Acceptance

There is an incident that is forever impressed in my memory.  It is not a good memory.  As a matter of fact, it has left somewhat of a painful scar.  I think of it often.  I find it helpful to remember, because it keeps me grounded where I need to be in terms of how I feel about other people.

The incident happened, as an event, where I was an onlooker with about 200 other kids my age.  I was about 14 years old at the time.  Every afternoon in the summer all of the kids from the community gathered at the local outside pool for a swim.

On the particular day of the incident two new boys showed up.  They were brothers, recently adopted into a family in town.  They were not from our community, but came from a neighboring city.  They were both teenagers.

They were black.  It's sad to say but for that reason alone the incident happened that day.  A number of the local white boys surrounded the two black teens and pounded the living daylights out of them.  The reason: they dared to threaten to contaminate our pool.

That incident is forever impressed upon my memory.  I confess that I was ignorant of any type of response during that actual event; mainly because I had never encountered a black person so closely before.  I grew up in a predominately white community where the prevailing view was the same: black people were thought of as being sub-human.  I neither accepted or rejected that concept; I was just ignorant of any other point of view.

Ignorance is a learned behavior.  Two newly born infants - one black and the other white - laying side by side in the nursery have absolutely no prejudices toward each other.  Instead, prejudice happens through the example of parents and other adults, who greatly influence the formed opinions of children.

It wasn't until I became an adult and got away from the ignorance of my local culture that I began to learn the true meaning of acceptance.  It is based on a few common denominators which should keeps us all grounded in unity as a human race.

First of all, we are all created by the same Creator who is "no respector of men".  Galatians 3:28 says, "Their is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one is Christ."  In other words, God did not create some to be more special to Him than others.

Secondly, and this is a great common denominator of us all, we are all sinners.  We all have this defect in common.  Sin causes God through His saving grace to be color-blind toward all humanity.  He doesn't see the color of our skin.  It is not the color of our skin that we need to be saved from.  It is our sin.

The above incident is forever impressed upon my memory.  I am sadden by what I now know and believe; in that at the time I responded not one way or the other, but simply remained unresponsive to the situation.  If I had known then what I know now I might have spoken out against the beating on those two young black boys.

Acceptance is such an important Core Value for the church.  I am convinced that we are not very good at it on so many different levels.  This is an issue for the church that can be approached from so many different angles.  For now though, let us simply practice acceptance in all of our relationships with others.  No matter what, accept one another, just as Christ has accepted you.

-Pastor Leo

Working Together as Christians in spite of our Differences

I have heard the analogy that the church is compared to all of the flavours of koolaid.  Some like orange and some like cherry; while others like grape, and still others like blueberry.

In some respects this analogy is comparative to the church.  Some like hymns and some like liturgy.  Some like contemporary music; while others like quietness and contemplation; and still others like a care-free, laid back atmosphere.  Some are traditionalists, while others are iconoclasts.  Some are mystics and others are rationalists.  Some are Calvinists and others are Armenians.  Some are Protestants and others are Roman Catholics.  The list can go on and on.

Unfortunately these differences, historically speaking, have often caused great divides within the church of Jesus Christ.  They sometimes run so deep that one sect cannot bring itself to even think of the others as being Christian.   One of the greatest enemies of the church is extremism.  Extremists are those who are intolerant of others who do not shape their beliefs exactly as they do.  It is an arch enemy of the church because it will not allow room for one of the most precious attributes of God - acceptance.  Not that one accepts false doctrines or things that are abominations before God.  But the measure of its tolerance level is acceptance.

Extremism places conditions of intolerance on issues that gives no room for any level of acceptance.  It separates itself from everything that it deems to be sinful.  It buys into a theology of exclusivism and believes that it is the only one and the only way.  It believes that one can be guilty of sin through association.

Even though there will always be certain doctrinal beliefs that we subscribe to as individual churches and denominations that continue to separate us, they should never bring us to a place of intolerance and rejection toward each other. 

There are so many wonderful things that we can do together to the glory of God when we accept each other; if only on the level of acceptance through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.  He is the true judge of us all.  Sin is not some sort of contagious disease afloat in the atmosphere.  It is innate, inside of you.  God will not punish you because you accept and work alongside of someone who does not believe exactly as you do; and you will not catch those differences in doctrine that you see in them.

Christianity is a relational religion.  Nothing good is ever gained by intolerance and extremism except bigotry and hatred.  Let us strive for tolerance and acceptance for the sake of those things we can accomplish together to the glory of our God.

- Pastor Leo