Matthew
10:1-4; Galatians 3:26-29
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;
4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith
27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Six or seven years ago Tyler and I traveled
down to Wilmore for the Ichthus music festival. We went to one of the smaller stages to listen to a band
called The Psalters.
It’s hard to describe that band as they were so
different in music and even how they dressed. It was like Braveheart the Musical. While we were listening to this band a
guy wanders by and stands next to us – a very unique looking person. He was very tall and had a mohawk
haircut that was dyed blue. The
rest of his head, as well as his arms, were covered with tattoos. He had piercings in his ears, nose, lip
– this guy could never get through a metal detector. He stands there watching this band for a bit and then
finally mutters out loud this is way too weird for me. What a moment! Even those who are different and unique
can find it hard to embrace those who are different and unique!
As we
continue our series of messages Having A
Heart Like Jesus, this morning we come to A Love of Diversity.
Our text comes from a list of the twelve disciples in Matthew’s gospel
and a great affirmation made by Paul in the book of Galatians.
They seem like rather innocuous verses. Verses we generally pass over quickly
as they seem to lack any content that seems to hold any importance.
In the few brief verses from the 10th
chapter of Matthew’s gospel we find what seems to be little more than a list of
names – twelve men who were commonly known as the disciples (the word disciple comes
from the Greek word mathetes, which
means one who is a student or a follower of another). What could we possibly learn from a
list of names?
Quite a bit, actually, if we read between the
lines just a little.
The list of the twelve disciples reveals an
amazing amount of diversity. If we
were putting together a group with which to work, it’s probably not the kind of
group we would choose. When we
take a closer look at the list we find the differences between these men were
so great that the potential for conflict was enormous.
There was, first of all, the fact that a few of
the disciples seemed to be favored by Jesus. Peter, James, and John are mentioned far more than the other
nine.
The story of the transfiguration of Jesus tells
us that after six days Jesus took with
him, Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high
mountain by themselves. There he
was transfigured before them. His
face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light (Matthew
17:1-2). Where were the other
disciples? Again, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus takes these same three –
Peter, James, and John, further into the garden after leaving the other nine – Then Jesus went with his disciples to a
place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there
and pray.” He took Peter and the
two sons of Zebedee along with him (Matthew 26:36-37).
Some of the twelve
are mentioned so rarely that it would be difficult for us to call their
names. A few of them, beyond the
listing of the twelve, are never again mentioned in the gospels. What did Bartholomew or Thaddaeus think
about the favored status of Peter, Andrew, James, and John?
James and John, we know from Mark 10:35-45,
were interested in power, to the point that they asked Jesus for special status
in his kingdom. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
came to him. “Teacher,” they said,
“we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. They replied, “Let one of us sit at
your right and the other at your left in your glory” (verses 35-37). The other disciples, verse 41, were quite offended at
this request. On another occasion,
the mother of James and John approached Jesus with the same request (Matthew
20:20-28). But it wasn’t just
James and John who were obsessed with power and status; at times there were
disputes among all of the disciples about who among them was the greatest (Mark
9:33-37 and Luke 22:24-30 among them.
The passage in Luke is particularly sad, as it took place at the Last
Supper, as Jesus was trying to teach them about the real meaning of power,
love, and sacrifice).
Judas was known to steal from the collection
box – money that was intended for the needs of others became his own personal
treasury (He did not say this because he
cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he
used to help himself to what was put into it – John 12:6). Nothing will create problems quicker
than someone who is stealing money from a cause.
Matthew was a tax collector. A tax collector, in the day of Jesus,
made his money by taking advantage of others. No one really knew how much tax they owed to the Roman
authorities. The tax collector for
a given area was charged with collecting a certain amount of money from the
populace; anything over that amount was his to keep as profit. Everyone knew they were being
overcharged, but they couldn’t prove how much they were overcharged. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were
fishermen – small businessmen. As
businessmen they were particularly susceptible to the abuses of the Roman taxation
methods. Matthew may have been the
tax collector charged with collecting their taxes. I can’t imagine how well that went over with those four
men. They must have questioned the
wisdom of calling such a person as Matthew to be a part of their fellowship.
Matthew, as a tax collector, was also one who
worked in league with the Romans, which would have been extremely offensive to
the other eleven. Matthew worked
hand-in-hand with their oppressors.
This would have been especially offensive to Simon, who was a
Zealot. The Zealots were a
political group dedicated to the overthrow of the Romans – by any means
necessary, even by the use of violence.
Was it a good idea to put these two men together? On the surface it certainly would not
seem to be such a good idea.
What was Jesus thinking, putting together such
a diverse group? Obviously, he was
thinking of the beauty of diversity, and if he loved diversity to such a point,
so should we.
What’s especially amazing is that, aside from a
few passing references, we don’t read much about conflict among the
disciples. We know there was some there,
but there should have been much more.
As a group, they should have fallen apart, but they didn’t, and what a
lesson that is to today’s world, where we find diversity – and an appreciation
of diversity shrinking at an alarming rate.
I was in a meeting recently and someone started
saying we don’t all have to be the same
in a church. I was thinking amen! They continued.
We don’t all have to look the
same. I was thinking again – amen! They went on. We don’t all have to think the
same. Amen! I thought once again.
Then they said, we don’t all have to agree with the minister. And then I thought wait a minute! Let’s not get carried away!
Early on in the history of the church, before
we get very far into the book of Acts, we find the church was beginning to
struggle with the question of diversity.
A lot of people were very uneasy about the Gentiles coming into the
church. They were different. They didn’t think the same. They didn’t act the same. They didn’t talk the same. And people like their sameness.
Paul was the one who really carried the heart
of Jesus on this matter – you are all
sons of God, he says in Galatians.
All. No matter who you are.
No matter how you look. No
matter how you talk. No matter
where you live. No matter how you
think.
One of the great temptations
for churches is creating a culture of sameness, where people think the same,
look the same, and believe the same.
I’ve told you before that while I grew up on a farm, I was a
terrible farmer. A friend of mine
has told me in recent years about the danger of monocultures in agriculture,
that is, the danger of having only one type of plant in a field.
1. A monoculture is very
vulnerable. It can be wiped out completely by one virus, fungus, destructive
insect, or other disease. A farmer could lose his or her entire crop – and
income – to one microbe.
2. Monocultures encourage
more diseases, weeds, and destructive insects. These pests build resistance to
the changeless nature of a monoculture, and their life cycles are never
interrupted.
3. Because the natural
resistance is so low in a monoculture, farmers must use greater and greater
amounts of synthetic pesticides and fungicides to keep their crops alive and
yielding. The environmental and health impacts of this kind of copious use of
agrichemicals are significant.
4. Nutrients become
depleted in soil that is used to grow only one type of crop year after year.
Thus, farmers must step up the chemical fertilizers to keep getting crop
yields.
The same is true when it comes to people, and especially true when
it comes to the body of Christ. We
cannot be a monoculture, searching for and appealing for only one type of
person. That’s not the world we
live in. We live in a polyculture
– many types of people. It’s a
complicated matter to live amongst diversity, and some people simply cannot
embrace diversity, seeking instead to enforce a uniformity that is stifling and
tragic.
On Friday evening I spoke at the worship service of the Luther
Luckett Christian Church, at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in
LaGrange. I’d been scheduled for a
number of weeks, but I was surprised to learn early last week that Friday would
be the final worship service for the Luther Luckett church. I’ve mentioned on several occasions in
recent months that the administration of the prison was making it very
difficult for the church to function.
Outside guests have not been permitted for some time and the men have
been forbidden from any further worship leadership. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the administration
did not want the church to continue, and because the situation was becoming so
difficult, the board decided that Friday’s service would be the final one for
the church.
Dean Bucalos, the minister of the church, has done a really
outstanding job of leading the congregation in the face of great
resistance. I greatly appreciate
the work he has done. At the end
of the service I felt sad for Dean as he made the announcement that the church
would not continue, and I felt very sad for the men, many of whom wept at the
news.
These men have suffered a great loss because a few people could not
accept a different way of doing church.
What was a spiritual lifeline for them has not come to an end because
diversity could not be accepted or embraced. What a sad reality.
Jesus took twelve very diverse men who did not think the same,
believe the same, or act the same.
Their diversity could have torn them apart, but it did not. The love of Jesus provided a larger
vision they could embrace and it allowed them to accept one another as
brothers.
Diversity is a beautiful thing. God made us brothers and sisters, but neither asks or
expects us to be the same.
Celebrate this great diversity!
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