What is the benefit of being a global Christian? Let me note several very quickly.
1. Start with the obvious. Being part of the global church is just more fun! We sing with Africans and celebrate with Asians and dance with South Americans (actually, we dance with all of them). Who wouldn’t want to be part of the multi-cultural community that we call “the global church”?
I remember the first time I came to Winnipeg. It was in February 1990 in a planning committee for Mennonite World Conference. I lived in Zimbabwe, where it was the middle of the summer, and we met in Winnipeg, where it wasn’t! It was cold. But by the time we met for World Conference it was June, lovely Manitoba summer weather. I remember watching a choir from the Mennonite Church in the Congo – constant movement and wonderful singing. They were followed by a Mennonite choir from the Ukraine – ramrod straight with no movement, and also with wonderful singing.
My wife teaches English, and she tells me that her class full of Russians becomes more like a party when you add a few Colombians. We have often entertained students in our house for meals. In fact, they are the ones who have entertained us. I remember watching a Cuban student teach a young man from Manitoba how to dance. Being in a church that includes Congolese and Ukrainians and Cubans and Manitobans is just more fun than being with only one group!
2. Being a global Christian is also a wonderful growing experience. When we begin to see what people from other countries see, when we begin to understand the lives of people from around the world, we grow. Our minds get bigger. We begin to understand more about life. I have a friend who lives in the same house near Steinbach in which he grew up. He would have a small life, except that he ahs also travelled to South America and to India. Contact with Christian brothers and sisters from around the world has stretched him and made him also a global Christian, even though he has only lived in one house all his life.
I grew up in Zimbabwe when it was a White-run English colony. I had the mind and heart of a White Rhodesian. We moved to the States when I was 15, and I began to see my home country with new eyes. I became close friends with a Black Zimbabwean, who helped me to see what I couldn’t see about my own upbringing. The more broadly we experience the world, the more fully we can understand life.
3. These bring me to the basic reason I love being global Christian. You begin to see God’s love and grace, the fullness of God’s very being, more clearly when you begin to grasp the way that people from different cultures see God.
North Americans see God, who is our friend. A favourite hymn when I was young was, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Listen to our worship music today and they sound (to me) like a succession of love songs. I love these love songs! I like knowing that Jesus cares for me and provides for me. I am a good North American!
Africans also sing about God’s love. One of my best friends in Zimbabwe loved to sing, “Uphi umhlobo onjengo Jesu; kakho qha! Kakho qha!” There’s not a friend like [the lowly] Jesus; no not one, no not one. But I remember many more songs about power. Africans sing about the power of God and especially the power of the blood of Jesus because they know that we live in a dangerous world – and we need the power of God to survive.
I wonder what Asians like to sing about? We could ask our Korean and Burmese and Indian friends: What hymns do you like the best? What about South Americans? You can ask your friends from Brazil if they like the same hymns as Paraguayans or Bolivians.
The point behind these examples is that our view of God – what we call “theology” – is too limited if we see only with the eyes of our culture. We value friendships; Africans value spiritual power; Asians value the ancestors; South Americans value power and justice. I am oversimplifying, but if you want a better breakdown, get to know your international friends because I’ll tell you something. God meets all of these needs. The gospel of Jesus Christ meets all of our needs in every culture represented here. When you begin to see how God works in Arab countries, you learn a bit more about the gospel. When you discover how God works in Asia, you discover more about the grace and love and power of God.
If you want to see the fullness of God’s glory, you look to what God is doing in every country and culture around the world. John the Revelator describes what we see in a wonderful passage in Revelation 7: 9 to 12:
9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
This morning in our international chapel we get the smallest glimpse of the scene that awaits us in Heaven, when God’s Reign comes in power and glory. All of the blemishes and faults that we experience here will be gone, and we will see each other as those who reflect the glory of God’s salvation. More, we will see the direct glory of God in each other, and we will join the “great multitude that no one could count”, singing God’s praise forever.
Being a global Christian is good! Celebrate the glory of God as we sing together each in our own way.
International Chapel
7 November 2018
Revelation 7: 9 to 12
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