So, this, let me open with this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer.
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus, your Son.
Look with compassion on the whole human family.
Take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts.
Break down the walls that separate us, unite us in bonds of love,
and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth.
That in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
So, this is the fourth sermon in this summer miniseries on the Holy Spirit
and what would happen if we had more of the Holy Spirit.
So, just a quick recap.
First sermon, I talked about the Holy Spirit himself
and that's a great way to learn who the Holy Spirit is and what he is like
is to look at the connection between Jesus and the Holy Spirit
and the connection between Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
The second sermon, I talked about inner healing or emotional healing
and I pointed to the ways that Jesus is tender and compassionate towards us,
any of us who have experienced wounding,
and I gave some examples of what inner healing can look like.
And last week, the third sermon was on physical healing
and where it was in Jesus' ministry and the early church
and what it might look like today.
And we prayed for each other during the time of the prayers of the people
and two people have reported since then that they experienced some healing.
So, I just want to say to all of you,
for those of you who put your hands up for prayer,
for those of you who prayed where you were
or whether you came over to someone and prayed,
I just want to say thank you and look what God can do in an Anglican service.
So, today's sermon is on racial healing.
And this topic is not an intuitive or obvious topic
that people connect with healing or even with the Holy Spirit.
And so, today's sermon, I want to go through a couple scriptures that talk about race
and then I want to look at some instances in the book of Acts
where the early church struggled with race and racial inclusion.
So, where in the Bible does it talk about race?
Where does it come from?
So, when I was preparing this,
I was surprised to find that two stray thoughts floated through my head.
And they're not thoughts from God,
they were just thoughts that my brain regurgitated in answer to the question.
These are not things I believe,
but I remember it was my brain saying,
if I was to answer the question,
where does race come from?
Here are two answers that I've heard in my lifetime as a Christian.
So, the first was from a sermon I heard a long time ago
where the pastor was working through the book of Genesis.
And he came to Genesis 9 and 10,
where after the flood,
Noah had kids,
he had three sons,
and these three sons were described as the origins of races
in the sermon,
not in the scriptures.
And this pastor went on to explain that
Noah's three sons,
Shem,
became the people that populated Asia,
that Japheth became the people who populated the Middle East
and eventually Europe,
and from Ham came the people who populated Africa.
And, you know,
the story in Genesis goes on to say that
Noah had too much to drink,
Ham looked at him while he was sleeping,
inebriated,
and he cursed Ham
and said that Ham would be the servant of the other two brothers.
Now, I only learned years later,
so this was a sermon I heard from a pastor in a church in Ontario.
And I only learned years later that these scriptures
and this line of thinking was used by enslavers to justify slavery.
They were saying that enslaving black people
was the fulfillment of this scripture.
But I didn't know that at the time,
but this pastor had preached this sermon about where race comes from,
and he had referenced this scripture.
And the other place that I've heard it referenced
was the story of the Tower of Babel.
And just for those of you who want to know the commonwealth
and correct pronunciation of Babel,
it's Babel.
So if you come to Canada,
don't say Babel.
They'll think you're going ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
Say Babel,
and people will know what you're talking about.
So we're all familiar with this story,
but the upshot is that the people in that region were building a tower,
and this was made possible by the fact that they all spoke the same language.
And so this project, this building project,
came to an end when God confused their languages,
and they weren't able to work together anymore.
And as a result,
people then were not able to talk to each other,
and it says they spread out over the earth.
And I've heard in other sermons as well
that this is also one of the origin stories of race from the Scriptures.
Now, just to say,
this is flawed.
Both of these approaches are flawed.
And for lots of reasons.
You just can't read into the Scriptures
and the story of Noah and his sons
that the three sons were the founders of different races.
And you can't also say that you can reduce races
to three different characters or people in the Noah account.
And you can't also,
and it's very problematic to say that one of these people,
and therefore all their descendants, are cursed.
It establishes a hierarchy of human value
that other parts of the Scripture simply reject.
It's also not true to say that the diversity in languages
comes from an act of judgment by God.
But when Pentecost came,
one of the first things the Holy Spirit did
was give people the ability to speak in other languages
that they don't know.
And you'd think if diversity of language was a problem,
the Holy Spirit would have reversed it.
And he didn't.
So that doesn't work.
So what are the true origins?
The true origins of race in the Scriptures
are actually with Adam and Eve.
And whether you believe that there was a literal, exact Adam and Eve
to people who are literally called Adam and Eve,
or not,
what Genesis does do is identify
that the very first people God created
don't have a race.
Nothing's mentioned about that.
It just simply tells us that
all of humankind started with Adam and Eve
and extended from Adam and Eve.
And therefore, like Adam and Eve,
everybody is made in the image of God.
They resemble God,
and they're of God.
And they share in God's mandate
as creator,
and the assignment God gave them
to steward the creation.
Nobody's left out.
People are called to join in the work of creation
as co-creators with God.
But it also means that all those who are image bearers
are of infinite worth and dignity.
But there's a further point,
a further theological point,
to this creation story.
The image of God is a revelation of God,
of who or what God is like.
That humanity is racially diverse
is a part of this revelation of God.
And to not have one or another racial group
is for the revelation of God to be incomplete.
To suppress, eliminate, or diminish
any one racial group
is to resist God's revelation of himself.
We need each other.
We need each other to know about God.
And we should marvel,
and we should wonder at each other,
and at our differences,
and pay close attention to what we learn
from other image bearers around us,
what we learn from them about God.
As we go on through the rest of the Old Testament,
I'm not going to do that here,
but if you read the story of Israel,
it's a story of Israel being formed
by bringing people
who are of different ethnicities together.
Israel is not ethnically or racially homogenous.
Now, contemporary fields of study,
genetics in particular,
have shown that race is a construct,
and people are genetically the same,
regardless of skin color.
Race is not a matter of three or four different groups.
It's far more complex than that.
And skin color actually exists
on a spectrum of light to dark,
and not in color groupings.
And yet, in real life,
historically and even now,
there are lots of people
who still make race-based judgments
about people who are racially different from them.
And this shows up even in scriptures.
Scriptures talk about this.
In Jesus' day,
the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other
with violence,
and Jews looked down on Gentiles.
And so while the scriptures speak
of all people being made in the image of God,
by the time Jesus arrived on the scene,
Israel and Jewish ethnic identity
was well-formed as distinct
and separate from other ethnic identities
and contained, in that contrast,
a sense of the other ethnic identities
being not as good.
So how did that happen?
How did we go from
everyone's made in the image of God
to a well-formed, distinct ethnic identity?
So, to cover a lot of ground,
to sum up,
when Israel became a kingdom
with a royal family
as one kingdom
among all the other kingdoms of the world,
it gelled the 12 tribes
into a bigger identity
than just being a member
of one of the 12 tribes.
And then, later,
when they went into exile,
Israelites were dispersed
among other parts
of the ancient Near East,
and this meant that Jewish identity
was a minority identity
among a bigger majority Gentile culture,
and retaining the practices
and life of Judaism,
retaining a pure faith in God,
and even retaining your home language
was very difficult.
And so one of the effects
of that experience,
especially as people came back into Israel,
was to double down
on what it means to be Jewish,
to double down
on the practice of Judaism
out of fear
that the exile would happen again.
And this got an extra boost
when Alexander the Great
swept through
and started Hellenizing
that part of the world.
So all these experiences,
through these experiences,
the practice of faithful Judaism
came to be defined
by an elaborate set of laws
and customs
that emphasized
being separate
from what was unclean.
And so,
what did this mean
for Jewish attitudes
towards Gentiles?
Well,
we see from Scripture,
because it talks about it,
but even other contemporary writers
like Josephus and Philo,
that Gentiles were viewed as pagan.
They participated in religious
and moral or immoral practices
that made them spiritually defined,
and to come into contact
with a Gentile
had a contaminating effect.
So you had to stay away from them.
And the expectation,
long term,
was that God would come
and reward
faithful
practicers of Judaism
and bring down judgment
on Gentiles
who were doing evil.
So this understanding
was deeply,
deeply ingrained
in a lot of,
in part of the Jewish identity
at the time.
So,
why is it important
to talk about this?
Because,
to understand all of this
helps us understand
a couple things
that were happening
in the book of Acts
in the early church.
So most of us
read the book of Acts
because we want to read
about healings
and miracles
or see how
trace Paul
and his journey
around the region
to plant churches,
but we don't often see
that the Holy Spirit
was involved
in this issue
of racial healing.
So the early church,
the very first followers
of Jesus
after his resurrection
were largely Jewish
and at that,
largely Hebrew Jews
rather than,
say,
Hellenistic Jews.
So what's the difference?
Hebrew Jews
were the ones
who grew up
and born and raised
around Jerusalem
and the region
and Hellenistic Jews
were the ones
born and raised
outside in the broader world.
They were very Greek
and they spoke Greek
and their customs
and their mode of living
was very Greek.
So I'm going to walk us
through a couple episodes
in Acts
where these racial tensions
emerge
and look at what happened.
So,
first friction point,
Acts 6.
In this chapter,
we read that
the community
of early believers
believers,
and in particular,
the Hellenistic Jews,
complained
that their widows
were being neglected
in the daily food distribution.
This was a big deal.
Those who were being neglected
were vulnerable
and they depended
on this food
for their survival.
You have to ask
why this happened.
The apostles
who were in charge
of the whole thing
were Hebrew Jews,
but they lived closely
with Jesus
for three years.
They knew
that Jesus' ethic
was love others
as yourself.
And yet,
they somehow
didn't notice
that a whole part
of their community
was being neglected
in the distribution
of food.
This was an inequity.
And it was causing
tension.
So it doesn't explain
what the mechanical
breakdown was,
but that chapter
in Acts
is very clear
that this issue
fell along identity lines.
It was Hellenistic Jews
who were complaining.
And their reaction
and their sensitivity
is very clear.
The word that we used
in our translation
is complained,
but other translations
use murmuring.
And this kind of gets
more clearly
at the tension
that existed.
Murmuring,
as some scholars
have said,
suggests that
this was a complaint
that came out
of long-held grievances
from the tensions
that existed
between them.
Hebrew Jews
looked down
on Hellenistic Jews
as not being
Jewish enough.
And Hellenistic Jews
would have looked down
on Hebrew Jews
for not being polished
and cosmopolitan enough.
So resentment
always brewed
under the surface.
And it would have been
easy for the Hellenistic Jews
to feel that this was
not just a mistake
or accidental,
but maybe
a little bit more.
So it's very striking
to me
from this passage
that a group of people
can know Jesus
very intimately,
have incredible
spiritual experiences
as followers
of Jesus,
even watch the Lord
work miracles
through them,
and still not notice
that a group
of believers
with a different
identity from them
is being overlooked
in something like
food distribution.
So we don't see,
it doesn't mention
in this passage
that the Holy Spirit
intervened to change things,
but the apostles
took some steps.
They acted
to preserve
the unity
of the body
by creating
a team of leaders
that they drew
from the community
that had the grievance.
And they gave
authority and responsibility
away to them.
They opened up
new leadership roles
to members
of the Hellenistic
Jewish group,
giving them voice
and real power
over this critical asset,
food.
And so most people
see the phrase
the apostles used,
serving the word
versus serving tables,
and they think
that it's the apostles
belittling the work.
And if you know
Anglicanism at all,
this is one of these places
where your bishop
will tell you,
well, this is where
we get deacons from.
The priests
do the work
of the apostles,
they minister
to the word,
and the deacons
served at tables.
So I was told
when I was a deacon.
Yep.
So I said,
but what's interesting
is that these roles
were clearly
not just a practical
leadership role
created to solve
a short-term
logistical problem.
This was a new cohort
of leaders
in the community.
And most of the
seven leaders
that were commissioned,
all of them
Hellenistic Jews,
you read in later
parts of Acts
that they all went out
moving in the
power of the spirit,
doing what the
apostles did,
evangelizing,
praying for people,
prophesying,
healing people.
They're a fully
authorized group
of leaders.
And the apostles
created this group
and gave power
away to them.
And what the Lord
did with this
is noteworthy.
If it wasn't
for this crisis
and the way
the apostles
handled it,
no new leadership
rules would have
been created.
And without
those new
leadership roles
and Hellenistic
Jews in those
roles,
there would have
been no evangelism
to Gentiles
later in Acts 11.
This was an
unintended consequence,
but a good one,
and one that the
Lord was clearly in.
Next episode,
this is a good one.
Peter and Cornelius,
Acts 10.
So in this one,
it's very instructive
for us.
Here you see the
Holy Spirit actively
at work to break
down racial barriers.
So a couple key
points in this story.
Cornelius is a
God-fearing Gentile,
and he's told by an
angel to go get
Peter and bring
Peter to his house.
So messengers from
Cornelius are on
their way.
Meanwhile,
Peter's praying,
and he has a vision
where God tells
Peter to not call
anything unclean
that God has made
clean.
And as the vision
ends, the
messengers,
timing is amazing,
the messengers show
up and say,
we're looking for
Peter and here's
why we've come.
And then the
Spirit says to
Peter,
verses 19 and 20,
go with them
without hesitation.
So on that basis,
Peter goes with
the messengers
to Cornelius'
house.
He shares the
gospel.
And while he's
doing so,
the Holy Spirit
falls spontaneously
on Cornelius and
all the Gentiles
gathered there,
just as the
Hebrew Jews had
experienced at
Pentecost.
So a couple
observations.
First of all,
Peter's entirely
blown away by
this whole experience.
And when he goes
in the next
chapter to tell
the Jewish
leadership,
the Hebrew
Jewish leadership
back in Jerusalem
what happened,
they're also
amazed.
It was so far
off their grid,
so outside of
their frame of
understanding things.
Second, it's
important to
understand something
about what the
functioning of the
Holy Spirit is in
this.
For the early
church, the
signal mark of
becoming a
Christian was not
water baptism,
but receiving the
Holy Spirit.
And let me be
clear, I'm not
talking about
speaking in
tongues, I'm
not saying that
you have to
speak in
tongues in
order to be a
genuine Christian,
not that at
all.
Leslie Newbigin,
who was a
bishop in the
Church of India,
and he wrote in
one of his books
that the parallel
experience in early
church to
circumcision was
not water baptism,
but receiving the
gift of the Holy
Spirit.
We are baptized by
Christ into,
baptized by the
Spirit into Christ,
we're made members
of his body by
the Spirit.
And so for the
Spirit to pour out
like he did on
the Gentiles sent a
shockwave through the
Hebrew Jewish
Christians.
They didn't think it
was possible for
Gentiles to be
saved.
And they certainly
didn't expect them to
become followers of
Jesus on equal
footing with
themselves.
It was just not
possible for them
that people who
were so unclean
could become like
them.
And it was this
falling of the
Spirit on the
Gentiles that
convinced Peter and
the Hebrew Jews
with him that the
Gentiles were in
fact saved.
Third, Peter had
the witness of
Scripture that
spoke to him of
the Messiah being a
light to the
Gentiles.
And he heard Jesus
tell him and the
others that they
would be his
witnesses to Judea,
Samaria, and to
the ends of the
earth.
He was there at
Pentecost.
He and his friends
spoke in other
languages about the
Lord.
And yet, his
understanding of
what it means to
be a Hebrew Jew
ran so deep in
him that he still
held the conviction
that Gentiles
couldn't be
included.
It took a vision,
not just one time,
but a vision that
God gave three times
in a row for good
measure, to shake
Peter past his, I'm
going to use this
word, unconscious
bias towards Gentiles.
Now, if you want to
talk, you want to
question what do I
mean by that?
Am I alluding to
this or that?
Am I getting into a
dogfight over critical
race theory or
something?
Come talk to me
after.
I can guarantee you
wherever you fall on
these issues, my
answer is not going
to make you happy.
If you love it or
you don't love it,
you're not going to
be happy with what I
have to say.
So, just come talk
to me, but just be
warned.
So, one of the
things that I find so
interesting is that to
have more of the
Holy Spirit is for
the Holy Spirit to
work to break down
some of our deepest
beliefs and opinions
about people who are
racially different from
us.
When Paul says in
Ephesians 2 that the
dividing wall of
hostility between Jews
and Gentiles is broken
down, and then in
Galatians and Colossians
that in Christ there's
neither Jew nor Greek,
he's not talking about
getting rid of racial
identity or differences
or colorblindness.
He's talking about a
unity in Christ between
people who retain all
their created differences
as image bearers of
God.
So, we come to
Galatians 2, Peter and
Paul.
Peter and Paul.
So, even though when
Paul recounted this, or
when Peter, sorry,
recounted his experience
with Cornelius to the
leaders in Jerusalem, it
didn't quite, it was
initially embraced, but
it clearly didn't stick.
Because later we read, in
Galatians 2, we read
about a confrontation
between Peter and Paul.
It's not recorded in the
book of Acts.
Most scholars think that
it happened during the
timeline of Acts and
before Acts 15.
Just to reference one
person, N.T. Wright, go
argue with N.T. Wright, he
thinks that it happened
before Acts 15.
So, if N.T. Wright says
it, it's probably true.
So, this was a
confrontation that
happened because Paul and
Peter are hanging out in
Galatia.
They're with Gentile
believers.
And then it says that
some people from the
group of James came from
Jerusalem, and when they
show up, Peter, out of
fear of what they'll think
of him, recuses himself
and stops hanging out
with them.
He stops eating with
them and associating with
them.
And even, as Paul says,
even Barnabas.
Now, this is quite a big
deal.
James was the leader of
the Jerusalem church, but
he was Jesus' half-brother.
He sort of looked like
Jesus.
He carried a lot of
authority.
He was said to be a
person of deep prayer, who
knew the scriptures very
deeply.
So, if people said, we've
come on behalf of James, and
we think that you have to be
circumcised and follow the
law, it was a big deal.
So, this whole thing makes
Paul mad.
And he calls out Peter.
And now, Paul wrote
Galatians.
He didn't transcribe this.
He just wrote his side of
things.
And he says, I called out
Peter.
I don't know what Peter said
back to him.
We don't even know how the
whole thing ended.
But Paul just kind of says, I
called out Peter, and he was
wrong, and so it is.
And he goes on to all his
arguments in the rest of
Galatians.
Now, most of us have probably
read the book of Galatians as
an argument about faith versus
works of the law.
And that's right.
That is true.
But the implication here is
for the salvation of Gentiles
and their inclusion in the
family of God.
And Paul doesn't make a
distinction.
Unlike us, he doesn't
separate a theological
argument from an
ecclesiastic or sociological
reality.
For him, they're all joined
up.
So, Paul is clear that
salvation is by faith and
not by works.
But this should lead to a
new family, a new people of
God, and the Gentiles are
part of this.
And so, this is why he
opposed Peter and those who
came from James.
And so, this is something that
Paul brings up in almost all
his letters.
It's something that dogged his
ministry and the rest of his
life.
He fights against this for the
rest of his ministry.
He fights for the Gentiles for
the rest of his ministry.
So, there are a couple things
that we should understand about
this group that comes from
James.
Paul sometimes calls them the
circumcision group.
So, these are majority
culture Hebrew Jews.
And for them, the thinking is
something like, well, great
that the Gentiles are saved,
but they have to become
Jewish to inherit the
promises of salvation.
It was barely conceivable,
as mentioned, that the
Gentiles could become the
people of God simply by faith.
And even if they did receive
the Holy Spirit, they still
needed to assimilate.
And they needed to be
circumcised and keep the law.
And if not, then they need
to segregate.
So, Jewish identity for these
people from James is
normative, right, and even
holy.
And the instinct to assimilate
or segregate is something
that simply accompanies
beliefs of racial superiority.
So, this thinking stuck with
the church down through the
ages.
In the early church, it was
how can you be a Christian
and not a Jew?
Couldn't understand how you
could do that.
And then later, when
Christianity became the
official religion of the
empire, it was how can you
be a Christian and not a
Roman?
Again, the possibility that
you could be a Christian
and not a Roman citizen
was hard to square.
And then later, when
missionaries went around
the world, it was how could
you be a Christian and not
a European?
And this thinking continues
on.
How can you be a Christian
and not also Canadian,
American, white?
I mean, fill in the blank.
We all have our thing that
we go to.
I don't recognize, I don't
see how the thing that
you've got in your identity
squares with my sense of
God.
We should be on guard
against that.
The Jerusalem Council.
This is Acts 15.
We read about that this
morning.
This is the crescendo.
This is the first church
council.
It's convened around this
exact issue of racial
identity.
There's no creedal formula
that emerges, but more
like a communique that
clarifies the church's
unified position on Gentile
believers.
So it's a showdown.
Paul and Barnabas were
fighting with a group from
James and they said, you
know what?
We're not getting anywhere.
Let's pop this up a level.
We're going to Jerusalem.
Let's have it out right at
the top and settle this.
And everybody said, fine.
So everybody gathered in
Jerusalem.
Long, heated debate we read
in our passage.
And then at some point,
Peter comes back in and he
tells his story again about
Cornelius, the one that I
just talked about.
And then Paul and Barnabas
start telling their stories
of how the Gentiles came to
faith and how they saw this
in their ministry.
But in the end, it was
James, the main leader,
who connects Peter and
Paul's experiences with the
scriptures.
He could have picked from
lots of places.
But the one he picked from
specifically was this idea
that the son of David, the
Messiah, would rebuild the
tent of David so that the
Gentiles who are called by the
name of the Lord could seek
the Lord.
And this settles it.
And they write up a
communique.
It was probably a
compromised document, but it
was a big win for Paul.
It was a big win for letting
Gentiles be followers of
Jesus without having to
change their racial identity,
without having to become
Jewish.
So a couple things strike me
about this too.
A spirit-filled, miracle-
and healing, gifted community
can persistently struggle with
this issue.
Peter had a powerful
experience as he did in Acts
10, and still later on when
he was in Galatia, under the
right or maybe wrong
circumstances, could slip back
into his old, deep thinking
when people from Jerusalem
showed up.
The Spirit used the strong
disagreement and the
confrontation between Peter
and Paul, two Spirit-filled
people, to make progress on
this issue.
And the Holy Spirit can also
use councils and meetings
linking experiences to
Scripture.
So I want to close with some
thoughts.
I'm hoping that I've painted
a picture here.
You can have the Holy Spirit
and move in the gifts of the
Spirit, but still have deep
and stubborn thinking
patterns.
I'm going to tell you a story.
I was trying to decide, do I
tell you this story?
It's about me.
When I was a kid, so I grew up
in Ontario.
When I was a kid, there was a
part of the town south of us
called Brampton.
And Brampton was nicknamed by
people around me.
It was called a reference, it was
called Bramaladesh because it was
thought that there were people from
South Asia who lived there.
And I grew up hearing this term
used.
And so years later, years later, I'm
here in D.C.
And a friend of mine who's not from
Canada says, oh, I was talking to a
friend and he said that he's going to
go to Brampton.
And out of my mouth pops, oh,
Bramaladesh.
And I froze.
And I thought to myself, where did that
come from?
I mean, I had been, I was so shocked.
This stuff, this word popped out of the
deep parts of my brain and popped out
just like that.
And I wish, I wish, I couldn't believe
I said it.
I was so embarrassed.
I immediately apologized to him.
He had no idea.
He was so confused.
He sort of stood there and watched me
go through this whole thing.
I'm agonizing.
I'm, you know, beating myself up and
very embarrassed.
And I thought, do I explain to him
what this is, why this is such an
awful term?
And do I, and do it so that he
understands what I'm going through?
I didn't.
I just simply said, sorry, that's not a
right term for it.
It's Brampton.
And that's, you know, and I, but I
basically took it away as, you know
what, you just, you just can't ever
underestimate how deep stuff like this
can be.
And if you'd asked me, if you'd started
earlier and said, Rob, what do you
think of calling Brampton Bramladesh?
I would have said, that's terrible.
What a terrible, you know, that's so
wrong.
You can't, you just don't, don't do
that.
And there it was, without even
thinking, it just popped out.
I think what's also really striking
to me about all of this is that in
the, when the Holy Spirit came at
Pentecost, he didn't just come to do
miracles and healings among new
believers, but he worked among them to
break down racial prejudice.
This was part of the package.
He could use crises like food
distribution for Hellenistic Jews.
He could work through supernatural
revelations, visions, and speaking
quietly to Peter.
He could work through hard
conversations and even church
conventions.
The Holy Spirit is definitely active on
this issue in the book of Acts.
And it's a work of the Spirit that we
still need.
I've been doing some reading on the
history of revival in the U.S.
It's fascinating.
When the Spirit of God pours out and is
poured out in moments of revival, people
were coming to Christ.
And during camp meetings and tent meetings,
white and black people were converted
under the same roof and they would
start sitting beside each other,
preaching to each other, prophesying
over each other, praying for each other,
standing up and sharing testimony.
But at some point in every single one of
these revivals, whether it's one of the
Great Awakenings, whether it's the Azusa
Street Revival, white clergy decided this
integration stuff was no longer okay.
And even though the Spirit of God was
falling on everyone without distinction,
they would reinstate the exclusionary
and separate worship spaces.
And when people were pushed out,
when black people were pushed out of
these revival meetings, revival would
fizzle.
We can grieve the Holy Spirit with
immoral choices like drunkenness, and we
can grieve the Holy Spirit with refusals to
confront racism in ourselves or our churches
or elsewhere.
I've also had a number of conversations,
probably like others, with black pastors of
different denominations, in part asking
about their experiences with the Holy Spirit
and charismatic Christianity.
And they've said to me something very
interesting.
They've said to me about white charismatic
leaders.
If they have the Holy Spirit the way they
say they do and seem to, because miracles
operate through them, why are they so tone-deaf
to issues of racism?
Why are cries for revival always about
personal salvation and miracles and
healings and not a cry for the end of
racism?
I think to have more of the Holy Spirit is
to partner with God's heart to heal us, to
heal all our wounds, including the wounds
of racism.
And the way I would say that we should seek
the Lord for inner healing and physical
healing and to have more of the Holy Spirit,
to see more of the gifts and power of the
Spirit operate, we should seek the Holy Spirit
for more of racial healing.
In the same way that God's self-revelation
is incomplete without all the racial
differences that he created, God's redemption
and making of all things new is incomplete
when the wounds of racism are not healed.
Let me close us in prayer.
Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are
willing to go with us to the hard places,
into the hard places of pain in our lives,
to the places where it feels like our faith
is stretched thin.
You're willing to go with us into the places
of our deepest need.
And I pray, Lord, that you help us also be aware
of the places of need in the lives of others around us,
even when those places of need are not familiar to us,
when they don't fit into our grid.
Sensitize our hearts and help us follow your prompting,
the promptings of the Holy Spirit,
to follow you into the fullness of healing,
the full package of healing you have for us.
Amen.