Matt Chandler: Good morning. It's good to see you. My job here today is to very quickly set somethings up and then introduce you to Beau Hughes. I personally believe among men and womenthere are few men as godly and as gracious as Beau, so I'm eager to introduce him to you, if youdon't remember him from when he was on staff here for a decade. I know we do multisite andthings like that, so you might have missed it.In 2012 or 2013, somewhere in there, we began to introduce a rhythm into the life of The VillageChurch. Maybe you picked up on that rhythm, maybe you didn't, but what we tend to do at TheVillage is we will take a book of the Bible and preach through that book, and then we'll take a topicand address that topic. That's part of the annual calendar.Then we've inserted in a celebration of Advent, and then what we do in the month of January ispush the church toward prayerfulness and a consideration of our role in culture by and large aseither a prophetic voice or the salt and light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of those topics we talkabout every year this month is the topic of racial reconciliation.Now a couple of things. I was probably a bit naïve six or seven years ago of just how hot-temperedpeople are over this issue regardless of ethnicity or race. I was probably naïve in understandingwhat it would take to help us have this conversation in a way that was God-honoring. Thecommitment has been made. As long as I'm here and you're here, this is a topic we're going to leaninto and have a conversation about in all its awkwardness and tension.We're going to unapologetically say we're the people of God, and Christ has reconciled us to himselfand made a new people, and we're going to talk about that and celebrate that and lean into theawkwardness of it so the glory of God and his gospel might be seen. I don't think racialreconciliation is the gospel, but the gospel presses us toward it.

Prayer (Part 2) – Racial ReconciliationBeau Hughes – January 15, 2017

Here's what I want to ask. Fourteen years we've been together. When I say at the end of my sermon,which I do almost every week, that I love you, that's not just a throwaway idea for me. Fourteenyears of my life I've spent in this place. I know so many. We have wept together. We have been atfunerals together. We've been at weddings together. We've partied together, and we've had ourhearts broken together.You prayed for me, pled for my life when I had cancer. I've tried to have reciprocity toward you inyour moment of darkness. I'm at the hospital. I am in this with you. You are on my mind more thanyou will ever know. You haunt me, and God's call on my life to serve, love, and shepherd you wellhaunts me. So here's what I want to plead with you. I want to ask you to do this for me.What I've learned is that when you tackle this subject people will hear things that have not beensaid. That happens every time you preach, but specifically around this topic and maybe three orfour other topics, you can say one thing and people will filter out what you have said and replace itwith something that has not been said.Probably where I could highlight this most was four or five years ago I was teaching on marriageand said in my sermon that a man's responsibility to his wife was to love and serve her like Christloved the church so that she would flourish in all of her natural, God-given giftedness. I believe that.Wholeheartedly I believe that.One of our members, who's a beautiful, godly, single woman, been single her whole life, wrote me avery out-of-character email. She just threw me on blast. Basically, what she accused me of saying isthat if a woman didn't have a husband she could never flourish in her gifting. She had a specific hurtin her heart, a specific story, a specific background, and it filtered out what I said and changed it.So we had a great conversation about, "No, no, no. Oh, sister, you are already flourishing. Let's justrecount the fruit of your life. God has done a profound thing in you. You don't need a man to drawthose things out of you. That wasn't my intent. My intent is to say if you are a husband, God has puton you, as a husband, to sacrifice and serve in such a way that your wife flourishes. That's what Iwas trying to say."What's going to happen… Not might. What is probably going to happen over the course of the next30 to 50 minutes is you're going to be tempted to not actively listen but instead get offended in

ways that aren't helpful. So here's what I want you to do. Give us the benefit of the doubt. We have14 years of cred with so many of you, so give us the benefit of the doubt.As the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed (I've heard the message three times), if you find someanger or some "What's he saying?" here's what I want to ask you to do. We love you. We're nottrying to purposely offend anyone. If you have a question, I want you to just get a pen and a piece ofpaper out and go, "Is he saying [whatever]?" and then we want to have a conversation with youabout that.If some of you never come back to The Village Church because of what we're saying here today, I'lltake no pride in that. I'll take no joy in that. It'll break my heart, because you're who I want to havethis conversation with. The church in this climate has an opportunity to be a beautiful picture ofwhat God has done for the world in Jesus Christ, but we cannot speak prophetically to the cultureuntil God has spoken prophetically to us.That's the thing that drives me crazy about me. As a Christian, it's easy to speak prophetically to theworld. I just don't want anybody to speak prophetically to me. You can "amen" or "ouch" that, butit's true about most of us. I've invited Beau Hughes, who is a dear friend of mine. I met Beau whenhe was a newly converted punk college kid. He played basketball in college, walked with a swagger,but Christ had saved him. That's where we met.I actually got to be a part of the group of guys who baptized Beau in the Gulf of Mexico, because wedidn't know better. We didn't know what was in that water. Man, I've already said it. I love this man.I have more respect for this man than most other men. That's not a slight against most other men.It's what I've seen this man do with his life. He was brought on church at The Village to be a collegeand singles minister. He got married.On his honeymoon we acquired the Denton Campus, and when he got back we had a new jobdescription for him. He got back from his honeymoon, and it was like, "Hey, that singles thing?That's going great, but you're now what we're going to call a 'campus pastor.' We're going to screwup a lot. You're going to have to clean up all of our messes. This is a total experiment. Be gracious."He led faithfully in that context for a long time.A year and a half ago, as many of you know, the Denton Campus rolled off and became anautonomous church, and they have flourished as a community of saints. I've oftentimes said that if

my kids will stay in this area, I would be nothing but ecstatic for my children to be under theleadership of this man, under the guidance of this man. He is tremendous. He has thought deeplyabout these issues. He's able to frame them in ways I think are most helpful.So after six or seven years of hearing from me, I thought maybe he could frame it in a way we couldcome at it from a different angle and get maybe a little bit more clarity. Guard your hearts, brothersand sisters. Please, if you find something bubbling up in you, stop and write it out. We want to havethis conversation. We can't have the conversation if you freak out and get into fifth gear before weeven have the conversation, maybe get really upset about something that didn't get said. Will youwelcome Beau Hughes as he comes up, now that everybody is anxious about our time together?Beau Hughes: Good morning, friends. It is an overwhelming joy and privilege to be here againamong you. I bring greetings from the saints, your brothers and sisters up in Denton. As Mattmentioned, by God's grace we rolled off as a campus a year and a half ago, and we're, in his mercy,flourishing in so many ways. We attribute much of that to your prayers, your guidance, yourencouragement, not just when we were a campus but even throughout that process of transitionand after the fact.It's a joy to be here and to greet you on behalf of your brothers and sisters there. At the same time,for me, personally, this church has been so meaningful for me. These elders and leaders here at thischurch, at all of the different campuses… I've walked with these men. I've cried with these men. I'velaughed until I was doubled over with them. There have been so many significant moments in mylife that have been shaped by them and, in particular, Matt.The respect is obviously mutual. There's not a day in my life as a Christian that I've known… Maybesix days. The first week I was a Christian I met him. His influence on my life as a Christian, as just aman, as a husband, as a father, is really inseparable from who I understand myself to be. I just thankGod for the opportunity and the privilege of being here with you. Since we were here last… Youprayed for us, if you were here a year and a half ago. My family was up here on the stage.Since then my family has grown. I just wanted to show you that and celebrate that with you. Aboutthree weeks after we were here last, we got a phone call from our foster adoption agency that therewas a little boy in a hospital in Dallas who was needing to be placed in a home, so we brought himhome from the NICU, and then after a year and a half, on December 1, we adopted him into ourfamily forever. That's William Isaiah, who's the newest member of our family. So my wife Kimberly,

my son Haddon, my daughters CJ and Elliot, and then little Isaiah. They were here last night. I bringyou greetings from them as well.We're going to think and talk about race today, which was kind of your pastors, wasn't it? To bringme in to speak about and think about with you such a lighthearted topic. "Why don't you come backafter a year and a half, and let's talk about this?" Arguably, there really isn't a more sensitive topic inthe public square or even in evangelical churches to speak and think about today. What I'm going torequest of you… Matt already kind of did it. I'm going to do it as well.What I want to request of you right up front is that you would be patient with me and gracious withme as you listen and process these things I'm going to lay before you today. I am almost certain thatyou will not agree with everything I'm going to say. It's not even the point. But I am hopeful that,whether you agree with what I'm going to say or not, you will receive everything I have to say withthe spirit of love and grace that I have prayed and I intend to communicate to you this morning.I'd encourage you to remember your pastors asked me to come. I'm here by request to talk aboutthis topic. Just remember that as well. Filter that in somewhere and keep it and later on bring itback out. Having a conversation about race is an extremely delicate thing to do. I wonder, even,when was the last time you were offended or tempted to be offended by a conversation or astatement about race. Or maybe you weren't offended. Maybe you were just annoyed orexasperated or disheartened.My guess is that for most of us it was fairly recently. I know it was for me. This recent election cycle,among other cultural events, and of course the ongoing systemic realities in our nation that stem allthe way back before the founding of our nation reveal in headline after headline after headline justhow racialized our country and its evangelical Protestant churches continue to be. Of course, on topof that, we also live in a culture that no longer knows how to have a conversation.We've lost that ability in so many different ways, fueled by the divisive design of social media. Theplatform of social media, in so many ways, is built not neutrally but to be divisive. "My friends" and"Not my friends." "My interests" and "Not my interests." To divide us. Fueled by that, we have lostas a culture the ability to speak to one another, to disagree civilly, much less lovingly, about matterswe hold deep convictions about.

Even in the church, even in this church, in these rooms, Christians have lost the capacity togenuinely and humbly converse with one another about each other's difference in perspective andto truly listen, to actively listen. That's what sociologists and others would call it. Not just to listenso you could respond but to listen so you could listen and learn. That's called active listening. We'velost that. That has been eroded in our lifestyle.The church, devastatingly, right alongside our culture, has been de-skilled at talking and listeningabout most topics, especially topics as sensitive as race. Every time a new headline emerges, andthere will be a new one…if not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, this week; if not this week, nextweek… There will be a new headline, and there will be another headline after that headline. Everytime that happens, what we see in our culture and in our churches is just how de-skilled andemptied of empathy we are.Our impulse, our habit, our knee-jerk reaction is to be quick to speak, slow to listen, and sadlyenough, quick to be angry about things, even though we understand as God's people that the angerof man never produces the righteousness that pleases God. So all of this going on in our culture hascreated in our culture and in our churches what TIME magazine reported this week was theAmerican Dialect Society's 2016 word of the year: dumpster fire.Our culture is a dumpster fire about these things. If that's not a part of your vernacular, dumpster

fire is a noun, and it's an exceedingly disastrous or chaotic situation. That's how many feel about thesocial environment of our culture these days, especially on the heels of such a vicious election cyclewith such corrosive rhetoric around it. Of course, one of the social realities that's most visibly onfire in the dumpster of our culture and of our churches is race, which is probably whyDictionary.com's 2016 Word of the Year was xenophobia.The question for us today is how do we, as the people of God… How does a church, especiallychurches like this one that have hopes to grow in racial intelligence and racial empathy, if notdiversity itself, racially speaking, among its members… How does a church like this becomereskilled in thinking, listening, and speaking with one another about race in light of the gospel? Notjust reskilled in thinking and talking about it. What are actually practical ways that we, as thepeople of God, can walk in a manner worthy of the gospel in pursuit of racial harmony and justiceamid the dumpster fires of our culture?

That is obviously a massive topic and one we will not be able to answer in full today…or ever, Isuspect, on this side of new creation, but I simply want to help. I want to enter into thisconversation that this church has been having for years, and I want to maybe add to it and addsome layers and add some nuance and even add some categories.I want to just offer one practical, simple suggestion that our churches can begin and continue togrow in being skilled at walking in a manner worthy of the gospel in regard to racial justice andharmony by cultivating a habit and lifestyle where we consider one another more important thanourselves. We're going to talk about how to do that.If you have a Bible, turn to Philippians, chapter 1. I trust that those of you who are Christians areaware that Jesus, as he inaugurated and established his kingdom during his earthly ministry, taughtthings that were deeply subversive to the prevailing worldview of the day and of our day. It's easyto overlook that as a Christian, if you've heard Jesus and read about his life and heard his teaching.It's easy to overlook and forget how deeply subversive what he was teaching was against theculture of his day and how utterly countercultural it was to be citizens of his kingdom. What hiskingdom was about and what it meant to be citizens was so utterly countercultural. Jesus saidthings like this. He said once to his disciples, "You know, those who are considered rulers of theGentiles lord it over their subjects, and the great ones of the Gentiles exercise authority over theirsubjects in a domineering sort of way."Then he turns to his disciples and says, "But it shall not be among you. That's not the way it's goingto be in God's kingdom." He says, "Whoever would be great among you… Do you want to be great?We're all after greatness. Do you want to be great in the kingdom of God? The one who's greatamong you must be your servant. That's greatness. And whoever would be first among you must beslave of all."He says, "For even the Son of Man," speaking of himself, taking that title from Daniel, chapter 7, andapplying it to his own ministry himself. He says, "Even I came not to be served but to serve, not toget but to give my life as a ransom for many." That is utterly countercultural. Another time, Jesussaid to the same disciples, "Listen. No greater love has a man than this: that he would lay down hislife, that he would serve to the point of death for his friends. That is love."

Of course, even in his Upper Room Discourse, the last thing Jesus was teaching his disciples andmodeling for them was this kind of love, where he said, "In the same way that I have loved you, youlove one another. That's my command that I leave with you." So sacrificial love for one's neighborout of a love for God was the narrow path (and still is) that Jesus taught, and then also, through hisown living and dying, it's the narrow path that Jesus blazed through his modeling and called hisdisciples to follow him down."This is the path in God's kingdom. This is what I'm calling you to do. This is what it means to pickup the cross and follow me. It means that you live a life of godward, outward, unmerited, steadfast,suffering love toward your neighbors." From its earliest days, the Christian church has understoodthis. Early Christians understood this kind of love to be the preeminent way of life, the chief virtueof the church.The earliest Christians really did believe that everything God wanted of them could be summarizedand summed up in one command: to love your neighbor as yourself. The apostle Peter says it. Jamessays it. Paul says it over and over. Again and again in the New Testament Epistles, what you'll find isthese men taking these things from the mouth of Jesus and reminding the early church of them, thatthis is what God wants of us.One of the most beautiful examples of leaders in the early church doing this is what Paul writes tothe church in Philippi. Let's look at this letter. If you remember, God used Paul to establish thechurch in Philippi, but then very quickly Paul had to get out of Philippi because of opposition andpersecution.The church from its beginnings was a diverse church, where Lydia came to Christ, and then anotherslave girl believed in the Lord, and then the jailer. So from its beginnings it was a young, growing,vibrant, diverse church, but then Paul left, and after he left, those same forces of opposition, bothinside the church and from outside of it, posed a threat to this young, diverse congregation's unity.Paul, hearing of this while he was in prison himself for preaching the gospel, writes back to thechurch in Philippi and admonishes them toward this love and unity that is fundamental and centralto the life of God's people. In verse 27 of chapter 1 he says this. He has just gotten through saying,"To live is Christ; to die is gain. I don't know if I'm going to live or die. I'm in prison. But here's whyI'm writing you." Verse 27:

"Only let your manner of life [your conduct] be worthy of [in step with] the gospel of Christ, so

that whether I come and see you [because I get out of jail] or am absent [because I stay in jail], I

may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side

for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents."

These few verses are the heart of this entire letter. This is the primary hope and exhortation thatPaul has on his mind for this church when he writes. He wants them, in light of the pressure of thefragmenting culture around them that's tempting them away from their unity, to walk in a mannerworthy of the gospel by standing and striving together in unity and love around Christ amid thisculture that is constantly opposing them and tempting them away from such love and unity. That'swhat he wants, and he tells them."This is a clear sign to them [the opponents] of their destruction, but [also a clear sign] of your

salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you [as a grace gift] that for the sake

of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same

conflict [opposition] that you saw I had [when I was with you] and now hear that I still have."Which, of course, is why he's in prison.Then in verse 1 of chapter 2 he says, "So…" Here's the heart of it. "So if there is any

encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection

and sympathy…" In other words, he's basically saying, "Since those things are true, if you've beenunited to Christ by the Spirit and united to one another, encouragement, comfort, participation,affection, and sympathy are already yours in Christ. That's what it means to be a church."He says, "[Since those things are true] complete my joy…" How? "…by being of the same mind,

having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." He uses four different expressionsto repeat his burden for the church that he's calling them to in the midst of the fragmentation andopposition, and it's a burden of unity. He says it four different ways. Then he shares a particularhabit and lifestyle he wants them to cultivate that he knows and trusts will promote the love andunity he's calling them to. Look at verse 3."Do nothing from selfish ambition [a party spirit] or conceit, but in humility count [consider]others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests,

but also to the interests of others." The word only there is not in the Greek language, whichmakes it a little bit more radical in some regards.

Paul is saying, "This is on the ground, day to day, in our families, our Home Groups, our churches,our workplaces, and our classrooms what it means to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel interms of your love for each other. This is love," Paul says. "This is the mind I want you to haveamong yourselves." Look at verse 5."Have this mind [this attitude, this lifestyle] among yourselves, which is yours…" It arises out ofyour new life in Christ Jesus. Then he puts forth Christ as the example of this life. "…in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And

being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him [Jesus, as the world's true Lord] and bestowed on him

the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in

heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord…" Not Caesar or anybody else. "…to the glory of God the Father."

This is one of the earliest, most beautiful pieces of Christian doctrine that we have about Christ andhis identity. This is actually, many think, a hymn that Paul takes and utilizes in this letter. If you'renot a Christian, those five verses are the very heart of what we would want you to take from thisgathering today: who Jesus is. If you're not a Christian and you're here, I'm so thankful you're here. Idon't know if you came by yourself or a friend or a neighbor brought you, but I'm so glad you'rehere.Among everything else you'll hear today, this is what I would want you to hear the most: this is whoJesus is. Jesus is the world's true Lord. That's what we believe. That's the good news of Christianity:that Jesus, who is God, became a man without ceasing to be God and lived a perfect life and laiddown his life on the cross. The Son of God received the punishment of an enemy of God so that youand I, who are enemies of God, could become sons and daughters of God through faith in him.After he laid down his life, God raised it up again. Then Jesus ascended to the right hand of theFather where he sat down, and right now he rules and reigns as Lord of the eternal universe, and hewill one day come back and make that a visible reality for us. If you're not a Christian, that's themost significant thing you could ever know and that we want you to know from today.

Church, this hymn really is one of the most marvelous pieces of doctrine in all of the NewTestament, and yet what's interesting is that Paul didn't put it here in this letter so we could simplymarvel at the doctrine. He put it here in this letter, right in the midst of his exhortation towardunity, so he would put before them Christ as the supreme example of the lifestyle he's wanting tomotivate them toward.He lays down this part of this hymn. After admonishing them toward love, he holds Jesus up andsays, "Like this. He's the supreme example of it. Jesus is the one who showed us what this is like."Then Paul returns to admonishing them toward the very same lifestyle he was admonishing thembefore the hymn. Look at verse 12."Therefore…" "Here's why I put the hymn there. See that about Jesus. Know that about what he didand how he lived his life and laid it down." "Therefore [because you are in Christ], my beloved, as

you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence,

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to

will and to work for his good pleasure."

Isn't it amazing and interesting to read those verses in context? What's he talking about? Workingout your salvation in fear and trembling, God being at work. What's he saying there? Well,particularly he's saying (verse 14), "Do all things without grumbling or disputing…" That's whatit means to work out your salvation in fear and trembling: to love each other, to lay your lives down.Not in the exact same way as Christ did, because his was unique, but in a way following after thatpattern.He says do this (verse 15) "…that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without

blemish in the midst of [all the dumpster fires of this generation]…" That's what he says. Thiscrooked, twisted, and chaotic generation. "Live this way, a life of sacrificial love toward God andyour neighbor, so that you would shine as lights in this world, as you hold fast to the word of life,and do it so that in the day of Christ," Paul says, "when I get to Christ, I will know I didn't labor invain. I didn't go to jail in vain, that you held firm and you stood strong in loving each other andconsidering each other more important than you did yourselves." This is what Paul says.Think about this and apply it here. Amid the pressures and temptations for this young, diversechurch that they had to keep in step with and fall into the surrounding world and culture's spirit of

fragmentation, Paul says, "Yeah, don't keep in step with that spirit of division. Don't keep in stepwith that party spirit. Instead, keep in step with the Spirit of Jesus and follow after the pattern ofJesus' love, a love that does nothing from selfishness but in humility, rather, considers others andtheir interests more important than its own."He says, "In doing this, what you're going to do is make the Savior's love visible. You make the Wordflesh through your loving lives together among all of the dumpster fires of the kingdoms of thisworld. They can still see the loving-kindness of God." This is what it means to be a church. This isthe way of life, at its heart, that we're called to as the people of God.Generally, that's what it means, and particularly, considering our topic of race today, I want tosuggest that this is also the way of life a church must strive to walk in if it hopes to follow Jesus andkeep in step with his Spirit and not the world's spirit in matters of racial reconciliation and justice.I'm turning the corner here. We're going to now move to talk specifically about race. I want you tofeel it, and I want you to take Philippians 1-2, what we've just read about, what it means to be a partof a church, and bring it into this turn with you.I just want you to know, as we think about race, in my experience of shepherding a church that isincreasingly multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, for the last 10 years in a neighborhood that isunbelievably multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural, if we, as a people of God in a multiethnicchurch, are going to pursue a lifestyle of considering one another more important than ourselves, itis impossible to do that without considering our racial identity and heritage.I really don't think it's possible for us to grow… Even if it's not a diverse church, necessarily, but achurch that just wants to grow in their racial IQ or racial empathy, I do not think it's possible to dothat in a way where you're considering others who do not share your racial identity or heritagebetter than yourself… You can't do what Paul says in Philippians 1-2 without considering, as a partof that lifestyle, your own racial identity and heritage.For a church that's wanting to pursue and keep in step with the gospel around matters of race andjustice, that requires a member of such a church to consider their own racial heritage. So in the next30 minutes this morning, I just want to provide you a few categories that, again, I hope will helpdeepen and nuance this conversation about race and the gospel that you've been having as achurch.

I'm going to provide these categories in particular hopes that it would help those of us who arewhite, which is the large majority of us in these rooms, to consider our own racial identity andheritage, that it would help us consider our whiteness so we can continue to grow in consideringthose who do not share the same racial identity and heritage that we have, that we could considerthem more important than ourselves.What that means is that if you're not white, for the remainder of my sermon I'm not going to beprimarily directing my address toward you. I hope that knowing that doesn't make you feel anymore alienated or highlighted than you might already feel, being a racial minority in this room thismorning. I know many of you have been here as members for years and years, so I trust you know,as you've been here, this church's love for you.Others of you have walked in this morning to this gathering or these gatherings at the othercampuses for the first time, and I hope and trust that what you've already been made aware of isthis church's love for one another, that you were welcomed warmly as you came in, that you weregreeted. I hope that me taking a moment to speak directly to you, to address you, communicateswhat we trust the members who have been here who are non-white have understood for a numberof years now, that here, even though you're a racial minority in these rooms, you are not invisible.I know it can feel like you are invisible, and I know to come into this room week after week can beexhausting. I just want you to know that doesn't go unnoticed. We see that. We're aware of that,even where we don't communicate that well. The isolation you may have felt or may feel being aracial minority here, among that isolation, among that exhaustion, even, of what it's like everySunday when you come in to lay aside your preferences and to come…You're doing Philippians 1-2, and that can be exhausting, especially when you don't feel likeanybody notices that's what you're doing. If you're brown or black, by you being a member of thischurch you have done that, and you do that every single week, I'm assuming. That's a good thing. Soeven though I'm not going to be speaking directly to you, you are not invisible. Thank God thatyou're here. Yet I'm going to primarily be communicating from here on out directly with those of uswho are white.What I want to do for you white brothers and sisters who are white like me… I want to give us a fewsociological categories that I think will help us consider our racial heritage and identity so we canconsider others in our church body and in our culture, more generally, more important than we do

ourselves that don't share that racial identity and heritage. These categories are not sinful. They'resociological, and they apply to any majority culture person.We're living in a culture that's majority white in terms of race, so we're going to talk about them interms of that filter and that prism, but the categories are transparency, normativity, and structural

advantage. In terms of race in the United States, as the majority, we're going to talk about whitetransparency, white normativity, and white structural advantage.Maybe some of you, just a few moments ago when I laid down the thesis of this sermon, which is ifwe're really going to grow in living a life of considering others more important than ourselves in amultiethnic church or a church that's striving to keep in step with the gospel around race… I said ifwe're going to do that, it requires that we consider seriously our own racial heritage and identity.Maybe many of you were like, "Why?"That's the thesis of what I'm going to say from here on out. Why is it so important to consider ourracial heritage and identity? Well, it's important because our racial heritage has shaped ourperspective and preferences more than we could possibly imagine. Our race is obviously not theonly part of our heritage that has shaped and continues to shape our perspective and preferences.Our gender shapes it. Our ethnicity shapes it.Ethnicity is different than race. I want to highlight that. Race is a socially constructed idea based oncolor of skin that we use to justify our racial hierarchy. Ethnicity has more to do with sharedlanguage and culture. They're different, which is why there's not a monolithic group of white peopleor a monolithic group of black people or a monolithic group of brown people. That's why you can'ttalk about it that easily.It's far more nuanced, because underneath white or black or brown is male or female or whateverethnicity, or you even get into class or geography or generation, whether you're a Millennial or aBaby Boomer. All of that shapes our perspectives and our preferences, and yet in deep,transformative, inevitable ways, our racial heritage and racial identity is a foundationally shapinginfluence in our worldview. Our racial heritage, for all of us, has colored (pun very much intended)everything about the way we view and live our lives.This can be, for white people in a majority white context, a difficult reality for us to wrap our mindsand hearts around, because the overwhelming majority of us who are white (not all of us, but

maybe the overwhelming majority of us) who grew up in the United States… We're in the UnitedStates, which has been and is (at least for a little bit longer) majority white, and then beyond that, ifwe're white in this room, most of us grew up in families and neighborhoods and schools and othersocial settings that were also majority, if not exclusively, white.By the way, I just want to say this right up front. If that's you, you don't need to feel guilty aboutthat. That's part of what I came to proclaim as good news to you. You don't need to feel guilty aboutbeing white. For you to feel guilty or be made to feel guilty about being born white into a whitefamily in a white mainstream culture is every bit as much an affront against God and sin against thecreator God than if you were feeling superior to being born white.Racial inferiority, just like racial superiority… They're both sinful. They're both dishonoring to thecreator God, and white guilt will never motivate you and me to live loving lives like Philippians 1-2talks about. It can't do it. That's why we sing about shame and guilt being gone, because whatmotivates us is the love of Christ. That's what compels us, not guilt, not shame about our skin coloror anything else.I just want you to know, if you're white, you must reject any misplaced guilt about your heritage ofwhiteness, but you have to recognize it, and you have to recognize how shaping it is for you andhow it has shaped your perspectives and your preferences in ways that maybe you're not evenaware of. Again, someone who is born white and grows up into a white mainstream culture like theUS and then has subcultures you're a part of your whole life that are majority, if not exclusivelywhite…If that's your story, one of the things that almost guarantees for you is that you will have never beencompelled or provoked or outright forced to think seriously about your racial heritage or identity,at least compared to our brothers and sisters who have a different color skin. If that's your story asa white person, I'm just guessing you've not been compelled to think about your whiteness like ourblack brothers and sisters have been compelled to think about their blackness or our brownbrothers and sisters have been compelled to think about their brownness.For the overwhelming majority of white people, our whiteness is simply not a part of our identitythat we feel deeply connected to. It's not on the front burner. It's not salient to us. It's not relevantto us…unless, of course, we get bussed to a certain school where we're the minority or we get lost inthe wrong neighborhood or we go on a mission trip. Then it becomes really relevant and really

noticeable, and we feel it in a way that we typically don't feel it in the mainstream culture orsubculture that day by day we're a part of.If you live in America and have grown up in this mainstream culture and subcultures, then, as awhite person, you can live your entire life and never really have to think about being white. Youdon't need to feel necessarily guilty about that, but you do need to recognize that's a uniqueadvantage you have as a white person and an advantage that sociologists actually have a name for.That's called white transparency.Korie Edwards, who's a sociologist at the Ohio State University, wrote a wonderful book our eldersare reading right now called The Elusive Dream about the power of race in multiracial churches, andshe uses this definition of white transparency. She says, "Finally, white transparency is 'thetendency of whites not to think…about norms, behaviors, experiences, or perspectives that arewhite-specific.' [In other words, white transparency] is a lack of racial consciousness."Again, only the members of a majority racial group, which in the United States is white… In India it'sa different group, in Japan it's a different group, but here it's white. Only the members of a majorityracial group of any given culture have the advantage of walking in such transparency where you'renot really conscious of or uniquely or significantly identifying with the color of your skin.In fact, I remember I served at a multiethnic church for a number of years outside of Portland,Oregon, and Deborah Greenidge, who was the music minister of that church, who's an African-American woman, would ask in her gentle, loving manner, "Do you know what it feels like to bewhite? Do you know what it means to be white?" Like if somebody asked you, "What does it meanto be white in this country?" most of us wouldn't have a cogent answer, simply because we've notthought in those terms.I even wonder, if you're white in this room this morning, when was the last time you noticed youwere white? Or maybe more generally, when was the last time you thought about your skin and itscolor at all? Our church staff, all of us, recently went to a multiethnic church conference in Kellerjust right down the road, and one of the speakers at the conference was a sociologist named Dr.Michael Emerson. He, along with another sociologist, coauthored a watershed book about racialdivision in evangelical churches called Divided by Faith.

In his talk at the conference, Dr. Emerson mentioned an assignment he used to give to hisundergraduate students. He was a professor at Rice University. In one of his classes, in order to helpthe predominately white classes have their transparency around their race revealed, he wouldassign them over a weekend, I think it was…He said, "Over the next few days, every time you're speaking about someone who is white in yourlife, in your conversations, I want you to use the adjective white. You know, your white roommate,your white teacher, your white attendant at the gas station, your white mama, whoever. If you'retalking about someone who's white, use that adjective."He said, honestly, the majority of the white students couldn't make it through 24 hours. It was tooawkward. Some of you are saying, "Yeah." It was too exhausting to do that. If you're a racialminority in this room, that's maybe exactly what you're feeling this morning: that same sort ofexhaustion. But for us to not see it as white people… We have to see it.We don't need to feel guilty about it, but we have to see it if we're going to love others and considerthem more important than ourselves. It's a good thing for us to become, as white people, more intune with the color of our skin. It's a good thing for us to be less color-blind, especially when welook in the mirror.Again, bring Philippians 2 in here. Can you imagine the corrosive effect of white transparency or ofcolor blindness in a multiethnic church? Can you see how unhelpful that would be? Or even just in awhite church that's desiring to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel around their racial IQ or theirracial empathy. Can you sense how white transparency would actively work against considering notonly your own interests but others?If you've never considered and acknowledged and maybe celebrated your racial identity andheritage, then you don't know the specific perspectives and preferences that have been shaped byit, that have arisen out of it, which then limits significantly your ability to lay aside thosepreferences and perspectives on behalf of loving other people. You can't do it if you don't see it.Beloved, color blindness is an enemy, not a friend of hospitality and love. White transparency is acancer, and I don't use that word lightly. It's a cancer in a multiethnic church or in a church that'swanting to walk in the Spirit of God along matters of racial justice and harmony. Again, we don't

need to feel guilty about it, but we have to see and ask God to help us see what right now maybe wejust can't see.White transparency, then, feeds into the next little category that sociologists call white normativity.Again, I'm going to quote from Edwards. She says, "White normativity reinforces the normalizationof whites' cultural practices…such that how whites do things…" Again, we understand that not to bemonolithic, but generally speaking. "…their understandings about life, society, and the world…areaccepted as 'just how things are.'"In other words, when we're the majority, our practices, preferences, and perspectives don't feel tous as uniquely anything, whether it be uniquely white or uniquely middle class or uniquely BabyBoomer or uniquely United States. If you're the majority and are walking in transparency, it doesn'tfeel like a unique way to look at things or do things. It's just the way everybody looks at things ordoes things.In other words, in our minds, it's a universal norm or, more dangerously, a Christian norm. Thenanything out of that universal norm is alien or different or other or, in worst case, sometimes non-Christian in our minds. That's normativity. Of course, you see the problem with this. The problemcomes when what we consider to be a universal, if not a Christian, norm is actually a white norm ora middle-class norm or an American norm, not a universal or Christian norm.At that point, then, what we've done, in many cases, because of our white transparency isessentially made what is white or any other sort of transparent part of our heritage… We've madethat normative and everything that is not white alien or different or other. I have a friend in Denton.He's a member of our church, a brother named Daniel. He shared recently an illustration. He's a left-hander. How many of you are left-handers? The minority right here. Appreciate you people.He shared the parallel in terms of white normativity of left-handed scissors. Have you ever heard ofleft-handed scissors? If you're right-handed, maybe, maybe not. If you're left-handed, yeah. That'swhat you call scissors. Those are just your scissors. We call them "left-handed scissors," but left-handed scissors are just scissors. It's mind-blowing for some of you. It's like we've walked throughPhilippians 2. This blew your mind, though. It's like, "How have I never known that there wereother scissors besides scissors for left-handed people?"

Why do we call them "left-handed scissors" but don't call right-handed scissors "right-handedscissors"? Well, because being right-handed is the assumed norm in our culture. Can I get an"amen," lefty? I'm right-handed, but that's an assumed norm. Why? Because right-handers are theoverwhelming majority in our culture, so we live in a world of right-handed normativity simplybased on the fact that right-handers are the majority.In the same way, beloved, the majority white US culture, including the additional subcultures mostof us in this room inhabit…our workplaces, our churches, our suburban neighborhoods, includingits restaurants and grocery stores and schools… It is a world of white normativity. If you don'tbelieve me, which I don't know why you wouldn't, but if you're struggling with that, just pop ondown to the Barnes & Noble in your neighborhood later today and try to find me…Go to the children's section and try to find me a book that has a dark-skinned princess with a 4Ccurl pattern in her hair. If you find it, send it to me, because I've been looking for one. I've beenlooking for a book that has a princess that looks like one of my princesses to read to her. If you don'tthink this normativity gets internalized from an early age in both the majority and the minorityculture, I just would say humbly I think you're wrong. I think it does. It shapes us.Again, you don't need to feel sinfully guilty about being born white into a culture of whitenormativity, any more than you should feel guilty for being born right-handed in a culture of right-handed normativity, but you have to recognize it. If you want to consider others more importantthan yourself, especially others who don't share your racial identity or heritage, you have to see it.You have to admit it. You have to humble yourself. Let me tell you why. If you don't see it and admitit on a bad day or maybe even just a normal day for most of us, anything that is different than ournorm is not only different in our minds but is actually less than…less beautiful, less intelligent, lesscompelling, worse, gross, foolish, immature, naïve, evil.Isn't this what we see in our churches? Isn't this what we see in our Twitter wars? Isn't this whatwe've seen through the political cycle? Not that we just have different philosophies about thingsand ways of looking at things. It's evil. It's not just different; it's evil. It's worse. It's bad. It'sunchristian. This is what we see.I have often wondered in these days just how grieved God has been by our blindness to the gloriousdifferences he has created in one another. Not just our blindness, but our inability to celebrate

those differences he created and to be properly shaped by them because we're blind or becausewe're insecure or because we're more committed to being right than we are to loving each otherand considering each other more important than ourselves.To keep in step with the Spirit, a church must be ruled by a normativity that is distinctivelyChristian, not distinctively white or anything else; a normativity that is ruled by Christ and hisSpirit. For that to happen, we have to recognize places in our lives and in our churches where adifferent sort of normativity that may not be distinctively Christian (it may not be anti-Christian,but it may not be distinctively Christian) is too central in our thoughts, perspectives, andpreferences and lay those aside for the good of others.The last category is structural advantage. I'll just define it as the various unearned advantages thateffortlessly come to people due to the fact that they are part of the majority. Again, it could be anymajority. Because you're in the majority, you're in the position of dominant power, just evennumerically, and thus your norms are the ones that get institutionalized. Again, right-handednormativity and right-handed transparency create a host of right-handed structural advantages. Ifyou're left-handed, you know this.From the way we write on paper from left to right… I used to sit by a guy in class who had to do thehook with his hand. Have you ever seen a left-hander doing the hook? That's so you don't get thepencil on your hand. To the desk that's a right-handed desk he's sitting at, to the silverware that'splaced for a right-handed person, to the mouse he was using that was made for a right-handedperson… All of those are gifts to right-handed people that we didn't earn. We're born into a right-handed normative culture, so there are advantages for us right-handers that we may not be awareof but left-handers are certainly aware of.Brothers and sisters, from the beginning of our nation's history, white people have established andheld the location of dominance in our country's racial hierarchy. What this has meant, among otherthings, is that they've also, just numerically speaking, held political dominance and economicdominance, and whites have disproportionately controlled or influenced political parties, the legalsystem, government agencies, industry, and business. Again, I'm not saying you need to feel guiltyabout that. It's what it is. It's inarguable historically.This has gifted white people in this country, generally and comparatively speaking, certainstructural advantages that have not been afforded, generally and comparatively speaking, to racial

minorities in this country. These structural advantages are expressed all over the place if you haveeyes to see it. It's what drives our white transparency and our white normativity, and it's what hasbeen institutionalized in innumerable ways throughout the history of this nation.You even think about just the ability to have the power to decide who is and who is not a part ofyour racial group. There's only one racial group that had that power historically to not only say,"You're going to be not just three-fifths of a person but five-fifths of a person," but then to actuallysay, "Well, even though you have the same color of skin…you're light-skinned, you're white-skinned…because your great-great-great-granddaddy came from Africa and you have a drop of hisblood in you, you cannot be a part of our racial group."There's only one group that got to decide that, because they were the majority and had power. Inthe same way, there's one group that had the capacity throughout the nation's history to passhousing laws that favored their racial group. I'm reading a fascinating book right now called Ghetto.It's by an esteemed professor at Princeton. It goes into the various housing laws. He traces the ideaof the ghetto. He's trying to reclaim that word and redeem it.He traces the ghetto from its beginnings in Italy under the Catholic Church and how they put theJewish people in a ghetto, all throughout the history of the Jewish people and then into NaziGermany, and then how that began to be used around inner cities through different laws that werecreated by realtors nationally, their organizations, and then even institutions to say, "Nope, if you'rethis color, you can live between this block and this block and no farther."There's only one group that had enough power to do that historically. Again, that's a structuraladvantage. Or even being able to develop educational curriculum that emphasizes your racialgroup's history and norms. Isn't it interesting? We have Black History Month, which I'm thankfulfor, but there's no "White History Month." You have to ask, "Why not?" Not to say that there shouldbe or shouldn't be. I'm just saying to think about that.Here's a ground level where most of us live. You go into SuperTarget next time. If you're inSuperTarget, especially you ladies, you sisters, you'll notice in the hair-care section you have two orthree rows, and then there's about half of a half of a half of a half of a half of a row for ethnic hair-care products. Again, I don't think Target is racist. That's a structural advantage. You can go intoTarget and there's a lot bigger selection for hair-care products for your hair. That is a structuraladvantage based on the fact that you're the majority.

Or just having Band-Aids or superheroes or flesh-colored crayons that actually match the color ofyour flesh. That's a structural advantage. Come on, man. Get KG a Band-Aid that matches his skincolor. They do make those now. You think about the superheroes. It's like with the princesses.When the Hulk turns from green, he goes back to white. They're all white.Can you imagine being in the brainstorming meeting of what we're going to call that color? "Flesh."I'm just guessing there wasn't a person who had a different color of flesh in that meeting decidingthat's what we're going to call it. Again, I'm not assuming you were in there. If you were, I'd love tohear about that meeting. These are just gifts to us as the majority that those in the minority don'thave. You don't need to feel guilty, but we have to see it.We'd do well to consider the advice from Nick Carraway's dad. I don't know if you remember NickCarraway. He's the narrator in The Great Gatsby. I read that book over the holidays. In the openingparagraph of The Great Gatsby, Carraway says, "In my younger and more vulnerable years my fathergave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel likecriticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had theadvantages that you've had.'" I think it's wonderfully helpful advice, specifically in regard to race inour country and culture.Besides merely acknowledging and recognizing our advantages, what else, as those in the majority,can we do to steward those gifts we've received in service of others? Well, I think it's actually at theheart of this conversation about race that the elders of this church have led you into in recent years,and specific and nuanced answers to that question are not mine to give to you. That's not what I'mhere to do. That is a conversation for you and your elders to continue to walk through and thinkthrough together, not just on MLK Day but as a lifestyle of love.I do want to say this in closing. To my black or brown brothers and sisters, I just want to encourageyou. Do not grow weary of doing well. Keep sowing to the Spirit. Keep knowing and believing, evenwhen you feel invisible and exhausted here as a minority, that the Lord sees you and is pleased withyou and you are leading the way in this church in so many different regards to living out thislifestyle of love.

You're modeling this. As you follow Jesus, as you lay aside your preferences and your perspective,as you consider others in this church more important than yourself, you're leading us. So keepleading in humility and in faith.My white brothers and sisters, again, all I've wanted to do for you is to help in your pursuit, as achurch, of living a lifestyle of love and considering others more important than yourselves. Consideryour racial heritage and identity. That's all I would encourage you. Consider your whiteness so thatyou can understand it and, where appropriate, so you can identify with it or celebrate it or eschewit. I'd love for you to know, outside of just being white, are you Anglo-Saxon or are you not? Whensomebody calls you a WASP, how do you respond?There are riches there in terms of your self-understanding and the history and the larger story Godhas brought you out of and into his marvelous light. That's wonderful for you to understand. Then Iwould say understand your racial identity and heritage so you can recognize the advantages youhave been given as a majority person in this culture we live in as a gift and so you can think throughhow to put those perspectives and preferences that have been shaped by your advantage intoservice for those who are not as advantaged as you.Continue to think about that as you consider personally, as just a person in this church, and thenalso as a large, predominately white church how you, together, might continue to humbly andlovingly steward those advantages, as you challenge your perspectives and continue to lay asideyour preferences in pursuit of a lifestyle where you're living in a manner worthy of the gospel,generally but then specifically around racial harmony and justice.Of course, all of this so that God's love would be made visible. Isn't that the point Paul talked about?He said in keeping in step with the Spirit of our Lord by laying down your lives, you're shining likelights in the world. That's what Matt said. You're making God's love visible. You're showing ourneighbors and each other, however dim, a glimpse of that coming day when Jesus, the one whouniquely laid down his life for his church, will be worshiped as Lord by that church that he laid itdown to ransom, a church that is made up of every tribe and tongue and language.That is the gospel. That is the hope our minds are set on, and that's what motivates us forward intothis lifestyle of love, particularly around the topic of race. It's because Jesus is the one who has gonebefore us. "…Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a

thing to be grasped, but emptied himself [of all of the advantages that were perfectly, uniquely,and righteously his]…" He emptied himself in a unique way. In human form he humbled himself."…by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in

human form, he humbled himself [even further] by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and

on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory

of God the Father." Amen.Father, we thank you for our Lord. You're a good, good Father who sent your loving, perfect Son,and, Jesus, you are a good elder Brother, and we love you, we worship you as Lord, and we praynow, even by your Spirit, would you teach us and help us to keep in step with your Spirit and tofollow after the pattern you have set for us.Teach us how to love one another. Teach us how to consider each other, especially those who aredifferent than us, more important than ourselves. We don't know how to do that well, we justconfess. So even as we come now and remember and proclaim your death and resurrection to theLord's Supper, we pray you would, by your Spirit, be working on us to that end. We ask it in Jesus'name, amen.

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