What does the Bible have to say about diversity?
These days diversity is a hot-button issue. Affirmative action was a strategy by which a lack of diversity in college and university admissions might be remedied. Yet the Supreme Court has recently severely restricted it. State legislatures and local school boards are wrestling with which versions of American history may be taught in our schools. Public libraries are wrestling with requests to take certain books off of their shelves. Has America become too diverse? Our country’s motto is “E Pluribus Unum,” which means, “Out of Many, One.” It would seem to enshrine the very idea of unity in the midst of diversity. Yet people are questioning in these highly politicized times if diversity is a good thing in itself, or if there can be too much diversity to sustain a nation’s social fabric.
So, what does the Bible have to say about diversity?
If creation is any indication, we’d have to say God loves diversity!
You could hardly imagine a more dazzling array than the Creator trotted out in the six days of creation: sun, moon and stars, swarming creatures in the oceans, creeping and crawling creatures upon the earth, flocks of flying creatures in the skies. And finally human creatures to shepherd and protect them. When creation was done, “God saw that it was good,” (Gen. 1: 24) putting the divine stamp of approval on the teeming array of life that inhabited the earth. So, God must love diversity.
But when it comes to diversity in the community of faith, God’s people are not so sure. In fact, one of the great debates within scripture is how broad or narrow the faith community should be. How inclusive or exclusive is the family of faith?
We may think of the Bible as a centuries-long conversation about things that really matter. The Bible is a library of books, each of which has a voice in the chorus which seeks to glorify God. People of profound faith engaged in this conversation, not always agreeing with one another, but inspired by a common faith in God.
There are many strands within the biblical witness that seek to define the community of faith narrowly. Part of the genius of Judaism is the sense of being set apart, of being chosen for a special purpose. After Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians in 587/586 B.C.E. and its leading citizens carried off into exile, the Jewish community was in danger of being shattered beyond recovery. The political sovereignty of the nation was destroyed. The theological core of its beliefs was shaken. The worship of God, which had long been centered at the temple complex in Jerusalem, was at risk of being lost.
In exile the rabbis developed certain practices that helped to set the Jewish people apart from their captors, like solidifying the observance of the sabbath in local gatherings of worshippers, developing the laws of kosher – which set the people apart from their neighbors by the foods they ate, the clothes they wore, and so on. During this era the great feasts of Judaism were enshrined in scripture – Passover, the Feast of Weeks, Yom Kipper, Rosh Hashanah. During this time much of the oral tradition of the people was committed to writing and became the core of the Hebrew Bible.
When the Babylonians themselves were conquered by the Persians, those exiles who wished to return to Palestine were permitted to do so. They found the city of Jerusalem in shambles, the social structure of the country in similar disarray. Under the leadership of Nehemiah the city walls were rebuilt, and under the leadership of Ezra, the religious fabric of the country was rewoven. One of the greatest sources of contention at that time was how inclusive or exclusive the newly re-constituted community of faith was going to be. Those who had intermarried with residents of the land who had been left behind either had to set them aside or they were largely disenfranchised and cast out of the community. Some of their descendants became the Samaritans who figure so largely in New Testament stories.
Two strands exist within biblical Judaism, one of exclusiveness, which seeks to maintain the integrity of the community by means of ritual purity, and one of inclusiveness, which seeks to extend the promises of God to ever larger circles of people. This second strand draws some of its inspiration from the promise God made to Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing…and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12:2-3) The book of Ruth may also be seen as a protest against the kind of narrowness Ezra represented. The “kicker” of the story, and the likely reason for its inclusion in the Bible, lies in the last few verses, where it is revealed that Ruth, a foreigner, was the mother of Obed, who “became the father of Jesse, the father of David.” (Ruth 4:17). In other words, the great-grandma of Israel’s greatest king was a Moabite, a convert to the Jewish faith!
Another voice in this more inclusive tradition is sounded near the end of the book of Amos, one of the great prophets of Israel. With irony the prophet calls into question claims of exclusivity on the part of his people:
“Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir?” (Amos 9:7)
Apparently Israel is not the only nation God has liberated! God’s concerns range both near and far, according to Amos, and God is the Lord of nations. A great medieval rabbinic midrash on Scripture, the Exodus Rabbah, picks up on this very theme. In it, the angels are portrayed as bursting into praise when the Egyptian army is swallowed up by the sea after Moses and the Israelites had crossed it. In the commentary, the Lord silences the heavenly host with the words, “Why are you rejoicing? My children, the Egyptians, are drowning.”
This biblical strand recognized that foreign others may become grafted into the covenant people, such as Rahab of Jericho, the prostitute who hid the Hebrew spies and secured from them a promise that her family would be saved when the walls came tumblin’ down. We should also include here the inclusive vision of Isaiah of the exile, who saw a day when all nations would come streaming to the temple mount in Jerusalem. He also identifies a Suffering Servant of Yahweh who would help draw all peoples to Godself:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” (Isa. 49:6)
Israel itself may be the servant of God by which the Lord intends to draw all nations to the divine light (Isa. 44:1). Christians soon came to interpret the Suffering Servant of God as a reference to Christ (Acts 8:32-33). Here, the idea is similar, that one day all the nations would be drawn into the orbit of God’s love and purposes.
We may also consider that the parable of Jonah was included in the Bible to make a similar point: even the hated Ninevites of Assyria, if they repented of their sin, might be included in God’s mercy! That’s precisely why Jonah headed in the opposite direction when God told him to go and preach to them: “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2).
It is the gospel of Luke which most consistently lifts up the inclusion of the Gentiles (non-Jews) in the province of God’s grace. Yet even in Mark, Jesus himself is challenged to see his ministry in broader terms by the Cyro-Pheonician woman, who successfully petitions him to heal her daughter. She acknowledges the priority of his mission to Israel, yet presses him with the words, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” (Mark 7:28) Jesus marvels at her faith, and heals her daughter – and, begins to think of his ministry in broader terms. The faith of a Roman centurion, likewise, impresses Jesus. In Matthew, the wise men who come from the east (Matt. 2:1-12) are a premonition that the gospel is to be preached to the ends of the earth (Matt. 28:16-20). In John Jesus gets excited when Greeks are brought to see him – it’s a sign that his kingdom is drawing near (John 12: 20-26).
The rabbi Paul comes to see that Gentiles may be grafted into the tree of faith which is Israel (Rom. 11:17-24). Israel was indeed set aside for God’s special purposes, argues Paul. But the Gentiles have been grafted into their root by the grace of God. Peter discovers, much to his amazement, that the Holy Spirit comes even upon the Gentile household of the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48) when he preaches the good news to them. In consequence, he baptizes them into the Jesus movement. As Peter exclaims, in astonishment, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35). He relates his experience at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) during which the momentous decision is made to include Gentile believers in the faith, with some concessions to satisfy Jewish Christians. So diversity becomes a hallmark of the early church, where Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free people, men and women are all called to play a significant part (Gal. 3:28-29).
While religious communities recognize a need to preserve their core identities, and to exercise gate-keeping functions, it would seem that the Holy Spirit of God, like the wind, “blows where it wills,” (John 3:8), sometimes surpassing our neat human categories. A dizzying variety of persons may claim membership in the society which gathers around Jesus, for God gave his only Son that those who believe in him may not perish but have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
The breadth of God’s love is one of the astonishing themes of the scriptures. It might extend to Democrats or Republicans, those who are straight, those who are gay, and those who are differently gendered. It might extend to those of different races and social classes. It might extend to those whose opinions on many subjects are different. It might extend to Mexicans and Americans, Russians and Ukrainians, Palestinians and Israelis.
How wide is God’s love? As the old hymn puts it,
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.
There’s a kindness in God’s justice which is more than liberty.”
(Frederick Faber, 1854)
(Note: All scripture citations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)
