Little Library
A couple of years ago a few of us from Highland visited Hangzhou, China. It was one of the cities we had identified as a potential site for a new mission work. We wanted to get to know the city and meet some of the local Christians in the house churches.
One evening we worshiped in a house church. Like so many of the informal gatherings of Christians in China, this one met in a small apartment. There were about twenty of us that night. Most were from Hangzhou. One was from Singapore. A few were from another country–American missionaries traveling through Hangzhou.
I remember seeing a small bookshelf in the apartment filled with Christian books. Before the worship service started, I thumbed through the books. These were this church’s church library, their resource room. It consisted of twenty or thirty books. These were the written materials forming their minds and hearts spiritually.
I was saddened by what I found.
- All of the books were written by members of Churches of Christ. We in our tribe have lots of good things to write. But there’s a lot of wisdom and insight to also be gained outside our tribe. Whatever missionary had started this house church stocked it only with books from our tribe. This house church was missing the vast insight available from Christian authors outside our tribe.
- Allthe books reflected the most conservative traditions of Churches of Christ. There is a continuum in Churches of Christ. Whoever stocked this house church’s books only provided one perspective on that continuum. This house church was missing the helpful perspective of Church of Christ authors from more mainstream churches.
- All the books were written by Americans. We Americans have some helpful spiritual things to say. But so do Christians in other countries. None were found on these shelves. That seemed especially strange given that this house church was not in America. It was in China.
- All the books were written by men. Women’s writings have broadened and deepened the church for centuries. But whoever resourced this house church did not provide any spiritual books written by women. That was especially striking given that this church, as most house churches in China, was filled mostly with women.
- All were written by whites. None were written by people of color who could bring their experience and perspective to the pages. This seemed strange given that except for those of us from Highland and the other Americans there, all present had skin color that was not white.
As I perused those books in that Chinese house church I wondered how those writings were shaping that group of Christians. I especially wondered how these resources were shaping their gospel. I feared that the narrowness of that bookshelf might in fact lead to a narrowness in their gospel.
Big Gospel
I was thinking about this in light of our text this morning. It is text #5 of 16 in our series “The True You.” We’re looking at 16 texts that summarize the key moments of the story of the Bible.
Text #5 has to do with how wide God’s message is. It has to do with the way in which God’s heart beats for all races, all nationalities, both genders, and all peoples:
“2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Gen. 12:2-3 ESV)
God is speaking to a man named Abram. Soon he’ll be known as Abraham. A few times in the Bible’s story God changes someone’s name. Names in the ancient world were especially symbolic. And sometimes God would change a name to make a point about that person’s character or calling. Soon this Abram will be called Abraham. Abram is a pagan name which means “father is exalted.” Abraham means “father of a multitude.”
Five times in this text the word “bless” is used. The primary issue here is “blessing” and who on earth gets God’s blessing from heaven.
At first it seems the blessing is only going to go to Abram and his family: “I will bless you and make your name great.”
This issue of having a great name was important at this point in the story. It was the very thing the peoples of the earth were trying to do just one chapter earlier:
“1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Gen. 11:1-4 ESV)
They want to make a great name for themselves. So they gather together. They unite all their resources and talents and they build a great tower seeming to reach to heaven.
And at first it seems that this is what God’s going to do with Abraham. God is going to make hisname great. God is going to bless Abraham, and only Abraham.
But as we linger in this text and listen, we understand there’s a lot more going on here. God blesses Abraham and makes his name great “so that he will be a blessing.” In fact, God promises that “in Abraham and his descendents all the families or clans or tribes of the earth will be blessed.”
God’s not privileging one person or people over others. He’s merely positioning one person and people so they can deliver God’s blessing to all.
Centuries later, the apostle Paul will point to this as one of the first proclamations of the gospel:
“8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”(Gal. 3:8 ESV)
In Galatians, Paul is dealing with the question of whether non-Jews, Gentiles: Can Gentiles belong to the people of God and, if so, do they have to be circumcised like Jews? And Paul looks back at Genesis 12 and Absolutely Gentiles can be part of the people of God and Definitely they don’t have to become Jews. Because Genesis 12 says that God’s wish is to bless all people regardless of race, nation, tribe or clan. And that blessing comes through a descendant of Abraham–and his name is Jesus.
Paul says that this text in Gen. 12 is the first proclamation of the good news, the gospel. It was God saying that through Abraham and his descendents, and ultimately Jesus was one of those descendents, all nations or tribes or clans or families of the earth would receive the blessing of God. God would not privilege on nation or race or clan. The blessing would be given to every race, every nation, every clan and tribe and people on earth.
Little Painting
That seems so simple. It seems so straightforward.
But somehow we miss it. Somehow we still think that the blessing is intended for a few. Somehow we still act as if the blessing is meant for the chosen.
A few weeks ago I was eating with some friends in California. They told me they had recently visited the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas. They had intended that day to visit the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. But that museum was too full or it was closed, I forget which, so my friends looked around, and they found the Museum of Biblical Art. They went inside and found some stunning paintings, sculptures and Bibles.
And then they came upon one particular painting. I’ve searched in vain for a copy of it online. But most of the pieces in the museum are, for obvious reasons, not available online. It was a large painting, about four feet tall by ten feet long. It was an apocalyptic scene, an end-times judgement scene.
In the foreground was Jesus. Jesus was on a white horse. He was wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, After all, this was Texas.
Far behind Jesus were individuals lined across the breadth of the painting. They were holding flags. They were flags from all the nations of the earth. They represented all the nations, gathered for judgement before Jesus.
In front of that long line of individuals with world flags was a separate line of individuals. They were standing between the world and Jesus. They stood out from the rest. They were special. They were holding the flag of the United States of America. They didn’t belong with the rest of the world. They merited special favor.
But in front of them was still one more group. They were more special still. They were the most chosen of all humans on earth. And they were leading all other nations to Jesus. What flag were they holding? The flag of Texas! In this end-times scenario, Texas was its own country. And Texans were the righteous leading the rest of the world to Jesus.
My friends, who are missionaries, said they stood there looking at that painting and they were speechless. They had spent dozens of years going to other countries and telling people know that God had a heart for all the families of earth. They had spent years trying to bless all the families of the earth. And in one painting, that gospel had been utterly denied.
It’s an absurd and extreme example. But how often do our lives or our congregations paint a similar picture, privileging one race, one socioeconomic class, one gender, one nationality over others?
Big Churches
Of course, it’s one thing for a congregation to go to other places and people to share this blessing. But a much harder issue is this: what does it mean to be a congregation that enables people of every clan or tribe to experience God’s blessing?
- What does it mean to be a congregation where Americans aren’t the only ones who feel blessed?
- What does it mean to be a congregation where whites aren’t the only ones who feel blessed?
- What does it mean to be a congregation capable of blessing not just people from Cordova or Collierville, but every community in the MidSouth?
- What does it mean to be congregation where people with disabilities find blessing?
- What does it mean to be a congregation where people of both genders feel genuinely blessed?
For 25 years, Francois Clemmons played a role on the beloved children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.[1]Clemmons joined the cast of the show in 1968, becoming the first African-American to have a recurring role on a kids TV series.[2]Clemmons says he didn’t like the idea much at first. “I grew up in the ghetto. I did not have a positive opinion of police officers. Policemen were siccing police dogs and water hoses on people,” he says. “And I really had a hard time putting myself in that role.” Still, Clemmons came around to it eventually and agreed to take on the role.
And, in the decades he spent as part of the show, there’s one scene in particular that Clemmons remembers fondly. It was from an episode that aired in 1969, in which Rogers had been resting his feet in a plastic pool on a hot day.[3]
It was tremendously symbolic for the white Rogers to invite the black Clemmons to soak in that plastic pool with him. It was even more significant for Rogers to them help Clemmons dry his his wet feet with that towel.
Clemmons says he’ll never forget the day Rogers wrapped up the program, as he always did, by hanging up his sweater and saying, “You make every day a special day just by being you, and I like you just the way you are.” This time in particular, Rogers had been looking right at Clemmons, and after they wrapped, he walked over.
Clemmons asked him, “Fred, were you talking to me?”
“Yes, I have been talking to you for years,” Rogers said, as Clemmons recalls. “But you heard me today.”
“It was like telling me I’m OK as a human being,” Clemmons says. “That was one of the most meaningful experiences I’d ever had.”
That’s the blessing we read about in Genesis 12. There are so many ways to say “I love you.” The greatest way is to say God loves you. And you don’t have to become any nationality, skin color, address, or gender to be loved. He loves you for you. And so do I.
The challenge is to be a church where everyone can experience that blessing.
The invitation is for you to experience that blessing today. It’s yours through faith in Jesus, no matter who you are.
[1]https://www.npr.org/2016/03/11/469846519/walking-the-beat-in-mr-rogers-neighborhood-where-a-new-day-began-together?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160311
[2]https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/03/10/1993-mrn-episode_sq-e5fa46b06f7cb74f988fe403cca4e8f0b48baf6e-s1600-c85.jpg
[3]https://vimeo.com/141427439
