Word of Salvation – Vol. 41 No. 11 – March 1996

 

Does Multiculturalism Really Work?

 

Sermon by Rev. B. Gillard on Colossians 3:3-11

Scripture Readings: Colossians 3:1-17

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, brother and sisters.

The word multiculturalism is one that we are all familiar with today.  A multicultural society is one in which people from different nationalities, languages and colours are brought together to live in the same society.  Australia has become a multicultural society, so much so that one of the jokes you sometimes hear is, “go to the beach and see if you can spot an Aussie somewhere.”

Does multiculturalism really work?  Can people with different nationalities and social customs, and religious affiliations, and languages, and colour of skin live together in an harmonious and caring society?  One thing that has happened lately is the tightening up of the law against racial vilification.  You have to be careful today of what you say.

But can you create an harmonious society by imposing laws on people?  And can you really legislate peoples’ attitudes and feelings towards each other?  Furthermore, if you look at the world’s trouble spots, what is the major cause of conflict?  Is it not racial and ethnic and cultural?  People are different from others, and they want to live together, they say, in their own racial groupings, and so we have heard of some new and terrible words, such as ‘ethnic cleansing’ – people of one tribal group going on the rampage, slaughtering those who are different.

So then, can it really work and make for peace and harmony when you mix together people from different cultures and nationalities?  The answer to that question is, yes, it can work, but it can only really work in one place and one place alone, and that is in Christ, and in His church.  This is what the apostle Paul is telling us in the words of our text in Colossians chapter 3 verse 11, where he says, “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

What we see here in our text is that Paul takes all the racial and cultural divisions that existed in ancient society, and they were deep and they were unbridgeable.  Nothing could be more unbridgeable than Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised.  The Greeks were the clever intellectual people of the ancient world, and they knew it.  They were superior to others in learning and culture.

The Jews, on the other hand, considered themselves to have had an even more glorious history.  Whatever great battles the Greek may have boasted of, the Jew could go all the way back to Moses and the Exodus.  The Greeks may have had philosophy and the wisdom of men, but the Jews had the Torah, the law and the revelation that came from God, and they were God’s chosen people.

And then there were the barbarians and the Scythians.  These were the uncultured and unlearned men of the ancient world, who lived by plunder and conquest – and the Scythians were the worst of the lot.

And then there was slave and free, and here the gulf was even greater.  The slave had no rights at all, and his master could virtually do what he liked with him.

So then, the cultural divide in the ancient world was very great indeed.  But in Christ there is one who bridges them all.  Christ is all in all, Christ is everything.  Christ is the believer’s most important possession.  More important than nationality.  More important than language, or culture or colour.  To the believer, Christ is everything.

So then, why is this?  Why is Christ so dear to us and why is He more important than all things?

Well, let me just remind you today of the more obvious reasons, and the first one is because He is the one person we cannot do without.  He alone is our Saviour.  He gave His life for us and bled and died on the cross to take away all our sins and make us right with God.  Therefore He is everything to us, and having Him, we have all we will ever need to be able to stand before a Holy God as those who are right in His sight.  Does that not make Him more precious to us than nationality, or colour, or culture, whatever the culture may be?

But not only is He everything to us personally, we recognise that He is everything to all men, not necessarily all men individually, but all men ethnically, or nationally.  He is the Saviour of the Jew and the Greek, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, the barbarian and the Scythian.  It doesn’t matter if one has lived a fairly decent life outwardly, or if they have fallen into the gutter of sin, and drunk the dregs of it.  Christ is as much a Saviour to the one as the other, and both are in need of His saving grace.

The pride and the self-righteousness of the cultured man makes him need a Saviour just as much as the drunkard or the thief or the sexually immoral.  All must come to Christ out of their need for forgiveness, and out of His fullness all may draw from the waters of life.  This is why Christ is all in all, and He is the most precious treasure that one can ever possess, and having Him we have all things, and lack for nothing.

Having Him, therefore, unites and breaks down the barriers, and He is creating one new man.  He is creating a new society in Himself.  All those who know Him, are now one people, they are the people of God.

Notice how the Apostle Paul goes on to address these Colossian Christians made up of all those who have come to know Christ as their Saviour and put their trust in Him.  He says in verse 12: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and beloved.”

Do you recognise those terms, congregation?  They were the terms that God so often used when addressing His ancient people, the Jews.  They were His chosen people, holy and dearly loved, but they are not exclusively so now.  No, God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved are now all those who are in Christ, and who can say with the Apostle Paul,

“Christ is all and in all.  Christ is the most precious one to me.  He is more precious than race or colour or culture, or sport or recreation or learning or home or possession.  Christ is my all in all, and I could let everything else in life go, but this one person I could never let go.  If another man therefore has Christ, but is of a different colour, or nationality, or language, then what is that to me?  We share together the most important one of all, and in Him we are one, and Christ is making us into a new people, one new man.  Together we are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.”

You see this is what unites and breaks down these cultural barriers.  This is the way that multiculturalism will and can work.  It works in Christ.  Just as we sing in one of our hymns:

“In Christ there is no East or West,
 in Him no pride of birth,
 the chosen Family God has blessed,
 now spans the whole wide earth.”

However, as we all know, congregation, family living can and does place some very big demands upon us.  We all have an obligation to try and keep the peace and unity that has been created in Christ.  This is why the Apostle Paul goes on to say in the following verses,

“Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love which binds them altogether.”

What are these words telling us?  They are telling us that as we live together in relationships it is virtually impossible to avoid disagreements and upsets and hurts to one another.  Sometimes these upsets and hurts can become very deep and very bitter, and if we are going to get through these difficult times and maintain the peace and the unity and the oneness to which we have been called in Christ, then there is one thing we are going to need, and that is, we will need lots of patience and forbearance, forgiveness and love.  We will need much compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness.

But do you know that in Christ that is the one thing we have got plenty of, because this is the way that God has dealt with us.  He has dealt with us compassionately and not in a hard-hearted way.  He has been gentle with us and patient.  He has borne long with our offences and He has been plenteous in His forgiveness.  Time and time again we will need to come back to the fountain head of His grace and draw upon these great virtues and put them on in our dealings with each other.

Can multiculturalism really work?  Can people with different backgrounds come together and live together in love, and care for each other?  Can sinful people live together in a community where love for one another prevails?  They can, but only in Christ.  He is the one who breaks down the barriers and makes all things new.  And that is what was demonstrated in the early Church and on the day of Pentecost.

Remember how on the day of Pentecost the early church gathered together in the upper room and received a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit, and they all spoke in tongues, and people from different nationalities and regions of the earth all heard them speaking the wonderful things of God in their own language.  It is only when people of different languages and nations come to hear of the wonderful things of God, and the great salvation that He has provided in the Lord Jesus, and come to Him, that the barriers are broken down.  That is what happened in the early Church.  As they went out with the good news, the barriers were broken down, and in Christ there was no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ was all, and He was in all, creating one new man.

Today we need to realise afresh that only in the gospel, and only in Christ can we heal the divisions and the hatreds of men.  The secular State will never create a harmonious society, let alone a harmonious multicultural one.  They are trying to do what can only be done in Christ, but this is what the unconverted man always tries to do in his folly.  He tries to be his own Saviour, and create only what God can give us.

But only in Christ will we ever be able to truly say,

“In Him there is no East or West,
 in Him no pride of birth,
 the chosen Family God has blessed,
 now spans the whole wide earth.”

Amen.