It puzzles me that there are Christians who are unwilling to accept people who, for one reason or another, are inherently different from themselves.
I have been a Christian for more than seven decades and an ordained minister, missionary, professor of theology and missions, and writer for the past 54 years. Living and working on opposite sides of the globe 12,000 miles apart, I have been both a member of various Baptist churches and a professor on the faculties of several Baptist universities and seminaries.
Everywhere I have lived and worked, I have met people who said they did not feel welcome in places populated by professing Christians.
Robert Sellers
This causes me to consider how incongruous it is when a community of self-identified Christ-followers do not reflect the inclusive love Jesus demonstrated.
Those whose wellness is different
People with compromised wellness — whether physical, cognitive or adaptive — sometimes feel rejected or judged by those who consider themselves more whole. It can be especially bewildering if this hurtful treatment comes from people who claim to be Christians.
Jesus was remarkably strong, self-aware, steady and sound, but he did not reject or judge others who were different from himself, as was often the case in the first century. He called people “hypocrites” if they insisted on judging others, and the only people Jesus condemned were the self-assured, self-righteous and self-congratulating religious insiders. Toward others struggling with diminished health he responded with compassion.
For example, see Jesus approached by a leper who knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus did not recoil. His companions and onlookers were surely startled when, instead, he reached out his hand and touched the man’s leprous skin, immediately healing him.
Or consider when Jesus and his disciples encountered a naked and obviously disturbed man possessed by a legion of demons. Jesus called forth the demons and restored this man’s mind as well as his relationship with his family and neighbors.
And when a blind beggar named Bartimaeus yelled to be noticed, Jesus stopped and summoned Bartimaeus to come close, then restored the man’s eyesight and changed his life.
Those whose race, gender or religion is different
According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus never rejected people because of their race, gender or religion.
“According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus never rejected people because of their race, gender or religion.”
In the Gentile region of Tyre, a Syrophoenician woman with a demon-possessed daughter asked for his help. Because of her faith, he spoke the word of healing she had hoped to hear concerning her child, who was restored to full health.
When Jesus visited in the home of his friends in Bethany, Martha was busy preparing a meal for the guests, but her sister Mary chose to sit with the male disciples and listen to Jesus as he was teaching. Martha asked Jesus to correct Mary because she was not fulfilling her expected role and responsibility as a woman in that society. But Jesus surprised Martha when, with a soft answer, he affirmed not only Mary’s choice but, by implication, the right of all women to participate with men in both theological conversations and leadership opportunities.
Traveling through Samaria, Jesus met a Samaritan woman who came to draw water from the well. She was someone different in terms of race, gender and religion. In that countercultural exchange, Jesus valued this foreign woman so genuinely that she hurried back to Sychar to tell her neighbors about him and thus became one of the first people to witness to others about Jesus.
Those whose politics are different
Many Christians seem very clear that their own political coalition represents the most effective, if not most righteous, force for change and problem-solving. That kind of certainty may cause us to reject those who differ politically. Jesus, however, did not allow first-century politics to control who he was willing to befriend.
Walking through the city of Capernaum one day, he saw a man sitting at his tax-collecting station, and he called him to follow. The tax collector left his table and followed Jesus, and Matthew would later become a part of the teacher’s inner circle.
That same evening at a meal in Matthew’s home, numerous other tax collectors and those regarded as “sinners” were present, causing the Pharisees to complain about Jesus because of the company he kept. However, Jesus was not controlled by the opinion of those pious religious rulers.
When Jesus chose 12 who would be his closest disciples, he included Simon, called “the Zealot.” Not put off by the glaring distinction between this zealot’s politics and his own commitment to nonviolence, Jesus affirmed Simon and selected him as one of the 12.
Those whose sexual behavior is different
In the first century, sexual difference could only be based upon observed behavior. In that prescientific era, there was no awareness of a person’s sexual orientation or latent sexual markers. Even based solely on behaviors, Jesus provided a remarkable model of acceptance we should emulate.
“Jesus provided a remarkable model of acceptance we should emulate.”
In Capernaum, Jesus was approached by some Jewish elders who told him about a Roman centurion’s dying slave. It is possible the perception of those Jewish elders and other onlookers about the relationship of that Roman centurion and his young slave might have been a sexual one. But Jesus neither condemned nor endorsed the friendship between this centurion and his slave. Instead, the young man was healed and the centurion was praised by Jesus for his remarkable faith, greater than that of anyone he had encountered in Israel.
In the outer court of the temple in Jerusalem, some scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman they claimed had been caught in the “very act of adultery.” Although the Levitical admonition requires both participants to be killed, no man had been brought along with this woman by her accusers. Jesus picked up a stone, extended it toward the men, and challenged any one of them who was without sin to throw that stone.
Our response
Certainly, many true examples could be provided of how people different in all these ways have been and are treated poorly in some Christian spaces today. Some of those shattering experiences I have witnessed personally.
We must ask ourselves why this is such a particularly ubiquitous problem in places where people who claim to be Christians worship, minister, learn, teach, work and serve. Even if one does not claim to embrace Christianity, I still believe there is great wisdom in imitating the acceptance and inclusion of this Jewish teacher — recognized as the most beloved, quoted, and followed person in human history.
Rob Sellers is professor of theology and missions emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas. He is a past chair of the board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. He and his wife, Janie, served a quarter century as missionary teachers in Indonesia. They have two children and five grandchildren.