I did not say much about the horror in Charlottesville over the weekend beyond a few things on Twitter. Many wiser, clearer heads had spoken and were speaking and it made more sense to share their thoughts. After church yesterday, though, I was left with a couple theological meditations on the practices of the church and the issue of race. They are small and incomplete, and yet I offer them such as they are.

The Lord’s Prayer

Jesus left us a prayer and it’s one my church prays every Sunday. We ask God our Father that he hallow his name–set it apart as Holy and unique–among us and in all the world. We expand on this by asking him that his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. To ask God for his kingdom to come is to pray for many things, but central among them is the gift of justice. To know God as Holy is know God as the just in all his judgments (Rev. 16:5).

What’s more, this prayer is a self-involving prayer. Praying the Lord’s Prayer cultivates in us a desire, a longing, to see the justice of our God done here and now in this world. We make these petitions of God recognizing that if justice is to come in this world, however much is possible before Christ’s final advent in justice, it is only and ultimately by his hand and will.

And yet, God’s hand works in and through us. God involves his children. Working for justice is not opposed to trusting in the Lord for justice. We do not bring the kingdom of God, but we work for it nonetheless, and trust God to give the growth (1 Cor. 3). And this is true of our work to oppose the works of darkness in our hearts and communities, including racism, and in this country, the lasting legacy of white supremacy.

One more point. In the second half of the prayer, we also pray for God’s provision (“our daily bread”), protection (“keep us from the evil One”), and transforming grace (“forgive us as we forgive”). All of these are essential.

We work in God’s strength. What’s more, we need to recognize that we work against opposition. Not primarily the flesh and blood racists we can see, though, but against the principalities and powers which stand behind them, blinding the hearts and minds of those under their thrall (Eph. 6). So we pray. And we remember to forgive as God has forgiven us our own sins. It is in that forgiveness we hope that just as God transformed our stony hearts, he might transform theirs as well as we witness to the Gospel of Jesus.

It is only as the Church depends on God’s provision, protection, and transforming grace that our work for justice can be the kind which demonstrates the Name of our Father.

The Lord’s Supper

We also celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week. As one body we share one loaf and one cup with our one Lord through whom our one Father feeds us in the one Spirit we share. In it we hear the promises of the one Gospel. One Supper flows from one Gospel. This one Gospel is the good news of our one Savior, Jesus Christ, who is the Son become man by taking on our one humanity, putting it to death, and raising it to new life again in his resurrection. And it is this one humanity that is made in the Image of our one God.

It is precisely this oneness that any doctrine of racial supremacy and superiority violates. For that reason, I do not think it wrong to speak of such teachings such as white supremacy, not merely as sin, but as damnable heresy. It violates so many doctrines in the faith and practice of the Church, there is simply no gospel left on the other side of it.

The Supper stands, then, as testimony that now there is neither Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, black or white, but all are one in Christ who redeems and restores the original unity of humanity in a higher register. To practice the Lord’s Supper is to tacitly condemn the sin and unrighteousness of racial exaltation or subjugation. A racially-divided Supper is no Supper at all.

And yet the beauty of the Supper is that it is not primarily condemnation. It also stands as a witness to the gospel. It is an invitation out of these divisions into the unity of the body, into the family of God who share the feast of the Father’s forgiveness. Here in the Supper we begin to taste the justice and reconciliation of our God.

Of course, for people to hear the invitation out of sin and into life, it must be articulated as such. Which means sin, including racism, must be named as sin. This will take courage and wisdom. But then, so do most of the Christian life and ministry. Our God is faithful, though. He will direct the path of those who call on him and strengthen the voices of those who cry to him for aid. His Kingdom shall come, his Will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven. For all his children.

Soli Deo Gloria