Unity through Diversity

Diversity is a challenging concept for many of us to embrace.  I was just a toddler when my parents had scheduled a babysitter to come over and watch my sister and I for the evening.  The doorbell rang and both my mom and I had gone to greet my nighttime caretaker.  Utter embarrassment came over my mother as I took one look at the woman standing in our doorway, screamed at the top of my lungs and ran to the other end of the house. 

The young girl at the door was African American.  Nothing wrong with her, no red flags, beautiful, but different than me. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when my parents had to discuss what happened and how to talk to their children about the beauty of diversity!  I would have felt the same way my mom did if any of my children had done that, but where I grew up, this was the first time I was around someone who was different than me.  I know my parents would never have intentionally put us in harm’s way and I can confidently say this woman was most likely more than equipped to keep us safe for the evening.  Unless we truly begin to know the heart of God, anyone who looks, thinks, or is gifted differently than us can appear wrong.  Best case, we can be respectful but would still go about our business separately missing out on the power of unity through diversity. 

The day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came over those in the upper room, was not just a day of empowerment of the church through the spirit of God, but it was also a day celebrating the power of diversity. 

      When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.  Acts 2:1-4

This passage of scripture in the Book of Acts is one many of us are familiar with, but if we look through the eyes of unity through diversity, there is much to gain here.

 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.  Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans.  Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?  Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome  (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”  Acts 2:5-11

Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another “What does this mean?” vs 12

They were all Galileans but speaking in the native languages of the “God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.”  There was one language and God, though his spirit, multiplied it to many.  If we remember, this is not the first time God took one language and multiplied it to many. 

"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."  Gen 11:7.

It’s important to understand much of the Old Testament is fragments of God’s perfect design and a continuation of His pursuit to restore the broken relationship between humanity and himself. 

Genesis 11 shares with us the story of Babylon.  This is where our word babal comes from.  Right before this, we see listed out the descendants of Noah, each having their territory and own language, numbering 70 nations.  These descendants and their nations are often referred to as the Table of Nations.  As we journey backwards in the timeline of the Bible, Noah’s family were the only ones saved from the purifying of the land though the great flood, and here's why. “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.”  Gen 6:9.

The story of Noah and his family is a continuation story not just of God’s pursuit to restore a broken relationship, but also a continuation of God offering to mankind an opportunity to represent and expand the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth, going all the way back to Adam and Eve’s opportunity beginning in Eden.  Over and over the opportunity to represent and expand is given and over and over we chose to do things our way. 

The Table of Nations represented the power of unity through diversity.  Not only does God love diversity, but it’s also part of his design.  Who are we to limit God?  Who are we to limit the uniqueness of our neighbor?  At best, we can accept our different neighbor, but what if we are missing out on so much more by hesitating to partner with those who are different than us.  Could it be God is asking us to champion what He can do in and through them?

The loving-kindness of God in our lives brings such clarity.  When we begin to open our hearts to understand truly how good God is, we begin to not only see our own depravity so clearly, but our prebuilt walls we’ve built against those who do things differently than we do begin to fall.  Our hearts soften and we can see value rather than barriers. 

The Table of Nations were incredibly diverse, spreading across the entire world.  This was a good thing, even part of the original design to take the goodness of God’s Kingdom found in Eden and “spread it throughout the entire land.” 

Just as Adam and Eve renounced their covenant with God by seeking after knowledge outside of him as they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, these descendants of Noah did the same.  They teamed up together to create strength not through diversity, but through imperialism. 

Imperialism is the creation of an unequal relationship between states through domination.  There isn’t a need to point fingers at what may be happening in our world today, but once we understand how imperialism and nationalism excludes others and excludes God’s kingdom, we can more clearly see how this is contrary to the power of unity through diversity that God has designed. 

These descendants of Noah had an opportunity to receive such incredible blessings while representing the goodness of God and expanding his nation to all nations.  Yet in the same way as Adam and Eve, they decided to seek after their own way of doing things.  They renounced their covenant with the God who saved their family from the death of purification found in the flood and soon picked up the mantle of self-interest. 

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Gen 11:4

These nations joined forces and established unity through similarity by creating one language and seeking after one cause of self-preservation.  This one nation became too powerful for their own good and God knew they were on another path of destruction.  Their motives shifted from expanding horizontally God’s goodness throughout all the land to instead come together stationary in one place to build horizontally their own kingdom. 

Many of us in America know the struggle to build our own empire.  The American dream is defined as “the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved.”  James Adams.  Admittedly, I believe our version of America today is a far cry from our founding fathers, but we also cannot deny that we opposed those who were different than us to achieve the land we now sit on today.  Our country sits on a partial foundation of both imperialism and religious freedom for all. 

“We are incredibly blessed to live and raise our families in a land saturated with so much freedom and opportunities, however we are a far cry from the unity God has designed his children to operate from.”

For the good of the people and the good of God’s reputation, the self-focused motives of the descendants of Noah needed to be thwarted less ultimate destruction fall once again on the people.

“So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” 

Gen 11:8-9

God again directs his children back to his perfect original blueprint of unity though diversity by scattering them once again over the face of the Earth.

To thread the beauty of God’s consistency throughout the entire lens of scripture, the Table of Nations were seventy descendants of Noah, the only one who was found righteous, blameless amongst his people, walking faithfully with God.  Noah was faithful to his covenantal relationship with God, but as it often happens, his descendants didn’t

carry that same heart of trust and faithfulness, but rather sought after self-interests.  When God called Moses to meet with him on Sainai, he also called Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the seventy (italics added) elders of Israel.  Exodus 24

At Pentecost, tongues of fire came upon the disciples, and they spoke in the languages of “many nations”.  Jesus, in Luke 10, commissions as sends out 70 disciples (some say 72 disciples), two by two to go before him into the towns, preaching the message of the Kingdom of God.  After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.  He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.  Luke 10:1-2

Jesus is perfect theology and once again directs us back to God’s perfect design of the power of unity through diversity.  These disciples, with multi diverse differences, all partnered together moving towards the same cause of living and declaring the goodness of God’s kingdom to a lost and broken world. 

I recently was able to speak with a group of young soccer players.  As they were still within the first week of their season, their coach, a very close and dear friend of mine, is aware that any victory or losses in life are much more than honing physical skills.  I would go as far as to argue spiritual realities have more of an impact than physically knowing a sport or honing a skill.  A team stacked with the most gifted players will still fall short without unity. 

We really struggle with diversity, but the question remains; are willingly forfeiting much more of what God has for us by believing the victory is simply in accepting someone’s uniqueness rather than celebrating, seeking out their giftedness, and championing what God may want to do in and through that person? 

The Bible expresses in many ways how our victory, our knowledge, our freedom, our understanding of scripture and theology is all found in proximity to the presence of Jesus.  It’s all about Jesus and always has been.  His presence alone changes everything.  Could it be that Jesus wants to show us truly how multifaceted he is through the differences we see in our friends, our neighbors, our teammates?  Today, let us open our hearts to seeing and receiving the beauty and knowledge of God by allowing ourselves to unite through diversity.