Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace member Bob Reichman

Galatians 3:1-9; 23-29

Let’s face it. Most of us are more comfortable around people who feel similar to us. It’s a challenge to reach out to those who differ from us in gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnic background, urban/suburban/rural life, age, religion, politics, education, economic class and even, researchers have told us, IQ. Birds of a feather, right?

That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Who doesn’t want to be able to talk to friends in shorthand based on shared experiences or have our views reinforced by those we interact with? Just today, a friend of mine emailed me regarding the Twins, saying he knows as a longtime Minnesota sports fan that everything will work out. Because of our painful shared experiences, I didn’t have to wonder if that was sarcasm.

I like sitting around talking politics with those who agree with me. Not so much with those who don’t.

In a room full of people, I gravitate toward those I know or I feel I have a lot in common with. But there are times when we should make an effort to connect, face to face, with people who disagree with us or who we struggle to communicate with because they feel too different. That’s not always easy, and I don’t think we should feel guilty about that because God doesn’t expect perfection from us, fortunately.

But that doesn’t mean God isn’t disappointed in us sometimes because of our thickheadedness about how much we all share and what we’re missing by only seeking out those most similar to us and avoiding others or seeing them as less worthy.

As George Harrison sang, “Some things take so long, but how do I explain when not too many people can see we’re all the same? And because of all their tears their eyes can’t hope to see the beauty that surrounds them. Isn’t it a pity?”

“In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,” Paul writes in Galatians, amid chastising those who don’t get that it’s not about perfectly following the works of the law. A bit later, he writes, it seems to me, with less finger-wagging and more encouragement, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

How we apply those words in our lives is truly an unfinished story.

Yes, we can spend most of our time with those similar to us. But if we do it’s important to remember that there are lots of other people in this nation and this world, and that God made all of them and loves all of them, and God expects us to as well. 

Loving God, help us to share your love for the world and everyone in it, even as we recognize that, like everything else, we’re not very good at it but you love us anyway.