Was Jesus colour-blind?

Jesus said… People will come from east and west and north and south and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God… Luke 13:29

They sang a new song, saying, “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation…” Revelation 5:9

A memory from very early childhood…

In the room where I went to Sunday School there were pictures on the wall. One of them showed Jesus sitting in the middle of a group of children, welcoming them and teaching them. You could tell by their appearance and clothing that they came from many different parts of the world.

And there was a song we used to sing: Jesus died for all the children,/ All the children of the world./ Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight./ Jesus died for all the children of the world.

What an amazing thing is the human mind! I saw that picture and sang those words before I could properly read and write. Yet to this day, in my seventies, they remain fresh and clear, tune and all.

I never said to myself, “That’s a really wonderful truth – I’ll tuck it away in my mind and try to live by it.” No. But it stuck. And it has helped to shape my very life – for just recently I found myself singing that song under my breath for no particular reason I could think of.

There’s an important lesson there for all of us who spend time with children – parents, teachers, grandparents, and many others: Never underestimate the mark you can make on a child’s mind. What to you or me is just a casual, off-the-cuff remark can go deep, radically affecting that child’s understanding and development. So let’s take great care that we only say what is right, good and appropriate! God forgive us if we are guilty of feeding into a child’s mind anything false or damaging. (See the solemn words of Jesus in Matthew 18:1-9.)

But that’s by the way; it isn’t what I’m thinking about today. No, I’m puzzling over what brought that picture to mind and what triggered that song. And it hasn’t taken me long to work out that it’s the killing of George Floyd in America, and the resulting demonstrations and rioting in various parts of the world. It’s all to do with race and colour, of course – and so those simple words popped out of my subconscious: “red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.”

The experts tell us that we all have racial prejudices, even if we bend over backwards not to. Perhaps we needn’t feel too bad about that – after all, human beings naturally gravitate towards “their own”, and feel comfortable in that company. The little bit of foreign travel I have done certainly confirms that: how reassuring it is to see somebody “like me”, somebody who speaks the same language and shares the same background.

To feel that way is no sin. But it still leaves the question: Deep down, do I in fact despise or look down on those other people simply because they aren’t “like me”? Do I act towards them differently because they aren’t “one of us”? Do I make any attempt to consciously train myself to remember the love of Jesus for all mankind? – yes, even if they talk in a funny language, eat funny food. And, of course, have a different colour skin…

In Luke 16 Jesus predicted that people would come “from east and west and north and south and take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God”. Yes, their places: every bit as much as mine. One day we are going to eat in the presence of Jesus in the company of all those “strange” people (no social distancing then!). One day we will stand with vast crowds, as John sees it in Revelation 5, who are “from every tribe and language and people and tongue”.

Well, if that, by God’s grace, is the way it’s going to be, hadn’t we better make a start here and now? And hadn’t we better do all we can to make sure that our churches reflect this wonderful vision, however inadequately and imperfectly?

We pray in the Lord’s prayer that God’s will would be done and his kingdom come “on earth as it is in heaven”. But of course it’s plain hypocrisy to pray that prayer without doing all we can to bring it about in practice. After all, doesn’t God often call us to be the answer to our own prayers?

An afterthought about that picture… Yes, the children were very obviously from the four corners of the earth. But what about Jesus? What did he look like? Answer: he could have been a good-looking, tall, white Englishman dressed in a long robe…

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the person who drew the picture would have been horrified at any suggestion that he or she was racially prejudiced. I wouldn’t dream of criticising them. But it’s a fact that the earthly Jesus simply wouldn’t have looked like that. So… I wonder why he was portrayed that way?

It makes you think, doesn’t it?

Dear Father, I recognise that, even though I try to hide it, even from myself, I am infected with prejudice of many kinds. Please help me to take that seriously and to root it out of my heart. Please grow in me the same desire for justice, peace and love for all that Jesus had. Amen.