Shelby Star article: It isn't easy being inclusive

Note: I wait to publish these on my blog until they have been published in the paper (as a courtesy to the Shelby Star). The Star changed the title of my article. I post it here with my title. Here is the link to the article in the Shelby Star: http://www.shelbystar.com/articles/rights-64810-civil-systems.html


Each year in January, Americans honor slain civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., remembered for his work advancing the human rights of people of color and calling for their full and equal inclusion in the social, political, and religious systems in America. With all the progress we have made since the signing of the Civil Rights Act, however, we still struggle with the sin of racism.

That’s because it isn’t easy being inclusive. Yet this is our calling as God’s people, and it requires extraordinary effort.

It is also our tradition. In the Book of Nehemiah, the priest, Ezra, went against the religious tradition and authority of his time, and read from the Torah to people assembled at the Water Gate, a location outside of the temple precincts. Women, children, “and others who could understand,” people who would have been excluded from temple worship, were given the opportunity to hear Scripture and enter into the joy of relationship with God.

But Ezra went even further, building a platform so that all the people could see and hear him as he read. He enlisted the help of thirteen priests to walk among the people teaching them about the Scripture they were hearing. What an extraordinary effort to include the excluded!

In the epistle to the Corinthians Paul discusses the grounding of the body of Christ in our baptism: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit… Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1Cor 12:12, 27)

Paul uses the ‘one body, many members’ metaphor to show how all who are baptized in Christ
are called to live together in unity while honoring and maintaining the great diversity present
in the individual members. For Christians, Paul says, our unity is tied to our interdependence. “The eye cannot say to the hand, nor the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” (1Cor 12:21-22) On the contrary, Paul says, “God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” (1Cor 12: 25-26)

Christians have been dealing with disagreement over who should be counted among the faithful since the earliest days. Paul wanted to include Gentiles in his ministry, but Peter refused to allow it, until God spoke to him in a vision about eating with the Gentiles and sent him to the household of Cornelius. Peter obeyed God and, as a result, hundreds were added to faith that day.

We are heirs of that first great Gentile mission, beneficiaries of their faithfulness to God’s call to be truly inclusive. Now it’s our turn to be faithful, seeking out those who are excluded and going to extraordinary measures to include them, living together in unity even as we honor our diversity.