Do Not Call Me Unclean
“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”– 1 Corinthians 1:10
We All Have StoryNo matter where you are from or how old you are, you have a story. Stories have always been a part of being human and storytelling has been shared in every culture since the very beginning of time. Moses told the story of creation in the book of Genesis through scripture, William Shakespeare told the tragic romance story of Romeo and Juliet through literature, and Lecrae told his own story of redemption through song. According to Donna Hancox of M/C Journal, “Storytelling and oral history are parts of all human societies, and we seek to understand ourselves and each other through our stories.” Therefore, storytelling surrounds us and can be done in just about any shape or form, whether that be through writing, performing arts, design, photography, or just day to day communication, we can find stories wherever we look. And because of this, we have all become storytellers in our own way, whether we have tried to or not.As humans, when we choose the stories we read, hear, or see, we often lean towards choosing the stories that we will be entertained by. We choose the stories that are familiar and comfortable to us, we choose the stories that we want to hear. And as part of choosing to hear and see only the stories that we want to, we oftentimes lose sight of the stories and pain of people, especially those that are marginalized in communities that are ethnically and culturally different than majority culture. An example of this could be the violence in Chicago. Prime-time news oftentimes doesn't report the killing of the son of your friend at church because where you live is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. And even if the news did report it, we wouldn't have chosen it because that wouldn't be comfortable or feel-good entertainment. This is just one example of America’s history in which the majority local church has participated. These communities are oftentimes looked at as inferior because of our own discomfort in the differences of culture. Writer Jason Boyett explains it as the following:
“It’s easy to feel uncomfortable around people who are different from us—the elderly, the sick, the foreign. At the same time, that discomfort is largely based on the unfamiliar. Whether we admit it or not, we shy away from the unknown. We see a face, a skin color, a collection of wrinkles, and we construct a one-dimensional character sketch—Bitter, Dangerous, Senile—to inject information into the void. But we can’t stop there. When we ask questions and listen to the answers, that discomfort begins to decrease, and the unknown becomes known. Stories humanize us. They break through our prejudices. When we know someone’s story, we’ve encountered what’s real and discarded the flimsy caricature.”
Because we are creatures of habit and have a tendency to live in a consumeristic culture and an altered self-absorbed reality, we oftentimes will choose to shy away from feeling uncomfortable and being in a position of the unknown. When we choose to do this, we are creating a single story and forfeiting the possibility of genuine understanding between ethnicities and cultures. Therefore, as believers in the local church, we cannot follow this way of thinking and acting because this was never Christ’s intention for His body. As believers, if we truly believed that we were to be one as Christ is one with the Father, then our local churches would be seeking unification across ethnical and cultural boundaries. Segregation & Disunity in the ChurchThroughout history, places that have great racial diversity, oftentimes will also have great racial segregation. We have seen this in our homeland of America, in which is prevalent throughout the western church. It has been said that, “The most segregated day of the week is Sunday." Unfortunately, this is a sad reality that we face in the modern church today. Believers tend to gather only with those who are similar to them because that is what is most comfortable, yet this is not what we see in the vision that the Apostle John gives us in Revelation.
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands”- Revelation 7:9
As we see in Revelation, we are given a clear picture of what the body should look like through narrative storytelling, using vivid imagery and repetition. The Apostle John writes through story by grabbing ahold of his reader by describing a picture that is not common. This picture and image that he describes surprises the reader. When we look at scripture, we can see that storytelling is the most common way God has chosen to communicate with His creation, over seventy-five percent of scripture is in the form of narrative storytelling and poetry. We also see that Jesus spoke through parables by using startling stories to grab ahold of people’s hearts. Yet, the question must be considered, as believers, why should the local church seek racial reconciliation through storytelling?The local church can learn of God’s vision of a unified people modeling racial reconciliation through the elements of relational storytelling in the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth is a relational narrative that has poetic elements consisting within the short story. Ruth is about YHWH’s involvement in the narrative of his people’s lives, rebuking racial segregation and seeking a faithful people who live rightly before Him.Ruth’s ethnicity and culture are obvious and intrical parts of this story. With a careful reading of the entire book, we can see how strong of a theme it is that Ruth is from Moab and is considered a foreigner. In a critical part of the story, Boaz calls Ruth the “Moabite” (vv. 4:10) to the other man who was going to redeem her, but at this moment in the story we see that there is an "issue" with her race. One will conclude that race is the real issue when it comes to the unnamed redeemer and him abruptly changing his decision. He had previously concluded that he would redeem the woman and take over the land, yet when he hears that Ruth is a Moabite he changes his mind.Race is the difference. The unnamed man does not want to infect or wash down his race and wants to be a purebred, or maybe simply does not like people who look like Ruth. Either way, she is being marginalized and becomes segregated because of her race. God is proving throughout the book of Ruth that a pure race is not what YHWH is looking for, but rather a people who will live faithful lives of obedience in a mixed company.We see these themes of racial division and segregation throughout scripture, showing that this is something that the church has always lacked. But despite any ethnical or cultural differences that the local majority church may have with the local minority church, we must be counter cultural in believing that it is not either party’s responsibility to deem the other as unclean or unworthy.
“But the voice spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’”- Acts 10:15
When we are able to acknowledge and engage with those unalike the majority culture, we then are able to begin to see the creativity of God and the beauty of what unity within the church looks like. God chose to communicate racial reconciliation to His people through relational storytelling and as the church, we should be doing the exact same. But Why Storytelling?If storytelling is such an integral part of understanding Christ’s will for unity within the church, the local church must also use storytelling to understand ourselves and seek to understand others. Storytelling has the power to create non-defensive listening and understanding across ethnical and cultural boundaries. Donna Hancox explains it as the following:
“Narrative provides us with a range of forms and styles of discovering meaning and communicating it to readers through stories. This is epistemology. Storytelling has the capacity to significantly influence and shift the ways in which culture and social research is carried out. This emerging approach can also influence the ways we understand the experiences of marginalized groups, and consequently how we respond to issues around social inclusion through policy and community based solution.”
Christ died to reconcile us all in one body and as the body, this is what we need to be striving for. We cannot let worldly ideology of racial division bleed into what we call the “church” today and take what was meant to be beautifully united and turn it into rejection of Christ. The local church has not seen storytelling as a way to restore unity within the nations and the church, but this is where racial and cultural reconciliation is really able to begin because story has the power to change people’s perspective. Donna Hancox continues by stating:
“For researchers, personal stories and narratives have the capacity to illuminate the nuances of broad issues; this potential also means that seemingly intractable social problems are given a human face with which to engage. It is in this way that personal narratives energize public narratives and shape our ways of thinking and collective understandings.”
Stories can take what is distant and unclear and make it touchable. Without seeking understanding and storytelling through relationships, it is impossible for the local church to reach a person or a place properly. Without this aspect, we cannot completely understand what Christ-like unity can look like.
"It is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this, it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar"- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
Many believers in the local church have become complacent in the idea of engaging with the stories of unknown people and unknown places. By doing this, we have become indifferent to the rejection of those who are unlike us. But as the local church, if we truly yearn for unity within the body as Christ has defined it, then we must move towards Christ's intention for His body to be unified through reconciled diversity and culture by seeking and practicing relational storytelling of the historically marginalized.This begins when the local church adopts a posture of acknowledgement and begins going to the places that may feel uncomfortable because they so foreign. This begins when the local church engages with those that are racially and culturally different than the majority local church. This begins when the local church sees the people in these places as people with beautiful differences and dignity. This begins when the local church starts to build relationships with these people. This begins with us.As the local church, once we begin to engage in conversations that may require some discomfort, it is then that a relationship can begin to be built and stories can be heard. Through the art of storytelling, eyes are able to be opened to new people and places because we are all more alike than we think. “The arts can help us remember, imagine, create, and transform the practices that sustain oppression as it endures across history and locality,” says professor Lee Anne Bell of Bernard College, “When tuned to that purpose, the arts play a vital role in making visible the stories, voices, and experiences of people who are rendered invisible by structures of dominance. Equally important, the arts confront how we have learned to see and provide new lenses for looking at the world and ourselves in relation to it.”So why storytelling? By seeking to listen and understand the stories of those who are different than majority culture, as storytellers we are able to create truth filled stories that go against all preconceived notions of what these cultures and communities are like. As we go to these communities and learn of the racial beauty that each culture has, we are able to move towards breaking stereotypes and prejudices against those that are different than ourselves. We can create meaningful media that showcases the unique beauty that is contrasted against what majority culture would consider beautiful, with the purpose of restoring dignity and hope to these communities and these people.
“When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise."- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche