Portland: No Diversity!

Disclaimer: This article is in no way meant to defame, malign, or otherwise "throw shade" on Portland, Oregon. So far, I'm having a great time. 

Sunday was my first full day in Portland, Oregon. I'm not exactly looking for a new city to settle down in, but every time I take a domestic vacay, I try to take note of potential. What do I like? What do I dislike? Could this be my future home? 

imagine me in the middle of this crowd...

So yesterday, I'm sitting down by myself, indulging in a little people-watching. June has abandoned me in search of tea and snacks, so I really had a chance to look around and soak in my surroundings. Suddenly,  I began to feel very out-of-place. It was an extremely strange feeling. I liked the vibe of the city with its natural beauty everywhere, the quirky fashion sense of the citizens, and a true foodie culture.  Yet, there was something that I could quite put my finger on...and then it hit me: "where are the black people?!" Perhaps a little  research was in order prior to this trip, so I would not be shocked by the Portland demography. However, I kid you not, I saw more black people in Rome, Italy. So right there, from my perch, I start smartphoning it: "black people in Portland." The results were, to say the least, not ideal. I started to give in to a sinking feeling when, wait! There, in the distance I spotted the one person I didn't think existed here: a black woman! And her daughter! They exist!

Then I immediately started to feel bad. And then sad. For two reasons:

1.  The "Why of it All" - Why is the realization that there are few to no black people the origin of a "sinking feeling"? In 2014, shouldn't I be beyond the pressures and the tensions evoked by race? What's wrong with me?
2. The "Where of it All" - This is bigger than #1. My first point is naive foolishness. Anyone who reads a paper or watches the news has to admit that there are still race-centric issues in the United States of America. But me, yesterday, I was having this disconnected, "I-don't-belong-here", make for the hills feeling...at church. 

I have a group of friends and, on an almost annual basis, we visit West Virginia to hang out in cabins. I go there with an expectation of Confederate flags, and lawn gnomes that really aren't gnomes...just little black men surrounded by grass and tin water cans. I expect to see racist vintage art hung up on the walls of random establishments and I don't waste time looking around for a ton of black people, because I know they're not there. I have an expectation of homogeneity. 

the "ideal" church--per carnal thinking

So Portland merely took me by surprise. And believe me, there are no confederate flags, or "little Sambo" lawn ornaments, or vintage blackface posters, there's simply: no diversity. No big deal. No one has treated me strangely (though someone did try to sell me weed--Normal? Not normal?) or made me feel unwelcome.

But as it came to the church, I started to wonder: am I looking for diversity in the wrong place? Should I expect homogeneity in the church? And I don't mean this in the "Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in Christian America" (a la MLK) way. I mean shouldn't I look for homogeneity in a way that transcends all of that?

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,  for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. - Galatians 3:26-28

There are many who would teach that this is only a theological point, expressing a sort of spiritual/divine equality and unity through the spirit of Christ. It's theological, but not...practical. I find that to be the saddest interpretation of scripture I've ever encountered. We are either all one in Christ Jesus--and are in Christ Jesus all the time; or we can step in and out of Christ Jesus at will, for practical purposes, effectively making racial ("Jew or Greek"), socioeconomic ("slave or free"), and sexual ("male or female") issues both a practical and theological part of corporate worship.

So on Sunday, I was sitting in my folding chair in that huge garage/auditor church thinking these thoughts, and  thinking of that verse. The preacher was preaching, and it was an excellent message (you can check it out here) on the greatest of all the commandments: 

and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

 - Mark 12:30-31

You might think that's completely unrelated to my previous train of thought, but that sermon had me jumping from notion to notion, and scripture to scripture (like the one in Galatians scripture above). But then I started trying to let myself off the hook, telling myself: "I love God, I love people...I'm all good." But is that 100% true? If that were the case, then when I looked around the church, should I have seen (only) a room full of white hipsters? And it brought me to this scripture: 

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. - 1 John 4:20

Clearly, I wasn't in there thinking: "I hate these people." I'm not looking to this scripture to determine whether or not I hated them, but I'm looking to it wondering: have I actually seen them. In the Greek, the word for "seen" here is from a root that means "to stare at properly" and it can mean more than seeing with the eyes, but also perceiving with the mind.

So, I started looking around thinking, who am I really looking at? Who really has their hands up in the air? Who's really singing these praises? Who are they...really?

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

 - 1 John 4:12

Should I see God? 

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free--and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. - 1 Corinthians 12:12-13

Or should I see myself? Someone that I am intricately connected to through Christ? No one looks in a mirror and sees disparate parts. They see themselves. One body. Christ is looking at us, but is seeing Himself.

Isn't that what I should see as well?