SUNDAY – 6/14/20
Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Gal 3:28 is a statement of fact rather than just a possibility. The ground at the cross is level! Christ Jesus accepts all who come to Him. Gal 3:28 is the Magna Carta of the NT—the preamble to Constitution of the Bible. It makes the only level playing field this world will ever see. So to be “in Christ” is to be in His Body—the Church—the people of God under God’s reign.
An ancient rabbinical prayer says, “Blessed be the Lord, King of the Universe, that He did not make me a Gentile; or a slave; or a woman.” In Galatians 3:28 Paul turns it on its head, for in Christ all this is no longer valid. Things like race, slavery and gender are no longer relevant in the Church: A statement of fact, not a “will be” but an “is”, in this present time.
Anything we use to divide us into tribes is not allowed in God’s Church: Age, education, riches, power, color, language, geography, nationality, etc. For these tribes no longer apply in the Church of God.
Racism is a major problem in today’s world, as it has been for all of creation. The early Church was a new experiment—a consolidation of races. That is why Paul states a fact—“In Christ”, in Church, race is no longer a factor. God is not a respecter of race, face, or place or persons
There were Jews almost everywhere in the world—they hated Gentiles and vice versa. All who were not Jew were called Greeks or Gentiles—all other tribes, because Greek was the universal language of the known world and all Gentiles were lumped together.
The concept of race began in Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel. The whole earth spoke one language and had one culture. “The Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”
The Church is the reversal of the Tower of Babel. In the Tower people divided into races. Languages developed from one tribe to another. But in the Church the uniting of all tribes, races, and peoples began. All speak the one language, the language of love in the Church. The love of Christ unites us into a tribe stronger than any other tribe.
I use Racism and tribalism to be same thing. Some may make tribalism a part of racism, but for our purposes they are the same thing. Tribalism (racism) means that my tribe matters, yours does not. At best, I tolerate or ignore your tribe, at worse your tribe is open game. The only good thing about tribes is that they give us somewhere to belong. A tribe can be defined as “us against them”. The we-ness must become the overriding goal of the tribe. Without some kind of “glue” that causes the tribe to continue it will disintegrate and cease to exist.
A tribe always must have common benefits and common enemies to stay together.
It takes both! For a tribe to endure it must have common enemies! If they are not readily available they must be invented. A tribe cannot continue to exist without enemies. To lose the common enemy is to lose the tribe’s unity—the we-ness, unless other enemies are quickly found. The tribe must hang on to the hatred or lose the tribe
An example is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. For a Jew to take the side of the Palestinian means to cease to be a Jew. For a Palestinian to take the side of the Jews is to cease to be a Palestinian. Tribalism has a social side that is beyond right and wrong. The very existence of the tribe is at stake. Failure to side with the tribe loses your place in the tribe.
Another example is modern gangs. The perks of fellowship and prestige will last for a while but unless the gang finds an enemy to fight and do violence to, the gang will pass away. The gang leaders know this and the gang gives honor according to the violence done to its enemies.
A tribe can rarely be picky about its enemy—any enemy at hand will do! American India tribes have hated and killed each other for years untold. Some tribes in Africa have hated and killed other tribes for multiple generations. Same is true in South America, India, China, Russia and the Muslim world.
Americans seem to have forgotten common enemies. The world is gloating now because America is dividing into tribes! We are no better than they are! We are becoming tribal. China is taking a victory lap because America is destroying itself. 150 years ago the KKK tried to form a tribe with a common enemy. Be careful the new tribes forming today don’t follow suit. Yes, a tribe must have a common enemy. Be careful it is not other tribes who are not enemies!!
Corrupt police has become a common enemy for many tribes and rightly so. The all too often DBC (Death By Cop) has to stop! But the common enemy has a limit—to the corrupt cops, not all cops. I don’t want to live in a world without police; talk about a scary situation. I have a suggestion: rather than to defund cops, let’s multiply their pay. Much of their work is hazardous work and their lives are on the line every day. But we must weed out the bad and somehow refocus some of the others. A way has to be found to deal with hazardous situation rather than DBC.
Humans have a natural tendency to join a tribe—the God given need. We are communal people, social people, A people who must have a tribe to thrive. But human tribalism destroys because it must have an enemy!
Our world is right back where it was 2000 years ago when Paul was writing. People are just as evil, just as violent, just as mean now as then. We have wasted 2000 years of growth, advancement and civilization because we have reverted to pre-civilized times. We have gone back to the time before the Church! The fatal flaw of our world is trying to build a society without God.
We have tried to build a society without God’s Church—God’s Tribe. Without Christ race matters and tribalism reverts to butchery, slaughter and violence. Without Christ here are 60 million slaves in the world; without Christ the gender wars rage.
Without Christ the age wars rage, the political wars rage, the moral wars rage, the race wars rage—our world has decided to try and live without God. And we are paying the price! And will continue to pay the price as racism and tribalism get worse and worse.
We all are members of multiple tribes today. There are ethnic tribes like Jews, Romanians, Russians, Mexicans, Africans, Egyptians, White Anglo Saxons, etc. Every ethnic group is a tribe and are, to some degree, against other ethnic groups.
Men form a tribe, women form a tribe, slaves form a tribe, poor form a tribe, educated from a tribe, ugly people form a tribe, Southern people form a tribe, political parties from a tribe, single people form a tribe, friends form a tribe. Occupations form tribes, sports form tribes, not to mention the other million or so tribes we choose to be in.
We can be at the top of one tribe and at the bottom of another tribe but usually we are somewhere in the middle of multiple tribes at one time.
The sum is Paul’s recognition is that “God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11).
Jesus once told his disciples, “The kingdom of God is like a net thrown into the sea that gathers in fish of every kind” (Matthew 13:47). Church is a tribe of every race and nation, language and custom; yet, we worship the same God and follow the same Lord
In Revelation 7:9-10, John sees a vision of the Church in heaven, “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Paul explains how the Tribe of God works R 12:21, “Do not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.” In the body of Christ, the social ranking of the lesser tribes no longer hold and do not count for anything. The other tribes do not matter at all in the Church. In Phil 3:7-9 Paul puts all other tribes into their place, “But whatever were gains to me (from other tribes) I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
For Paul only one tribe—the Tribe of Christ, the Church—mattered at all! He called all other tribes garbage, not worth keeping, to be disposed of and thrown away. All other tribes are a loss! They are sinking sand, passing away. Only the Body of Church is the solid rock!
Only God’s New Tribe will make it past this life and exist in heaven. All other tribes are temporary and pass away. But the Church will last forever. The Church is the New Tribe of God and it out tribes all other tribes put together.
It doesn’t matter if you are married or single, ugly or pretty, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, tall or short, black or white, red or blue, American, Russian, African, Mexican, Canadian, a boy or a girl, old or young, cripple or healthy. If you are in Christ’s Church you are in the one and only tribe that matters. It will last as the ages do roll and it is the one and only tribe in heaven!
And you are somebody only in God’s Tribe! You are a VIP only in the Body of Christ! Your life matters only in Christ. You are as good as anyone only in God’s Church!
God’s tribe is bonded by love—Jesus demanded for us to love one another. You are born into most tribes, but you must willfully choose God’s tribe. There will always be racism, sexism, hatred, prejudice, violence and death in the world as long as the world exists. John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
The only peace and help this world can ever know is found in Jesus Christ and in His Body, the Church, the New Tribe of God. Be very careful that you don’t let lesser things, lesser tribes overwhelm the one true tribe—other tribes are sinking sand, hold on to what is real, what lasts—the solid rock!
2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Notice, the “My People”! The Church is the only Tribe that God listens to, so it is the only tribe that God will listen to and come and heal our land! The humility and the prayer must come from the Church, not just individuals—the people of God, God’s New Tribe God’s New Race, for God to act. But notice, the “turn from their wicked ways”. Stop acting like the tribes of the world and live like the people of God!
Jim
