July 30, 2009
Native
Those of us who are native born Coloradoans often lord that fact over folks who move into our area from another state. And we often show our indignation with transplants when they suggest we change and become like the state they just left. Rather than being irritated, I had empathy for one newcomer who was toting a bumper sticker that read, "Not a NATIVE...but I got here as soon as I could." I can imagine the Jewish indignation toward chosen people who are not native. Maybe my Gentile bumper sticker should read, ‘Not a NATIVE…but I came to Jesus as soon as I could’.
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Gail;
-----Some people like change and welcome it. But more don’t. Although the Christian is reborn into a nature that calls for ongoing change ( Rom 12:2, II Cor 3:18), that change is directed by His Word and His Spirit, not by other people. Whether it be a child born into a family, an outsider moving into the community or state, or a newcomer moving into a church, that person comes with needs, interests, and habits particular to himself. Hence, some amount of accommodating change will be inevitable. Much of what has been behind racism and other forms of party spirit is a communal insulation against cultural shift.
-----The scribes and Pharisees sensed a coming change in Jesus’ message and resisted Him for the sake of their culture and their place within it. The Judaizers, although they had accepted Christ, were unwilling to see the strong elements of Judaism loose their importance within a church flooded in gentiles, and they relentlessly dogged Paul. History is marked throughout by the struggles of change from shifting populations and oncoming generations in churches, politics, and cultures.
-----But one of the fundamental attitudes of the Christian character is to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us (Rom 15:7). Another is to please each other, not looking to your own interests only, but also looking to the interests of others (Rom 15:2; Philippians 2:4), outdoing one another in showing honor (Rom. 12:10). When everyone approaches each other with the Christian attitude, the inevitable changes can comfortably happen without entirely destroying the way things were. Through selflessness, the native will not demand his own way, but will try to accommodate the ways of the newcomer. And by the same, the newcomer will honor the ways of the native, trying to adjust to them.
-----The newcomers who are not welcomed are those who will not join into such attitudes. They come demanding their own ways, having no respect for the ways of those amongst whom they have come. The resistance to them is not like the Pharisees’ resistance to the Lord, the often leveled charge, because Jesus was God amongst us, and His way was demandable. Although some newcomers act like they are God amongst us, they are not. Nor are their ways a God given right. They are not selfless; they are not looking to the interests of those amongst whom they’ve come, and they are not honoring them. In an abstract sense, they are possessing them. And although the Word bids us to be slaves to one another, it neither bids us to be masters of one another, nor to be captured into that slavery rather than to have sold our selves into it. Yet, we are seeing our churches, our communities, and states, and our country fall day by day to these people conquerors.
-----We are charged not only with making new disciples, but also with being salt upon the earth. Salt is to preserve what is good. What is good in our homes and communities, our churches, states, and country is the mutual attitudes of welcoming one another, looking to each others’ interests with honor and respect. Salt must preserve those attitudes as much as it must prevent the attitudes of the slave masters. Therefore salt must respectfully, but effectively, attack any mastermind-set a newcomer totes into the community. For community belongs to everyone, and it emerges from everyone. It is where godliness, neighborliness, and brotherly love are practiced and polished. We can not afford to loose our training ground.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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