As a professor, I actually teach courses about diversity and difference. In these classes, I guide students through the various areas that make us different, like gender, race, religion and much more. The courses are
As Christians, I believe we should be the experts on diversity and differences. After all, Jesus was a darker skinned guy who came from poverty and from a group (the Jews) that were disliked by so many. To make it worse, he spent time with lepers, the sick, the disabled, the mentally ill, and even sinners. If you consider the words above, in one man we have covered all that I teach in a diversity and difference class.
Race, poverty, religion and ethnicity summed in the life of one person. This is the Christ that changed my life, perhaps yours too. A simple man who suffered greatly under the ruling class (rich folks today) and under the politicians of his day. This notion matters: we are called to become Christ. And, this is what makes us so uncomfortable, that we must be diverse in our own heart, must hear the cries of the oppressed, the lonely, the forgotten and yes, even the hated.
Then again, diversity and difference is what makes this world so beautiful. How boring it would be for all of us to look, think, act, and be the same. I think churches have missed this with the idea of salvation and following Christ. The idea is that we are all supposed to become a particular sort of person, one who follows the rules, confesses sin and witnesses to the lost. Nowhere in there is it easy to find your unique self.
God does not call us to be someone else. God calls us to be…..well, us! I matter and so do you, just as you and I are. We don’t have to get “better” or be “better”. Christ ate with the sinners, like us. We are each unique and represent a unique face of God on this earth. The secret is to learn how to be who you are and follow God’s callings according to who you are.
This is why the New Testament talks about some are hands, some are feet, some are eyes. Can you now see why diversity for us as Christians is so important? We live and love in a diverse world. No one of us can reach all people. Today, let’s decide to take who we are, our personal version of who Christ is in the world, and reach out to a diverse and different world. Reach out to someone you never have reached out to before. I am not saying go “witness” to them. Instead, reach out by praying for them and being a witness to them.
TMM