When you are rejected …

Remember that you are entering into the Lord’s own sufferings.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.¹³

For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.¹⁴

God allows rejection to come into our lives so that we may have the painful privilege of sharing in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. Through such sufferings, we understand more about our Lord and how He felt in His own afflictions.

Rejection from fellow Christians is part of that fellowship.

The Christian life is a reliving of the life of Jesus. So your destiny is His experience.

While we don’t experience His deity or His atoning sacrifice (both of which are unique to Him), we do enter into His sufferings, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to heaven.

The Christian life holds for you all that it held for Christ.

This is from “God’s Favorite Place on Earth” by Frank Viola author

It’s been thirty years since I met Him. The day He first entered our home is etched in my mind forever. I shall never forswear those memories.

My sisters, Mary and Martha, are no longer with us. Neither is my father, Simon, whom Jesus healed of leprosy.

Most of the Teacher’s close disciples, all of whom I had the privilege of knowing, have rendered their lives for His Name’s sake.

A number of them committed to the written page their own encounters with Him. Words that I’ve read and consider to be God-breathed.

Since I am not sure how much longer I have left on this earth, I wish to leave behind the story of the times Jesus came to my hometown, Bethany, and of all the people He forever changed while He was here.

***

The One who lived before the earth existed spent only thirty-three years on the planet. And God gave me the unique honor of sharing some of those years with Him.

I did not know it at the time, but the Galilean prophet was rejected everywhere He went. When I discovered this, the irony dawned on me.

Here was the God of the universe, clothed in human flesh, turned down, cast away, dejected in nearly every quarter in which He stepped.

The Creator was rejected by His own creation.

When He was born, Bethlehem closed its doors to Him. So He came into the world in the place where animals were fed.

Luke always had an eye for detail. In his recent narrative about the Savior, he wrote,

And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.¹

But that’s not all. When He was two years old the government hunted Him down like an animal. Consider it. The Son of God—a mere child—treated like a dangerous creature unworthy of breath. Matthew recounted the sad ordeal:

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.²

When He began His public ministry, He was rejected by His own people—my people—the Jews.

John set it forth this way in his account:

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.³

Jesus was despised, rejected, and belittled by the Jewish elite who dominated Jerusalem. They eventually colluded with the Romans and put Him to death. Yet with gripping pain and sorrow, He still loved the city that betrayed Him. Matthew rehearsed His prayer in his narrative:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.⁴

 When He sought entrance into the despised region of Samaria, the Samaritans rejected Him also. Luke told the story, saying,

And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.⁵

 He was even rejected by His own hometown, Nazareth, the place where He grew up. Mark captured the scene in his gospel:

“Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”⁶

Here was the earth’s Creator. The One who made all things and for whom all things were made … unwelcomed by the very world that came from His hand.

I’m reduced to tears every time I think about it; there was only one exception to this widespread rejection.

Throughout His short time on earth, my sisters and I determined that there would be one place where Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, would be welcomed.

A little village called Bethany.

My hometown.

God’s favorite place on earth.

Let me tell you the story …

From the early draft of God’s Favorite Place on Earth by Frank Viola, author.

Napkin Scribbles by Leonard Sweet – The Two Violas – Transcript

September 18th 2008

Hello, you’re listening to “Napkin Scribbles;” thoughtful sketches of God and life from thinker and author Leonard Sweet. Len’s verbal imagery is being shared with you through the generous support of George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland Oregon. George Fox Evangelical Seminary, a matter of mind and spirit. Now, let’s sit down with Leonard Sweet, wherever in the world he is.

I’m like a little kid sometimes. You know, I discover something, and then I can’t go anywhere without it. I want to be with it all times, and I’m kind of that way today because I left a book behind. There are two Violas that I’m desperately hunting after and trying to read everything that I can to keep up with them. One is the video artist Bill Viola. I don’t know if you are familiar with this sound architect, this video artist. He is a classic; one of a kind. Orchestras are experimenting with video and film to keep people coming. And they are using Bill Viola’s work. I think his new kind of artistry that he is pioneering is one that people will be talking about in the future. But there is another Viola, and it’s Frank Viola. He pronounces his name a little differently, I think.

But these two Violas are both paradigm busters. Frank Viola is, I think, the reigning paradigm buster around today. Do you know the whole organic church movement? I think you know about the church growth emphasis in the 70’s and 80’s, and then the church health emphasis in the 90’s. I think what we are seeing today is a real kind of healthy movement towards organic church. You have names associated with it: Neil Cole, Joe Myers, Wolfgang Simson, Alan Hirsch. The one that seems to get left out a lot, but ought to be right in there with the rest of them is Robert Dale, whose writings on organic church are very significant, I think.

But the other name that you often don’t hear, but it needs to be put in that context, is Frank Viola. Here is somebody who wrote this book with George Barna called Pagan Christianity. Actually he is the one who did most of the work on it. He did most of the research on it. But his follow-up book is called Reimagining Church. It just came out not too long ago. If you want a paradigm-busting book that’s it. I’ve been taking this book with me. I’ve assigned it to my students. Unfortunately I’ve left it, so I’m kind of without my “blanket.” Is there a role for professional clergy? Well, guess what Frank Viola says? Is there a role for institutional churches? Well, guess what Frank Viola says? Is there a role for even the individual Christian? Is there even a concept or is there such a thing as the individual Christian? Well, guess what Frank Viola says? It’s half time, things aren’t going well, you’re losing the game, and the coach comes in and says, “You know what? It’s back to basics.” It’s half time. The Church isn’t doing well; Frank Viola comes in and says, “It’s back to basics.”

This is kind of my “back to basics” person and writer. You just need to know about him and about his work.

The other thing I like about Frank and Frank’s work is that wherever he ends up, you always know where he is going to end up. Even though he rattles the cages and shakes the foundations and everything comes toppling down, you always know what’s going to be left. What’s going to be left is Christ. Not the dead Jesus, but the living Christ. Not, “let’s go back to Jesus,” but “let’s go forward to where He already is in this future. “ The living Christ is pulling us, pulling us, not pushing us from behind, but pulling us from up forward. I think this is a critique of the whole organic church movement. We can get very mechanistic with the organic. We approach the organic in a very mechanistic way. Not Frank. He’s organic all the way down; organic all the way towards the very organism of Jesus Christ. Incarnation is all about the downward bend. God came down. How far down? All the way down.

The question of Jesus’ ministry that He asks all of us – and the question of the living Christ – is pulling us towards. How far down are you willing to go? How far down are you willing to go? Jesus said drink deep of the living water, all the way down. Jesus went all the way down to His hands and knees, getting His hands wet and dirty; His knees on the ground washing His disciples’ feet. Are we willing to come all the way down? Church, are we willing to drink deep the living water? That water is Christ.

I’m one freed ear, missing his book that he left behind in Cleveland Tennessee.

Leonard Sweet You’ve been listening to “Napkin Scribbles.” To find out more about George Fox Evangelical Seminary, see them on the web at seminary.georgefox.edu.

Published November 2014, but applicable to ANY year on this side of Christ’s return.

For members of the human species, perception is reality. At least that’s the way it is for most mortals.

And perception is shaped by our own experience, the experience of our peers, and the images and messages that we consume.

When the O.J. Simpson trial aired on public television some 20 years ago, I followed it closely. When the verdict of “not guilty” was announced, the majority of the black community celebrated. The majority of the white community was baffled. To their minds, O.J. got away with murder.

Why the drastically different perceptions?

Because of experience.

Toward Understanding Reactions

Just a few years before the O.J. trial, Rodney King – a black man – had been beaten mercilessly by police, and it was caught on video. A few years later, the police who were involved in the beating were acquitted.

Blacks felt another injustice had taken place against their people.

Consequently, when O.J. was acquitted, the feeling in the black community was, “Finally, a black man has finally been set free by the system. We got some justice!”

For many blacks, the verdict was personal. A setting “right” to the many “wrongs” of the past.

Reaction to the Simpson trial is a small snapshot of what’s at work in the hearts and minds of many black Americans today. Living from a lineage of hundreds of years of oppression, the perception that many blacks have is that most (or even all) whites are racist on some level and the American justice system is dialed against blacks as a people. Right or wrong, true or untrue, this perception is deeply ingrained, reinforced, and passed on.

Some whites, on the other hand, have suffered personal tragedies at the hands of criminals who happened to be black. And that has defaulted their perception to one of fear, suspicion, and thinking the worst of black males in general. Stereotypes on television and movies have only hammered that nail in deeper.

If a local police force has battled with a great deal of crime in a particular black community, their perceptions are set to be suspicious of all black men. The deck, then, is set against all black males, even those who are upstanding citizens.

Black fathers are forced to have talks (“the talk”) with their young sons to be on guard that a police officer may automatically assume they are doing something wrong and be inclined to use excessive force, where if they were white they wouldn’t have to worry.

Toward Empathy

Having been falsely accused myself at different times in my life, I can relate in small measure to the horrendous experience that many black males feel.

When I was 17 years old, I was driving home from a Bible study I attended that ended well past midnight. As I neared my house, I was caught in a line of traffic. I soon discovered that police officers were pulling teens — my peers — off the side of the road to inspect their cars. Some were being arrested. Apparently, there was a party that had just broken up where illegal drugs were in use.

When one of the officers made his way to my car, he immediately accused me of participating in the party. I explained that I had just come from a Bible study. He laughed in complete disbelief. I then handed him my Bible, naively thinking that it would compel him to question his assumption.

He pointed his flashlight at the floor of the back-seat and said, “Yea right, and I see those marijuana leaves in the floor back there.”

There were some bush leaves in the back-seat floor as it was the fall and leaves were transported from the my friend’s shoes to the floor. (In other words, I did a lousy job keeping my car clean!)

I explained that they were bush leaves, and invited him to inspect them himself.

He retorted with, “Yea, right.” Anyways, I must have convinced him because he left me go. Or maybe he was just worn out.

But that day I got a tiny taste of what it means to be “profiled” with a group of my peers, just because of my age.

The Reality of Privilege

The fact of the matter is this: In 21st century America, if you happen to be born white, you don’t have the same issues to deal with that those who are black have to contend with. The deck is set against people of color in ways you probably aren’t in touch with.

Overall, you — as a white person — have it easier when it comes to success.

Now that fact is not an excuse for violence, revenge, or bigotry against whites.

It’s just the way things are in this fallen world. Note that I’m speaking in big generalities here. If you’re black and born into a rich family, you’re an exception. And you probably have it better than most whites.

However, until Jesus Christ returns to set this world in order, I don’t see things changing too much for many years to come. Yes, we’ll have more legislation. Yes, we’ll have a more sensitive egg-shell situation on both sides. And yes, we’ll probably have more dialogue where blacks and whites can better understand one another.

But I don’t believe there is a solution that’s going to end fear, suspicion, injustice, or all the problems that have arisen to the surface once again from recent riots in Ferguson, Baltimore, et. al.

There will be other incidents to come that will roll the same ball again. The specifics will be different, but the same racial tension, polarization, violence, anger, and divergent perspectives will reappear.

If someone is offering solutions, then I (for one) am monumentally skeptical. It’s easy to offer abstract solutions on paper.

“If everyone would do such and such, this wouldn’t happen again.”

“If the police would all wear cameras and treat everyone the same . . . ”

“If every person who is stopped or commanded by a police officer would just submit and obey . . . ”

Why, of course.

I can offer the same sentiments: If every mortal followed Jesus of Nazareth and lived by His life, then there would virtually no relational problems among mortals.

But bloodless abstractions and what will actually work on the ground are two drastically different things.

What I can offer, however, is what I believe to be a “Jesus response” to the root problem.

And I’m speaking here on a level that transcends the recent riots.

A Jesus Response

The Jesus response, I believe, is for every genuine Jesus follower to understand that our perceptions are shaped by our experiences. And for us and others, perception is reality, even though it may not be God’s reality.

One of the things that the early Jesus followers taught and practiced is that Jesus Christ can transform one’s own personal perceptions, heal their reactions to their experiences, and replace their perceptions with HIS perception — which is truth and reality.

Although the first-century Christians still struggled with their past perceptions of race, namely, Jews hated Gentiles and Gentiles despised Jews, those perceptions had crumbled under the weight of the reality of the new humanity that Jesus Christ brought forth by His death and resurrection.

The result? The world was amazed to see — for the very first time — the two people-groups who lived with profound hatred and hostility toward one another for thousands of years (Jews and Gentiles) love one another, take care of one another, marry one another, and bury one another!

Indeed, the first-century ekklesia was a countercultural community that modeled to the entire universe what humanity can look like when it is reshaped by the power and love of Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus Christ is not only the Lord and Savior of the world, He’s also God’s idea of a human being. Jesus often referred to Himself as “the Son of man” which can rightly be translated “the real human.”

And in His death and resurrection, Jesus brought forth a new creation, a new humanity, a new “race” where all natural divisions, prejudices, and separations have been abolished.

In other words, God’s answer to the problem of race relations in America is a transformative encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and an experience of His kingdom community – the ekklesia – rightly conceived and rightly practiced.

On this score, Derwin Gray – a black pastor from North Carolina – and I coauthored an article that we feel is timeless in its message, for it embodies a “Jesus response” to the thorny issue of racial struggles and perceptions in America and the world.

Here it is . . .

The Race Card of the Early Christians – What They Can Teach Us Today 

by Derwin Gray & Frank Viola

Media coverage on the racial tensions that regularly sweep across America has heightened passions on both ends.

Conversations about race, law, injustice, prejudice, guns, police brutality, etc. are all being argued and inflamed.

In this article, we don’t want to weigh in on the public debate. Instead, our passion is to encourage God’s people everywhere to transcend the debate that the world is holding on its own terms by seeing ethnicity through the eyes of our Lord. There is only one race, the human race, which is comprised of different ethnic groups (Acts 17:26).

We want you, dear Christian, to take your cue from the New Testament believers, for they can teach us a great deal about this subject.

A Walk Into the First-Century Church

The world of the first-century was littered with racism and oppression. In the mind of a first-century Jew, Gentiles (Africans, Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Asians, etc.) were created to fuel the fires of hell.

When a Jew called a Gentile “uncircumcised,” he spit it. It was a name of profound contempt.

If a Jewish person married a Gentile, the Jewish parents held a funeral service for their child. In their eyes, their child was dead.

On the flip side, Gentiles regarded Jews to be sub-human. Historically, the Jews have been an oppressed people, living under the thumb of one Gentile nation after another (e.g., Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome).

In all of human history, there has never been so much animosity, hatred, and violence between two groups of people as there has been between the Jew and the Gentile.

But alas, in the first-century, there emerged a group of people on the planet who transcended this racial hostility.

Here was a group of people who saw themselves as members of the same family . . . a people made up of Jews, Gentles, slaves, free, rich, poor, male and female.

These were the early Christians. The Roman world stood in awe as they saw a people who hated each other began to love one another and do life together in the Name of Jesus.

Watch them walking into the market place together, arm and arm, singing with joy in their hearts.

Jew and Gentile.

Slave and free.

Rich and poor.

Male and female.

Look at them closely. Jew and Gentile eating together, working together, greeting one another with a holy kiss, raising their children together, taking care of one another, marrying one another, and burying one another.

This fact blew the circuitry of every person living in Century One. It shook the Roman Empire to its very foundations.

The church of Jesus Christ was a classless society. It’s members didn’t regard social status, color, or position. For them, there was no Jew or Greek in the body of Christ. There was no slave or free. There was no rich or poor.

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Colossians 3:11 

For the first two hundred years, the Christians only addressed each other by their first names. The reason? Because their last names indicated their social position in society.

Here was a classless, raceless society where all social distinctions were erased.

To their minds, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor no longer existed. The early believers saw themselves as part of the same family . They were a new race . . . a colony from another realm, not of or from this earth. Yet for this earth.

How Did This Happen?

Enter Jesus, a prophet from the ill-starred town of Nazareth.

In His humanity, Jesus was Jewish.

But take another look. He was something other . . .

“I am not of this world.”

“The Father sent me.”

“I came from the Father and I will return to Him.”

To borrow the language of Arthur Custance, Jesus Christ was a new species on the planet, a new creation, a new kind of human.

Jesus of Nazareth was the first child ever to break open the womb of a woman who would be part of a new creation. A human being after God’s original thought. A creature who lived by divine life, expressing God’s image in the earth.

And He had a holy intention that was shrouded in a mystery for ages (Colossians 1:25-28; Ephesians 3:2-6).

What was that intention? It was to take over the planet by establishing a colony of His own species on the earth. And He would do it in a way unthinkable to humans and angels.

He would die, rise again, and reproduce Himself, becoming the head of a new race, a new humanity, a new creation.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12:24

In His death, Jesus took all social distinction, all racial tensions, all forms of human separation, and He crucified them.

But that’s not all.

In His resurrection, He brought forth a new humanity out of Jew and Gentile, destroying the wall of division and hostility that separated them.

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility . . . His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. Ephesians 2:14-16

Jesus Christ became the firstborn of a new creation (Romans 8:29).

The Third Race

Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God. 1 Corinthians 10:32

This little passage contains a monumental truth. Before Jesus Christ entered the pages of human history, there were only two races: Jew and Gentile.

But with His resurrection, three races appeared on the planet: Jew, Gentile, and the ekklesia of God.

For this reason, the second-century Christians called themselves the “third race” as well as the “new race.”

The body of Christ, then, is the restoration of God’s original image that creation was designed to bear. An image where there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

Within this new non-ethnic community, the dividing lines of gender, race, class, and social status are wiped away. And new distinctions of spiritual gifting are bestowed.

Watch how Paul opens his discussion on the functioning of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12—14. 

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 1 Corinthians 12:12

This passage is perhaps the most mind-bending text in all the New Testament. It destroys all our natural assumptions about the church. If you read the passage quickly, you’ll most certainly skip over its explosive meaning.

Paul tells the Corinthians that, just as the physical body is one unit having many members, so also is Christ. Notice that he doesn’t say, “So also is the body of Christ.”

He says, “So also is Christ.”

In other words, Christ is a body who has many members. Or to put it another way, the church is Christ. While that sounds heretical to traditional ears, this is exactly what Paul wrote.

From God’s perspective, Christ is no longer a single person. He is a corporate person. Christ and the church are a single reality. The church is the bottom half of Jesus Christ.

Paul’s idea is not that the Head is somehow screwed onto the body. His idea is that Christ embodies the church. The risen Christ is a living, inclusive, “more-than-individual” personality.

Put another way, the church is the visible image of the invisible Lord. It is the corporate Christ. It is Christ in collective human expression.

What Does This Mean for Us Today?

Mark it down: JESUS CHRIST IS THE MOST UNIFYING PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE!

If Jesus can bring Jew and Gentile together to form a new humanity, He can bring any group of races together.

But here’s a very important question for churches and pastors: Church, if we are racially divided (87% of churches in America are homogenous), how can we heal a racially divided country?

A multi-ethnic local church, fueled by the grace of Jesus, is the ultimate public testimony against racism (Galatians 2:11-21). In reality, a multi-ethnic local church is the future church in the present (Revelation 5:9). Only in close proximity to one another does grace replace racism.

So from God’s standpoint, you, dear Christian, are part of a new race of humanity. You are part of a “new species”—a new humanity (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11; Ephesians 2:15). 

In the eyes of God, the church is nothing more and nothing less than Jesus Christ on earth. It’s a new species that’s kin to divinity; a body to the Son and a family to the Father. Kind of His own kind.

It’s no wonder that the dominating image of the church throughout the New Testament is the family. “Brothers,” “sisters,” “mothers,” “fathers,” “new birth,” etc. populate the Epistles when speaking about the ekklesia of God.

In this hour of clenched fists, God is looking for local communities of His people . . . ekklesias of God . . . made up of Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Jew, Gentile, living out of their true identities as members of the new creation.

A people who will know one another, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

A microcosm of the kingdom of God, where all racial and ethnic divides are erased and Jesus Christ becomes our identity.

A model for this world to see what God’s image looks like in visible form.

A people who will provoke the universe to look with amazement and say, “Behold how they love one another.”

Political solutions will only go so far. Adjustments to our laws will always be limited. Nuances to the justice system won’t do enough.

While all of these things are good and we applaud them, they cannot remove racism from the hearts of fallen mortals.

Only Christ can. And His ekklesia can show it forth . . . visible, tangible, touchable, experiential.

This is the “race card” that the early Christians held in their hands. And it is the heritage of all of God’s people today.

The earth awaits such . . .

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