Remembering MLK -- and honoring the example of our Lord!

Today, we honor Martin Luther King, who fought for equality among the races of man. That it had to be so hard-fought -- that we still fight the battle on many fronts today -- tells us something about our culture. Perhaps we are not so pure, so upright, as we like to believe. 

To put it bluntly, you can't be a Christian and hold one person in higher or lower regard because of his or her skin color. God didn't create His children in a melanin-based hierarchy. This isn't even, for most of us, a new lesson. We learned it in Sunday school:

"Red and Yellow, Black and White, They are precious in His sight." This isn't just a fun verse, but a profound statement about the truth of the Gospel. God's love is for each of His creation. Man -- all Man -- was created in His image. 

Adam and Eve were probably not Caucasian. Jesus certainly was not.

In fact, Ephesian 6:9 reminds us that, even where there was a slave-master relationship, God Himself sees no difference from one man to another:

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

Equality isn't just about race. It's about money and privilege, too. Man may care about these things: who has the most money, the most toys, the most power over other men. God sees only two distinctions: those who are His children, and those He still wants to bring to Himself.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Unfortunately, even among those of us with the best intentions, we have a culture that demands, one way or another, we pay attention to race. That we give deference, one way or another, based upon the amount of melanin in somebody's skin. Martin Luther King's dream was that one day all men would be based "not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character." How often we fall short!

In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus tells a story of a man who, though he was hated and looked down upon by even the religious of the day, was an honorable person. With this story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus was explaining not merely that we ought to take care of strangers, but that our neighbors -- those we are to love just as much as we love ourselves -- could be and are every single person. Even those our cultures teach us to hate.

The great thing about Jesus is that His love transcends culture. His command, implied in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and in His words about love and grace and mercy, and in His further command to "Go and make disciples of all nations," is that we do the same.