In our church, there’s a very popular, cute high-school couple who have it all. She’s beautiful, with dark hair and brown eyes with the slightest tinge of green. She does well in school and is making plans to go to college. Her father is one of the head deacons, chairs an adult Sunday School department, and is one of the pastor’s confidantes. Her mom, who is equally as beautiful as her daughter, sings in the choir and heads a youth group, who love her dearly.

He’s tall, slender, sandy-haired, athletic and is also making college plans. He has the kind of quiet, easy-going “aw-shucks” personality of Jimmy Stewart. His family are also stalwarts of the church and are very proud of him and his girlfriend.

So what’s unusual? She’s black and he’s white. And no one cares.

Actually, that’s not so unusual at all. Despite Howard Dean’s rants, the church is one of the most racially-mixed institutions in society. God has repeatedly told us that we are alll his children and that he is no respector of persons. The Book of Acts tells us that God convicted Peter of his racism in a vision and told him to accept Gentiles. “Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35 listen). Paul wrote that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 listen). God made us and he made the color of our skins, and he’s happy with his work.

I remember being taught as a child how Moses’s sister, Miriam, was punished for her racism. When the first wife of Moses died, he married a woman from Cush. Cush is present-day Ethiopia. In other words, Moses married a black woman.

RACISM
“Isn’t that just like God! Miriam was angry because Moses married a black woman so God made Miriam really, really white.”

The Bible tells us that “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.” (Numbers 12:1). God was angry and turned Miriam white “like snow” with leprosy. (Numbers 12:4-10).

Isn’t that just like God! Miriam was angry because Moses married a black woman so God made Miriam really, really white. And because her whiteness was due to leprosy, she would be shunned by others just as she had shunned Moses’s wife.

Moses had compassion on Miriam and asked God — the author of compassion — to restore Miriam’s health. God did so, and his mercy is a lesson to all of us today.

At the foot of the cross there is no color save the scarlet blood of Jesus that was shed for our sins. Jesus experienced rejection when he was here on earth. He suffered then and he suffers with us still when others hate us because they’re of a different color or culture. We in the church have to be leaders when it comes to making our society truly color-blind.