Over the centuries the most historic divisions between human beings have been race, class, and gender.
In today’s climate imagine saying “there is neither Jew nor Christian, slave nor free person, male nor female” Imagine a Twitter or Facebook post claiming these historic divisions were now history rather than fact. The “Twitterverse”, etc. would erupt with comments ranging from “No way, just look around you” to “That’s just communist propaganda”!
Yet that is St. Paul’s bold proclamation in his letter to the Galatians 3:28
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
New Testament witness
The author of “The (Un)Common Good: How the Gospel Brings Hope to a World Divided writes
That all of those divisions are healed in Jesus Christ is the claim of the early church. Jews and Gentiles now lived and worshiped together, slaves were treated with the same respect as masters, and women found a freedom of expression unheard of in the patriarchal ancient world.
The New Testament indicates how radically different and diverse the welcoming culture of the early church was in its own context, which other historical accounts confirm.Its egalitarian living and sharing, as described in the first chapters of Acts, provoked great cultural attention and lent a powerful impulse to the evangelism of the early Christian community.
Freedom, welcome, affirmation, and equality were as attractive then as they are now, and the first Christians exemplified these qualities (unlike some of our churches today ) .
(Admittedly, it is another story to realize how some of these divisions bubble up even in the very early centuries after Christ.)
Can that vision work today?
Is what Paul said true?
Some might think, Paul is simply referring to being equal in the eyes of God. It is unrealistic to expect that mirrored in daily life today. There are real differences of all kinds.
But isn’t that the point? We are all equal in the eyes of God despite all these differences. If so, then any structural inequalities contradict Paul and the long biblical tradition he stands in.
The author continues…
Thus we have a hopeful and radical vision of diversity throughout biblical history with the purpose of bringing a divided humanity into reconciliation with God and one another. And there is a clear and consistent theme that “outsiders” have an important place and role in that community of faith and should be embraced and included rather than condemned and banished. Indeed, those relationships with the outsider can even become instruments for our salvation.
Where do we find our identity: in nation, culture, class, race, gender — or first and foremost in God and a new and international community of God’s people?
Is this identity only to be in the next life? Isn’t this what we are supposed to be working toward even today?
Is it at least a fair question to keep in mind as we look at the structures of our society and our world? Remember ours is a world where women get paid less than men, people ought to live in neighborhoods with their own kind, or the people of one continent are superior to those of another continent or nation.
Questions
- What is most important to you – your nation, culture, class, race, gender — or first and foremost, being in God and a new and international community of God’s people?
- What can and should be done to truly live as equal daughters and sons of our common God EVEN NOW?
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Father John, you continue to shine light on the path with fresh content on such a regular basis. Thank you.
In our daily prayers, my wife and I pray, “Prepare us for what lies ahead, especially in the life to come.” Years ago I heard a homily about living the Kingdom right now so that we are infinitely comfortable when we arrive “there.”
I have stumbled many times, but I manage with God’s grace to get back up and start walking again.
Thanks for the pothole repair and guideposts along the way that you provide.
Wow, this reflection couldn’t have come in my life at a better time! Yesterday I had the most interesting conversation I ever had in my 44 years of living in this Country.
It happened, of all places, in the laundry room of my building with my Super. He revealed to me yesterday that he comes from Guyana and arrived to this country at the age of 6. Since the very first days he came to work in our building, the two of us were able to speak of all the most delicate race issues with a candor with which I was never able to speak to anyone else, except with another Afro-American person.
I was mentioning to him that I have a great problem: my nephew, in Rome, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Enterprise Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, and asked me how he can talk about and/or address people “of color” in a respectful way when it comes to identify their race. He doesn’t want to offend anyone but he (and not only him) really doesn’t know how to face correctly this issue of race terminology. The last term I mentioned to my nephew was “Afro Latino” (where one parent is African and one is from Latin America), as the Congressman Ritchie Torres.
At this point, my Super threw his hands up and asked why in the whole world we have to look for so many terms. “Black” would be enough in his opinion!
My Super said that as long as we do not speak clearly about the history and the consequences of racism, we are never going to have and see respect among all races. He was sure that in won’t see this happening in his lifetime. I told him that I agreed with him since nothing can come from hiding the reality which is under our eyes. I told him to give this situation some more time, maybe centuries? Maybe another 2,000 years? We’ll see it from Heaven, if we get there! We started laughing.
This morning I couldn’t but think about that conversation and I’d like to think that maybe in our R.C. Parishes we should face the problem head on. Useless to dance around the issue. But maybe that’s not the solution, either.
For sure, if we don’t have something like what happened in South Africa after the apartheid, we won’t go too far on this issue of race and consequently on all the political issues linked to this problem. I must admit that I am too ignorant about the history of this Country to be able to think of some kind of a solution. I’m sure a lot has been already tried! Maybe starting some kind of “specific groups” where people can vent their pain, their suffering on both sides? Where we could learn the pain that “the other side” feels?
Just and addition to the above comment: my Afro Guyanese Super was very discouraged since he had realized in his own experience that racism is existing not only among people of his religion, that is among Christians, but also among Muslims, and others, like the people from India’s descent so numerous in his own Country of origin.