From Acts 17, the 26th, and excerpts of 26th and 27th verses. God have made of one blood all nations of men that they should seek the Lord. No more explosive thing can be attempted in our day, with the possible exception of admonishing Christians to love the atheistic Communist. That's still part of our problem. But there is no more explosive theme than the one I have chosen. Maybe that exception. Race relations under God. I speak from the pulpit of a church of the Lord Jesus Christ who told the parable of the Good Samaritan read this morning. The man who bought Jesus Christ is reported to have been a Negro. Philip, an early missionary on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Led the Ethiopian eunuch colored man to accept Christ as Lord of life. Clement. Origin Athanasius. Other great names in the history of the church without which the church could not have come to this day. These men were from Africa, some of them of dubious color, from some of our standards. The infant church was nearly strangled by the choking struggle of the duo to keep the gospel from the unclean gentile. This is the origin of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul had to trumpet to the Galatians in the third chapter, or as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither you nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. We of the superior races, in quotation marks, should realize today that we are a minority group out of the over 2 billion population on the face of the earth. There are only about three quarters of a billion were white. We're the minority. By 1970, instead of it being 2 to 1, it's going to be 3 to 1 according to the best international polls, 3 to 1. Colored and white. This world is no place for the sentimentalist, nor for the cynic. We have just begun to grapple with this problem. All of one blood. There must be realism in a Christian's thinking about race relations under God. Sometimes there isn't. We certainly are aware that the roots of race relations, certainly the motivating forces are hate and fear and pride and sin. This is not news to us. And yet we brushed aside some time and seek for specific causes in order to allay our uneasiness and fear. There are gang fights in Tucson. They're going on every once in a while. It isn't just the police fault or the teachers fault or the parents fault. This is a real thing that goes on. They usually are down along racial lines. There's a possibility of your child coming off from school with a bicycle chain having taken out his eye in a very difficult, very hate filled teenage encounter. It can happen. I've been to dances in Tucson where four squad cars had to be called in order to get one boy out safely. He was Negro. Spectacle in the world, on university campuses, on cooperative farms, Little farm in south Georgia right now called Koinonia. New Testament word in Greek for fellowship, where Christians have simply shared their farm life together. Getting in nobody's here just about has been wiped off the map by all kinds of subtle pressure. Because of hate and suspicion in the surrounding community. Check, if you will, on the history of Providence Farm in one of our southern states. No. If I talk like this, some of you who come from the South are going to have all of your feelings out where they can be immediately damaged. And I wish to immediately put this in context. This has nothing to do specifically with just the Southerner, nor even the Negro, because you see, if you are a Japanese on the West Coast, you're in the same boat. If you're a mexican in Texas, you've had it. If you're a Puerto Rican or a Jew in New York, be aware. If you're a Negro, not only in the South, but in our northern large city, if you're an Indian in Arizona. Hate about it. I started to give you a picture of some of the incidents that fill our life in America today of grim faces watching people, young people, try to get an education together on an equal basis. The thread hanging over their little heads, parents alike. This is happening in our day. There's a hatred in the air you can cut. When children started back to school or were thinking about registering in South Carolina, I was back. You didn't have to be psychic to sense what was going on. I have sense the same thing in New York City on the East side, 122nd Street. Hate's a terrible thing. The godless, somewhere along the line have to live by hate. At least a bit of it, for they know not the God of love. And then there's fear. Fear that intrudes into the heart. Not only of the of the would be good citizen, but of the Christian. Maybe because his position is threatened. Oh, I've seen that. We feel that somehow the minority groups forgetting that worldwide we're the minority. But these minority groups are going to move in on us and give us a bad time. I've never heard it discussed in terms of what if the good side of town was all colored and all the best residences were in that kind of context. And you and me, we had to live in the poorer side of town and we couldn't move to the nice residential area because we were white. We ever thought in those terms. I've heard people say, well, it's a terrible problem. I fear for my daughter's safety, she'll be raped. I've heard very few people talk about the young colored girls who bring white children into the world, not just because they're loose in morals, but because they were prey. No, this is no simple problem. For one, fear gets a hold of us or our sense of values gets distorted because we've wondered from Christ. To be more realistic, we're in trouble. And what panics me as a Christian minister is that people are constantly saying, Mr. Shalom. But you see, you don't realize the intricacies of our society, why real estate values will be disturbed. Well, this thing goes on certainly. Well. Some of my friends need to realize that the value of real estate isn't nearly as high as the value of a human soul. And I'm in I'm involving in that the soul of the man who is afraid his property will deteriorate. We would love Jesus Christ. There is no East or West. But, Lord, I'm afraid my property isn't going to be valuable in the. Prime. This is the root of sin. Have I ever made that plain from this pulpit before? And yet there will be people sitting in this congregation today who will say to themselves, Hmm, I can I can hear the sniff and the noise going into the air. Well, that's all very well for you to talk that way. You just don't understand. I am not going to. And you can finish proud. You're me first. This is the essence of sin. Let me ask you, Christian or not. Hate, fear, pride. The enemies of Christ will not be the very things he came to destroy, and yet motivated by the we Christians alone monstrosities to start their. With never fear or protest. Are we really crisis? One of the things I do not wish to do is to exaggerate. This is very easy for a minister to do. He's trained in trying to dramatize to his people the urgencies of the gospel, and sometimes he may tend to overdramatize. That's not my purpose. I do not wish to give you people passages which will shock you to the depths. If you're not intelligent enough to get the story. I can't do you much good with Technicolor. Harold look out or head for luck? Access. There's a little village in Kelburn, England, where you can find a roll of trees, which Gilbert Hoyt, the author of The Natural History of Kelburn, planted around the parsonage. The reason they were planted there is to shut out the view of the slaughterhouse across the way. The parsonage hedged off from the brutalities and cruelties of civilization. It happens to nice folk sometimes where Christians gather and they pull up their skirts very close about themselves and say, you know, I wish I wish you wouldn't be so unpleasant about things. This in the name of Jesus Christ. I call you not only to realism in examining race relations under God, but to repentance as an individual. Know this, my friend. Worship of race, be it white or any other kind, cannot take the place of the worship of God, nor can it stand side by side with the worship of God, not the garden Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the long run, that kind of worship is self worship, and this cannot happen in the heart of man without him disqualifying himself from being Christian. You cannot serve two masters. All the arguments for the pure race, which some of you can give me. I have read this week eloquently put in a book which I happened to pick up, and the name of that book is Mine. Come. Written by Adolf Hitler. The ethnologist looks in vain for pure races across the face of the earth. And you do it all in order to buttress our own way of talking, our own standing in the world. Try to say, Oh, Sean, you're going to marry. Prize the race. I don't know if you know it or not, but if it's a question of blood you're worrying about that happen in World War Two. There was no segregation of blood banks, and some of you were walking around with Negro blood in you, and you just can't help it. They say, well, this has nothing to do. Well, I know the technicalities of it, but we've become stupid and we can read Mein Kampf and laugh. But will future generations look to us who say we walk in the name of Jesus Christ? And can they honestly say we really were sincere? It's just a call to repentance. I can put it in no other terms. For the individual. Have you ever heard of Eugene Debs? The very young people. This will be a strange name. But to most of you. Great Labor leader who some cases would have questionable political and social philosophies and opinions in the eyes of many here, I'm sure. But once Eugene Debs was in prison, he was going around and the warden said, There's a man here who's in desperate trouble. He's a murderer. He's on murderer's row. Great big hulk of a man had been stricken that he was at the point of dying before his time appointed time, that is. And so Eugene Debs, great man that I think he was stepped into the cell with his man. The man was there moaning and asking for his mother. Eugene. Eugene. I reached out to him and gathered that big Hulk about him with his arms and held him close and began to to move him back and forth just a little bit. And he began to sing the Song of the South, which he would recognize. Swing low, sweet Chariot. And they came to take him home. And as these men, wealthy men, men of promise of prominence, men of differing political opinions, the guards there and everyone saw that moment dramatized for them. They're in murderer's row. The differences somehow that had been in their minds before that incident were melted away. And they were one. Because of the love of Eugene Debs. Isn't this what the world has a right to expect of the Christian? We as a nation have to repent. The whole world is watching us from the corner of their eye to see what we're going to do as a nation, unfortunately. We are called a Christian nation abroad, though we are not really at heart. People expect us to be Christian. And since most of the world is not of our human color, they are wondering how we are reacting. And unless some changes are made, the Soviet Union, with its philosophy, will continue to make capital. It's a strange way to put it for communists, but they will make capital of our sin as a nation. We have to repent as a church. In Harper's Magazine In the late 1955, there was an article called The Church Repents. It called in that article. The church the most. It said this about the most segregated institution in America is beginning to open its doors. Is that true? Yeah. The most segregated. Why? Partly because we're volunteers. There are no conscripts here. You can choose your church. You can't choose sometimes where you work or where you go to school. And in the choosing, the cheapness in its show. I believe we could have people of other hues in this church if they were to feel welcome. But the burden is upon us. We in the Presbyterian Church USA talk a great deal about a desegregated church in a desegregated society. It's been our motto for years. But we are a long way from fulfillment. Incidentally, the National Council of Churches asked several hundred leaders of racially inclusive churches how many people had left the churches rather than to worship side by side with Negroes, with people of other color. And out of 237,000 members, only 26 had left for that reason. Maybe what we need is to get busy. We won't lose nearly as many as we thought. Maybe the repentance is already afoot. Listen, you Protestants. May 31st, 1953, Roman Catholic bishop by the name of Walters, ran into an incident in Newton Grove, North Carolina. He saw two little churches side by side, one for whites and one for Negroes. And he says, Look, as of this time, it's going to be one church. And when 29 people showed up to both churches, they met together for Mass. And there was almost an incident. Two priests that were behind the bishop almost. They were knocked around and and manhandled. And the bishop went on back to Raleigh and prayed. And eventually this is the letter that came out and said, I am not unmindful as a Southerner of the force of this virus of prejudice. I know, however, that there is a cure for this virus, and that is our fate as pastor of your souls. I am happy to take the responsibility for any evil which might result from different races worshiping God together. But I would be unwilling to take the responsibility of those who refuse to worship God with a person of another race. A Protestant bishop or pastor can't send out a letter like this. Nobody pays any attention to them. You see, we have to lead. We can't tell that that's as we wanted. But I, as a Protestant minister, take my hat off to the response this bishop has had in North Carolina. And he has lighted fires that will continue to rage across the South for the good of God's kingdom. Ministerial Association of Asheville and Buncombe County, said There are two groups there, one colored, one white. So they said, We this has got to stop. So they met together. Everybody said it wouldn't work, but they met together. And guess who they elected? Mr. Enable me. The Negro President. All the repentance has started. I don't know where you are at this point, but I forgot to read to you the the assurance of pardon earlier in the service. I want to read it now. Almighty God who does freely pardoned all who repented, turn to him now, fulfill in every contrite heart the promise of redeeming grace remitting all our sins, cleansing us from an evil conscience through the perfect sacrifice of Christ, Jesus, our Lord. Realism, repentance, re dedication. So, Mr. Shawn, I don't live in Raleigh, North Carolina, or in Asheville. I just happen to have been in the not lived in North Carolina as a boy for a while. And so I know more about that area, probably pay more attention to it. But I live in Tucson. What can I do for Christ in this? Jesus said to the man who ask him all this go out and do in response to the Good Samaritan. Well, as an individual, you've got to treat all people as individuals and not stereotypes. To look at the man on his own merits and not because he happens to have come from a particular racial grouping. We as Christians are duty bound under God to look at our fellow man through the eyes of God, man, look at on the outward appearance. But God looks on the heart. We are to love as we have been loved. And God is not a white man. As a family person, the little disparaging remark about the Jew or the Negro said in a moment of anger or displeasure of any off beat moment when things come out that are underneath this is what influences children, the long sermons and the pious phrases. This makes no impact at all. Are you guilty? Well, let's I am calling for rededication to not do that sort of thing. The attitude is not to be conveyed in a family unit that has tremendous prestige as a church member. If anyone sat near you of a different hue and color, would you be the one to go over and say so? Glad to have you worship with us this morning. You say, Well, treat them like anybody else. If there hadn't been this pattern of horror in the past, I would say yes. But because we send an extra effort. Anybody live near you who might be able to find Jesus Christ in our fellowship? Maybe they aren't the same color. Would they fit? I think they would. A lot of you are aware of this sort of problem and are praying about it and are working on it. We ought to go into some creative techniques. For instance, a minister in New Jersey thought he was going to do something with a specific problem. There was a movie house downtown where the white people sat downstairs and the colored people set upstairs. But he one day showed up with a colored friend. He was a clergyman and his colored friend was a clergyman. And there were two ladies with them and they all bought tickets and went downstairs and all sat together. There was the usual buzzing at the back of the building, but no one ever came up and said a word. The next day an editorial came out in leading newspaper commending the the movie House for abolishing their policy of segregation. Letters were written to the paper. These were rare. The whole community responded. What would you do if you were a manager of theater like that? Would you deny it? I'm not sure this is the technique to use in every instance, but this kind of creativity comes out of the mind of Christ when you are as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Jesus is a citizen. Support legislation to reduce discrimination. I say support it, and I believe I've thought this thing through as well as I can. And the amount of years I've lived for. I have lived in the South and in the north. In the east, in the west. I believe this is no off the cuff statement. We say should we legislate all at once? Good grief, let's not lose all our buttons. Let's continue to be sane. But let's, for God's sake, not weasel out. Well, that's what some of us have done. Self-interest still has to be pointed out. You've got to tell people that if we don't do it, the Russians are before long. Why? Maybe they're going to get the majority behind them. Just remember this Public transportation, entertainment and schools equality at those points is not enough. Somebody, somewhere has got to find a brother, someone who cares about him, who loves Christian. Love is the only real answer that satisfies you. And I come and talk about this love and then go on home and fall back into a pattern set by the cruel, loveless arbiter of the past who may have professed faith in Christ but who did not live it. In conclusion, after a realism, repentance and rededication, I dream that agreed admixture of humans from all kinds of strains gathered in a huge room. Each struggled to keep his skirts untouched by those who were different around him. Suddenly, into this mass of people stepped the Lord Christ. Could we think of his nail pierced hands, pausing before touching us in blessing to first group us into whites and yellow and red and black. It's never. For our children would join hands about his feet and sing happily to him and for him without ever thinking whose hand they held in terms of race or origin. God made of one blood all nation. This God in Christ won't let us get away with it. Reinhold Niebuhr says this is the one thing the church faces in our generation. We face up to it or we will flunk out right down the line. Thus, end of the lesson. Are you a good Samaritan? These people are beaten and bruised. We did it. Or our cohorts did. Let us bow in prayer. Heavenly Father. We would ask repentance and new life from thy hand. So that the sins which haunt us in our best moments would be behind the eye, back away from our side, that we might be agents of thy love in this most difficult day. Help us to be as sensitive to all problems as we possibly can be. But, Lord, help us not to be cowardly. Help us to be realistic. But help us to be rededicated. Help us again to look at people through the eyes of our Savior. And then our pride will melt. Our hate will go. Our fear will vanish. Here are prayer. Be with us as we go out to serve the. In this Tucson, Arizona. To see our brethren for whom Christ died and to live with them as he would have us live. Amen. Last week I said that you were free to give whatever you like in the offering, and we dropped $2,000 in one week. I guess I used the wrong word. Now we cannot do our job and this is one of our jobs. The theme I've spoken to this morning is one of the things the church is grappling with. This is your agent to get the job done. This is one way you have of serving Christ. Let's not do it with nickels and dimes, but let's serve him from the heart. May God bless you as you give generously. The words my mouth and a meditation of our hearts be acceptable in the sight of God. Our strength. This series of sermons, Life under God was First Nation under God, Race relations under God. Pursuit of money. We live in a business man society, or so we're told. Understandable if the rest of us who do not bother to think through the issues involved in the ways of doing things and goals and objectives of the businessmen. If we don't follow through, we may just absorb them because they permeate the life of our nation. I'm not passing judgment at this point. Whether or not this is a good thing. Whether this morning I am seeking to. Bring to our attention. Some of the statements and situations in the New Testament especially. The Gospel of Luke. You may have to, which may have some bearing on this idea. What direction do you think you're going in? Do you believe your goals are, especially when it comes to this business of being after the buck or the American dollar? It is who says, if you read this, you cannot read that. In other words, there's just so much time, there's just so much opportunity there, just certain strictures you must abide by. Luke, 1613, says you cannot serve God and Mammon. You can't serve God and money at the same time. This poses a problem because most people say, well, now Jesus didn't have very much money. His disciples were all fairly poor. They were not, by the way, the poverty stricken. Of the land, but they were more or less just a little bit above the poverty stricken. They had some goods and these they had to forsake to follow Christ in his itinerant ministry of his day. This is not, however, the structure which Christ has in mind for all of us. And it takes some thinking and some caring and some study. Find out where we stand in this pursuit of money and God. Listen to the abortion from the seventh chapter of Luke. One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisees house and set a table with all the women of the city. Was a sinner when she learned that he was sitting at a table in the Pharisees house. Brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, If this man were poor, but he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who's touching him or she's a sinner. Peter's answering said to him, Simon. I have something to say to you? The answer is what is a teacher? Certain creditor had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii, the other 51. They could not pay. He forgave them both. Now, which of them will love him more? I'm an answer to what I suppose to whom we forgave more. He said to him, You judged rightly. And turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, See this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet. She's what? My feet with her tears wiped with her hair. Gave me no kiss, which was the Oriental greeting. From the time I came in. She has not since ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil. But she has anointed my feet with ointment. Before I tell you, her sins, which are many are forgiven for she loved much. But he who? Forgiving little love little. We said to her. Your sins. You forgive. Pretty safe to go in peace. This to me is a very beautiful story. Demonstrates, I believe, the attitude the Christian must have in this world of ours today. God in Christ has accepted us with all our foibles and sins and shortcomings when we ask Him to. He has forgiven us if we accept forgiveness. Well, there is no forgiveness, really, in terms of reestablished relationships without an acceptance. Times this is overlooked. And because we have been accepted and forgiven as Christian. All we are. All we have. All we hope to be or possess. Should be in the hands of Almighty God as a precious. In the Gospel of Matthew and Mark. There's another reference here to the sort of thing, that same kind of incident. And the disciples at that point, especially Judas, we all know how he turned out. I worry that this alabaster flask does this, which is very costly, had not been sold and consequently used eventually that money for the good of the poor. A logical question. We still say this at times in various segments of our church life. Why did this have to cost this much? And it's a necessary question. But to the Christian. All that passes through his hands because of what God has done for him. Should, in effect, be at God's disposal. Well, now I get the point. He was making its budget so and has got himself a certain. All this is not the case. Well, the budget isn't made yet. Still got to do some work on that. That is not the purpose for this, sir. One man is complaining about this dilemma, by the way. He said if a man runs after money, he's money mad. If he keeps it, he's a capitalist. If he spends it, he's a playboy. If he doesn't get it, he's a ne'er do well. If he doesn't try to get it, he lacks ambition. And if he accumulates it after a lifetime of hard work, people call him a fool who never got anything out of life. It's a tough proposition. The Christian. Before. God Almighty cannot spend his time pursuing the daughter with no money. Oh God, forgive us for many concept or notion that it's all in the house and it doesn't matter whether we work or not, the Lord will take care of us. For the Bible is a gift. That kind of stupid attitude. You and I would be lost without labor. Unless we could work, we would be pretty nearly useless. Those of you who cannot work any more, look back upon the days when you could with gratitude. Listen, now that you've got the money. What kind of a place does it have? For those of you who are after it. Are you sure that's really what.
