I was in high school or college, can’t remember exactly, but do remember my father looking at me and saying, “There’s always someone smarter than you.” I must have been acting like a know-it-all, young people often do, and I certainly did too. His words stuck with me, especially in my years as Seminary president. Faculty and staff members knew so much more about their areas of expertise than I did. So, I learned from them. Those 15 years were part of my father’s, my heavenly Father’s humbling me.
Congressman John Lewis has died, and now I’m learning from him. As a child, he wanted to be a minister. I did too. He pretended to preach; I did too. He went to college; I did too, but he had to write to Dr. Martin Luther King for help to enter the local college, white college. No such struggle for me. He attended American Baptist Seminary and I attended Concordia Seminary. We both pursued righteousness, but in different ways. As a man of faith, he pursued moral righteousness in public life, especially race relations, which was far more controversial, dangerous than anything I did. In the 1960’s he was arrested 40 times and as a member of Congress 5 times. Me? Pulled over by the traffic police a few times. In my religious tradition we focus on individual righteousness. You and I are sinners who are made righteousness only by the grace of God given to us through His Son Jesus Christ. In Mr. Lewis’ tradition, there’s greater emphasis on striving for righteousness in public life. “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:7). “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). The two approaches should not be antithetical but complementary.
It is good we’re having a national conversation about race. May it be peaceful but earnest. “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord,” begins Isaiah 1:18, and the passage gives us the context for our conversations. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Two little boys who never met wanted to preach God’s righteousness. The Bible tells us what we’ll say when justice and righteousness are truly established. “The Lord is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). Christians of every race have a common ground for conversation, Jesus.
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