Friday, March 25, 2016

Them-ing to Us-ing

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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