Are
we still caught up in parochial feuds, national boundaries and the rub of
ethnocentric thinking? If there is one
outcome of the Cross, it is that sin is universal and there is only
"us" needing salvation.
"Them" gets smashed within the scope of Calvary and it must be
demolished in our Christianity. To imply
there is a "them" that is worse than "us" makes a mockery
of Jesus' scathing rebuke of the Pharisees who saw everything as "us"
and "them". It took the Church
a bit of time before it realized the "us" and "them"
theology they held was a relic of a religion without salvation. Forgiveness crosses all lines of demarcation
and makes us one in Christ and really one.
This is not Christian rhetoric; it is the really real outcome of being
born again. There is neither Jew nor
Greek at every level of the Church and when we get on our high horse of making
a "them" out of someone, we have approached the abyss where everyone
is a "them" and no one an "us". Sin brought the division between peoples and
it is what keeps it going. The Cross
makes us one even as God is One. Jesus'
great prayer established the unity of the Body of Christ in which all
Christians are united in love and faith and good works. When we find ourselves despising a
"them" because of that one's "themness" we must confess it
as sin and believe that God will make us one too. Love has not ethnic, political or gender
boundaries and the Love of Christ cannot be kept to one side or another. It must "leap the fence" again and
again until we truly are one.
Holy
Father, protect them by the power of your name — the name you gave me — so that
they may be one as we are one. John 17:11b
NIV
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