who can be “right” so I’ll love them more. Isn’t that exactly what we as Christians do? I wonder what would happen if I moved into the Buddist camp….and took my best friend and savior Jesus with me? Would we both be labeled as non-Christian because I don’t attend the correct service? I hope you can tell I agree with your posting this moring.
Right on.
Still no facebook button in the emails, but I can come here and post it using the one above this. Great message John. I find it somewhat humorous that even though I get what you are saying (it’s what drew me to this community), I still find myself doing just what you are warning us about.
Every time I think I got it, I turn around and find that “having it” is just another symptom of the building walls.
Well said, Kevin!
Also, have you noticed how God points out where we’re missing the mark, we resolve that we’re not going to do (whatever) any more, and–BOOM– the next stumbling block comes along. That’s why faith is a journey, not a destination.
As John Wesley put it, we are “going on to perfection”. And we’re not going to achieve that in this life, but we must keep on keeping on.
Welcome to New York. I was born in Rochester and now live in Farmington, NY which is about 30 minutes away from the city. I agree with Kevin that this is a great message. It is a hard thing to do. I want to love the sinner but not the sin (because I am a sinner). I don’t want to affirm behavior that is not biblical. I want to treat people with respect but cannot encourage or support abortion or same sex marriage. I want to show mercy and grace like I have received from Jesus.
Where did we ever get the idea that loving someone is tantamount to confirming everything they do? Or if we don’t say something about bad behavior, we are condoning it? I honestly don’t see the connection. My love for my children has nothing to do with their behavior unless I purposely withhold my love as some form of punishment or desired change, but that never works anyway!
My husband were at this chapel service in Rochester NY this morning. Great message to the students, and they really seemed to be listening. I hope you have lots of interaction with them in the next couple of days.
Good words on Community. For a while I was a “conservative” pastor in a more “liberal” denomination that celebrated (and even pushed) diversity with the phrase:
In the essentials, UNITY
In the non-essentials, DIVERSITY
In all things, CHARITY.
A good rule of thumb, I’ve always thought.
Of course, I got upset that the things I considered essential most others considered non-essential. With age – and a little more appreciation for the range of those God considers his kids – I’ve come to appreciate that perhaps I was the one holding back the community by elevating my devotion to theological purity to the level of “Essential.”
And also, of course, that I was missing out on the “charity” of community by building walls instead of bridges.
Ah, I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.
Welcome to your youth!
Don’t know if you got a chance to see the Grammy awards Sunday night but it was awesome to see LL Cool J start the show by leading the audience in a heartfelt prayer to “Our Heavenly Father” thanking Him for the gift of Whitney Houston and her voice.
It was also cool to see all those musicians in the audience – with so many backgrounds and genre’s of music – with their heads bowed down in reverence and respect.
Such unity amongst so much diversity – a very moving moment, indeed.
The church could learn a lesson or two there…