November 2013 – Pr. Eric’s Letter

Dear fellow chosen ones,

Last month we focused on the adjective/noun combination of royal priesthood that is one way to express our identity as Christians. This month we look at another, chosen race.

Sometimes you fill out a form that asks for your race and you can check the box that says Caucasian or His-panic or Oriental or whatever. The word race refers to a group of people that have certain similarities or a common ancestor. Often the similarities have to do with skin tone and/or physical features. Sometimes we even think of particular personality traits. The people of Madagascar have a beautiful brown skin tone. They liked to say that when God made human beings the first batch got a little burned and the second batch was not quite done, but the third batch came out just right and God put them on the Island of Madagascar. There is no question that throughout the history of the world we humans have used racial differences to divide and control and do terrible things to one another. So, sometimes instead of checking the box some people write “human race” on the form.

In the Old Testament, the people of Israel are the chosen race. They came from the common ancestor Abra-ham and God chose to work in a particular way with them. In the New Testament people who are baptized and now live in faith and make up the church are grafted into Abraham’s family tree. And so we are now part of the Israelite race even though we look like we belong somewhere else like Norway or Germany. What that means for us is that as God blessed Abraham and his descendants in order that they could be a blessing to the world, God blesses us that we can be a blessing to the world. This means that the questions we should ask be-fore we make any decision in the church is this: How can we be a blessing to the world? And, Will this be a blessing for the world? And, Who will this bless? As individual followers of Christ, these are the questions that should hover around in our minds and float around in our houses and hang around where we work and ride around in our cars and tractors and shopping carts and pop out of our wallets and purses.

For sure, The Circle of Faith Parish makes each of its individual congregations stronger in terms of survival, which is a blessing in itself. But, it is much more than that. The Circle of Faith Parish was actually created as an answer to the question, How can we be more of a blessing to the world? By sharing and working together more we can receive more and have more to give. By making us non-Israelites a part of the chosen race, God has made a move toward creating a “race” of people that is not ‘racial’ in human terms (similar skin tone and physical characteristics) but in terms of similar attitudes and goals. A people set apart, “chosen”, by God in baptism to be a blessing to the world. A people with many differences. A variety of beautiful people of every color and with every kind of physical characteristic. A people who belong to different congregations, who live in different townships but all have the same goal: giving glory to God by being a blessing to the world. A chosen multi-racial race. That’s us!

Eric