Confronting The Scandal Of Our Prejudices Series

Billy Graham has preached the Gospel around the world to

every race. In an interview with Diane Sawyer he was asked this

question: "If you could wave your hand and make one problem in

this world go away, what would it be?" Without hesitation he

replied, "Racial division and strive." This world is filled with civil

wars based on race and religion all because people have a

deep-seated prejudice against other people who are different. Hate

crimes abound for the same reason. If this was the limit of the

impact of prejudice in our world, it would be the number one sin of

mankind according to Billy Graham and many others. But this is

just the tip of the iceberg. Prejudice of one kind or another poisons

the heart of just about everyone. Masses of people do not

experience racial prejudice because they have no contact with any

but their own race. But nobody escapes all forms of prejudice.

The issue of male-female prejudice touches almost everyone.

Class prejudice is also nearly universal. Religious prejudice, not

only between the religious and non-religious, but between the many

religions of the world and the many denominations of each religion.

We could go on endlessly listing areas of prejudice down to such

trivialities as right-handers against left-handers and cassettes lovers

against CD lovers. There does not appear to be anyone who can

escape all forms of prejudice, and so to some degree we are all a

part of the problem.

The Apostle John tells us that he did not record all that Jesus

did, for the world could not contain it if everything was recorded.

But he did record the confrontation of Jesus with the woman at the

well, and he gave us a lot of detail. The reason for it is because in

this encounter Jesus demonstrates that He was free from, and

uncontaminated by the prejudice that dominated the fallen hearts

of men. Jesus rejects all the major prejudices of men in this

account. Racial, religious, and sexual prejudice are rejected in this

encounter. No two people could be more in contrast to each other

than Jesus and this woman, and yet we see Jesus reaching out to

break down all the walls of prejudice in relating to her.

It is hard for us to grasp the audacity of Jesus in this situation,

and to understand why the disciples were so surprised to see Him

talking with her. But just imagine if you walked into a McDonalds

and saw Billy Graham in a booth talking to a black prostitute

whom you knew had just started her own cult in the area, and

Graham is asking her to go get him a glass of water. If that scene

would not surprise you and draw out some feelings of prejudice,

you are ready for the rapture. Most Christians would be shocked

just as the disciples were shocked at Jesus. Why? It was because

they were prejudice. They were products of their culture, and so

they had the typical sexual, racial, and religious prejudices of their

day.

Jesus uses prejudice people like His disciples because that was

His only choice. They wanted to call fire down from heaven to

destroy the Samaritans. They wanted no part of eating with

Gentiles, and they were even prejudice against little children, for

they wanted mothers to keep their kids away from Jesus. He

rebuked them and told them to let the little children come, for of

such is the kingdom of God. Jesus had to fight all kinds of

prejudice in His disciples, and the fight goes on all through history

for Christians are full of all the prejudices that are popular in the

culture in which they live.

Jesus came to buck the system and to reject the prejudices in

all its forms. He goes against the grain of His culture and dares to

love all people equally. It is His dream that His disciples will be

people of the same spirit. It took a long time for Jesus to get His

disciples free of prejudice. Peter, even long after Pentecost, could

not bring himself to eat with Gentiles. It was a deep prejudice in

him, and even the Holy Spirit could not cleanse him of it. God had

to speak to him in a dream and tell him not to call anything unclean

that he had made clean. He finally got Peter to go and eat with the

Gentile Centurion Cornelius in Acts 10. It was one of Peter's

hardest spiritual battles in letting go of his prejudice against

Gentiles.

It is good that his battle is recorded, for we do not want to give

the impression that prejudice is easy to eliminate. It is very hard to

do so, and often the best Christians can do in the short range is to