Right now, there are untold numbers of children, many of them racial minorities, languishing in the foster care system in the United States. Would the social workers really have us believe that it is better for an African-American child to grow up bounced from home to home in this bureaucratic limbo than to be a child to parents whose skin is paler than his? Do they really believe that a white Russian child would do better to live in an orphanage until she is dismissed at eighteen to a life of suicide or homelessness than to grow up with loving African-American parents?
I mentioned earlier that I was trans-ethnically adopted, and that's quite true. Now, I grew up biologically birthed into a very rooted family, a family I can trace back for generations. But the gospel tells me that I've been brought into a different household. I am hidden in Christ; therefore, in him, I am the offspring of Abraham, grafted onto the vine of Israel. God accepts me because, in Christ, I am his beloved son in whom he is well pleased. I receive with Jesus everything that he receives as an inheritance-the whole cosmos.
Some of us need to think about whether the Lord's calling us to adopt a child, and to put aside whether or not he or she is of our same race or background. Some of us need to put aside our hidden racist or elitist hatreds and hostilities. We need to crucify them, in fact.
What if the outside world could see church directories and family albums filled with people who look nothing alike-but who call each other "brother" and "sister" and mean it, and who unabashedly hug and kiss one another?
Perhaps the outside world would be better able to understand how black parents can love and raise an Asian daughter, how a Latino child can love his white Iowan mother, if they were to see our churches filled with people, red and yellow, black, and white, who are precious in the sight of one another.
Amen!
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