Matt Chandler - Racial Reconciliation

If you have your Bibles, would you go ahead and grab them? Let’s go to Acts chapter 10. We’ve been here for quite a while; in fact, I’ve tried to use this language in particular because I find it to be most helpful. The meaning of the word «gospel» is good news, and for news to be good, it must invade dark spaces. What I mean by this is that, for something to be good news, there has to be a chance for something bad to occur or the reality of something bad that’s already in place. Good news invades the dark spaces, good news invades the bad spaces, and sheds light where there isn’t any at all. This is the nature of the gospel; it is what it does on a thousand different topics. What the gospel does is invade brokenness, mistrust, anger, unforgiveness, hate, and the fracturing of relationships, entering into that brokenness and reconciling it. Now, this morning, I want to do something I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone else do, which is to talk bluntly and straightforwardly about race. You may feel that discomfort and awkwardness; it’s going to get worse because I know some of you might be thinking, «When I’m sitting next to a Black person, do I do this, Chandler? I don’t even know what to do right now.» I see you; you see African Americans and think, «Are we allowed to do this?» I’m telling you we are allowed to do it. I’ve been a pastor here for going on eleven years, and let me tell you, when you start to talk about race, especially racism in particular, you have to tease out some things. I think there are people who are outright racist, and then there are people who are just ignorant. Not to say that racist people aren’t ignorant; I’m saying there are those who are racist but aren’t quite sure why they are or where it came from. They’ve been poorly discipled and it’s not in their heart; they just haven’t been informed.

So let me flesh this out in a way that I think is helpful. I met a man here years ago. By the way, neither of these families attend the village anymore, so if you’re thinking, «I’ll never tell him anything ever, ” don’t worry. He told me that he would never let his daughter marry a Black man, and if she did, they would not be welcomed in their home. I thought, „I’m watching a civil rights movie right here; are you the protagonist, or are you seriously just saying that out loud?“ That’s blatant racism, right? But that’s not all; bless his heart, he’s a buffoon. However, there’s a subtle form that honestly requires you to not just rebuke outright but to encourage and correct. About three years after I became the pastor of the Village, I was sitting on the front row over at the HV campus after the service had concluded, when a man walked up to me and sat down next to me. He said, „Hey man, I love it here! I’m really thinking about joining this church, but I’ve got a question.“ At that time, we were shifting all sorts of things, and so I had no idea what question I was about to get. His question was, „I love your preaching and the worship here, but I don’t know what to tell my kids about all these interracial couples.“ I thought, „What do you mean?“ because I honestly didn’t know what he meant. He said, „Well, doesn’t the Bible say, 'Come out from them and be separate'?“ Now listen, he’s quoting Moses, telling the people of Israel as they head into Canaan that they are not to intermarry with the Canaanites who worshiped and served pagan gods. Someone in this poor man’s trajectory had sat him down, opened the Word of God, read that verse, and said, „This verse means this.“ For our brother who’s not going to let his white daughter marry a Black man, I got to rebuke him. For our brother who wants to know what to do about these interracial couples, I simply took him to where we’ll go here shortly, Ephesians chapter 2, and showed him the beauty in it. This is what you tell your kids: Jesus Christ has broken down the wall of hostility, has restored and established peace, and there is now one race, not two. That’s what you tell your kids, and you rejoice in that, right?

So, do you see what I’m saying? There’s definitely racism in this room, and it’s not all Anglo. The reality is, the gospel enters this tension. How do we approach this? How do we talk about this type of nonsense? It settles the soul, it settles the ground, and it gives us the opportunity to reflect more perfectly what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Let me establish just a couple of things. Before that, let me lay my cards on the table. I think, in some ways, this is a simple issue; in other ways, it’s an extremely complex issue. So, this isn’t just about skin color because, within groupings of skin color, there’s racism, right? And that’s kind of blowing your mind? I’ll unpack it from the Anglo side of things: you’ve got your white-collar boys and your rednecks, alright?