Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher from Ephesus who lived from (roughly) 535 BC to 475 BC. He was a very wise man, and the originator of many quotable quotes among which are:
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
“Time is a game played beautifully by children.” (I really like that one)
“Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny.” (Now there’s a wake-up call if I’ve ever heard one!)
Lastly is a quote that pertains to the message today
Where this matters is that the truth of this statement includes the church and its mission; even to the way we demonstrate our love for God and to fulfill His command to
“Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned.”
Mark 16:15,16
After Jesus’s crucifixion, (The way the new church worshipped God was to go into all the world and proclaim the Good News. Love for the Shepherd was demonstrated by loving the lost. The message was fairly straightforward also. “Your sins are forgiven! Come as you are, bloom in His love!”
Somewhere along the line, the inevitable happened; things changed. Going into all the world was replaced by coming into the “House of God”. Loving the Shepherd by loving the lost was replaced by Loving the Shepherd by loving the other sheep. This seemed to work for a while, but it wasn’t too long before the sheep quit inviting the lost to come into the House to meet the Shepherd, and instead waited at the door to welcome any stray lost souls who might come wandering in. And truth be told, some did wander in, and still do. There is an old saying that “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while!”, and thank God for that or it would be a very lonely house.
To put it another way, that the church and the way the Good News is delivered is not meant to be static, It is not fixed or unchanging. It is already very different than the way it began, but that is not a bad thing, because the world is also quite different from the way it began. Heraclitus was right. The only real constant in this world is that things change.
With these changes in mind, I read a book on missions that approached the mission field somewhat differently. Rather than going in as a total stranger and proclaiming what are sometimes completely foreign ideas to unique and quite varied people and cultures, the book suggested approaching the people through the lens of their particular identity; that is, looking first at who they are and how they got to be that way. This meant that while the Message remained the same, the missionaries would tailor their sharing of it in a way that would make it relevant and clear to the people and culture they were called to.
Desert dwellers in the Sahara had a hard time relating to fish stories. Traders and career soldiers might be challenged trying to identify with stories about farmers. Pacific islanders might just scratch their heads when hearing stories about a nation of people wandering around in a desert for forty years. So the missionaries had to do their homework, familiarize themselves with the people God had called them to, and think up ways to share God’s truth in ways that made sense to their audience. Not only did King and kingdom benefit from this, but the message bearers also became better messengers, and ultimately better people as their horizons expanded and they learned new and better ways to communicate the Good News.
Acts 17:26-27 was what triggered this train of thought in me. It says,
Of one man, Adam, God created all of the races and set them all within their particular lands! God created the races! He made different people different colors, placed them in different lands, with different topography, different weather, different resources! And because of the different conditions, each of the nations developed different cultures, and by that, I mean so different that it defies easy explanation! We’re talking not only different languages, different clothing styles, different ideas of beauty, but also different food, different seasonings, different art, and different music, and different instruments to play that music! From Eskimos to Aborigines, from Samoans to Swedes, the differences are so many that it’s quite staggering. To God be the Glory!
Our country was colonized by various people and nations for various reasons. Early explorers were looking for Gold while the colonizers were looking for freedom to live as they wanted. Most of the early settlers who came to America were from England and the other European countries (Germany, Denmark, and Sweden specifically), and so it might be said that America is built on the foundation of European culture.
But the changes kept coming, as Heraclitus warned us they would. People began to come to America in order to find freedom and an opportunity to live their own lives, rather than living by any ruler's demands. Abraham Lincoln summed up the heart of this nation pretty well in 1863 in his Gettysburg Address where he said,
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
That is equal, not identical. Lincoln understood the truth that “different” did not mean inferior, or superior. He recognized that all men were created equal. This caused Freedom seekers from almost all if not all nations have come to our shores seeking the liberty and equality spoken of in Lincoln’s speech, and for the most part, have not only found it but have even added their unique gifts and cultures to the mix to make it that much better!
We are currently experiencing a time of great unrest in our country. We hear words like “Systemic racism” and “cultural appropriation” by people who can only see the world through a very small lens, rather than through the eyes of God. Cultural appropriation is defined as “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without understanding or respect of the culture.” Instead of enjoying the stew that is America, some people want to deconstruct it, and I guess they can try to do that if that’s what they really want to do, but what is left won’t be the same great stew.
America is something very unique and special in its own right, not despite what everyone has brought to the table, but because of it! God made us all different, and even as God made the different people and set them in their particular locations, He has made America and Americans and I and a lot of other folks think He did a pretty wonderful thing. We are not about appropriating anyone else’s culture. We would rather appreciate them!
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