Before I really get started, can I just make a few disclaimers? I grew up in the churched South, but even though the majority of my life has been in the South, I wasn’t born and bred in the South, and since my mom’s family was from the North, I’m not sure whether or not I was actually raised Southern, even though I was raised in the South.
I grew up eating Cream of Wheat instead of grits, and if you cut me, I won’t bleed sweet tea. But I love the South and the way of life here. I believe the ACC and the SEC are the best conferences around and I can’t imagine life anywhere else than where I am. In fact, there isn’t much that I’d want to change about the South other than getting a whole lot more snow in the winter.
As for the churched part, I was practically born in church. Over the years, I’ve grown to love the heritage that my parents gave me, but I’ve also come to see that a lot of what happens in the Bible Belt reveals that the belt is firmly around Satan’s waist, and that’s one reason why the people who need the message of the church the most are the ones who reject it the loudest. The worst part of that reality is that the church in America has earned it.
[Tweet “A lot of what happens in the Bible Belt reveals that the belt is firmly around Satan’s waist.”]All that to say that when it comes to the culture wars between the church and the world around her, I sometimes feel a bit out of place, and nothing has made me feel as torn as the flag issues of the last week, both Confederate and Rainbow.
I’ve got friends on both sides of these issues, and sometimes I feel like a man caught in the middle. I’ve got family with deep Southern roots and family who think the South is nothing more than rednecks, fast cars and card-carrying lunatics. I’ve got friends who are to the moon and back about the ruling by the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage a constitutional right and I’ve got friends who are genuinely heart-broken for a nation that seems to be losing its way. Throw Jesus in the mix and things can get even more complicated, because I know people on all these sides who love Jesus as passionately and genuinely as I do.
As I said to The B99 earlier, the world is changing in real-time right in front of our very eyes, and while I understand the angst that many in the church feel right now, I can’t think of a better time to be a follower of Jesus, and I believe this is the time for the true banner of the church to fly higher than it ever has before.
One “rebel” flag falls while another “rebel” flag rises, but the only flag that matters to rebels everywhere is the one Jesus raised at the cross, and I believe this is an amazing time to carry it. Let me tell you why.
[Tweet “The only flag that matters to rebels is the one Jesus raised at the cross, and we get to carry it.”]Our country is divided, maybe now more than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The fact that a major ruling was passed with just over 50% approval by the highest court in the land proves that. Any post on any social media today about either of these issues will get you celebrated and vilified simultaneously, often by groups of people you’d never have expected it from.
One says heritage, another says hate. One says equality, another says abomination.
But everybody is missing the point. If these flags have become the rallying cry, then all of us have missed the message that God raised at the cross: all have sinned and fallen short of his glory. In fact, the message of the cross is a message of equality: it highlights our sin and God’s sacrifice equally!
[Tweet “The message of the cross is equality: it highlights our sin and God’s sacrifice equally.”]I read recently a quote attributed to a famous preacher that went something like this: “The essence of the gospel is acceptance.”
But it isn’t. The essence of the gospel is reconciliation. If the essence of the gospel was acceptance, there would have been no need for the cross because the very God behind the gospel would have simply accepted us and our sin.
But he didn’t. Instead, he paid for it, and he did that so that the gaps between us and him and us and each other could be closed. I love how the apostle Paul wrote it in Ephesians:
His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. (2:15-18)
Understand that those words were written to followers of Jesus living in the 4th most powerful city in the world at the time they read it. A city full of more division and sin than anything America has experienced to this point. Paul didn’t point to the flags of opposing camps at war with one another. Instead, he pointed to the cross and reminded everyone that no matter where they were in relation to one another, none of them were where they needed to be in relation to God.
And this is the message the church has the opportunity to carry now more than ever. Not a message of rights, but a message of reconciliation, because that is the one message that sets followers of Jesus apart from everyone else.
We can talk all day long about rights, but if we live under the banner of the cross, we’re reminded daily that what we consider right is probably just varying shades of wrong before a holy God who paid a high price to make us righteous.
To my friends from the South: I’m with you on the heritage thing, and I totally understand that much of what is said about the Confederate Flag is the result of others misunderstanding the history behind it. But when my heritage reminds others of their nightmare, it’s probably time for me to wake up.
[Tweet “When my heritage reminds others of their nightmare, it’s probably time for me to wake up.”]And to all the people on opposing sides of an issue that has forever changed the way many people will see rainbows: God is clear on the issue of sin, and no matter which side you and I may stand on, we both stand on the same side of the cross – the side that pours grace out on sinners.
[Tweet “All of us stand on the same side of the cross: the side that pours grace out on sinners.”]So, how do followers of Jesus follow him now? We declare his reconciliation more than we demand our rights. We speak up for the victims of racism and prejudice and point them with a humble hand toward a God whose truth condemned all of us and yet whose mercy took our place so that we could find forgiveness and reconciliation at the cross.
And in an act of total surrender, we lower our flags in order to raise his.
