Another such New Testament statement is, "You are a chosen race." We find that in our text today, and in some places it has taken off like a rocket and in some quarters become a rationale for anything but Christian love. Anyone who is convinced that they are part of a chosen race can then justify almost any kind of behavior against those who are not. While Jesus did not himself make this statement about the chosen race, he certainly would encourage it's intent. It is that the chosen race of God originates in faith. Unlike many tribes and nationalities that are based on color, ethnic history, vocation, or imposed religion, God's race, God's people are the creative result of a decision. They accept the presence of the Spirit of the living Christ in their midst, and become a new people. There are steps for this process.

I. God's race, the good race, is identified by an open versus a closed mind. They are identified by an open versus a closed spirit. They are identified by an open attitude toward the future versus a closed grasp on the past.

The people who heard the words that became our New Testament were typically from the lower rungs of society. The news to them must have been thrilling that they were included in the chosen people that they were of The Good Race. This was a conclusion to be reached and accepted by faith. The social order of that day did not confer it upon them. Nor does the social order of our time automatically confer membership in the good race upon people.

We do not have to look at race relations in our own society to come up with appalling examples of exclusion. Friends who lived in London for a few years told of a dinner party they had. The man was a lawyer, and the invited guests who were also lawyers or "barristers" were invited for the evening. One of the guests was a brilliant young legal mind who was clearly on his way up in his profession. The other was from a settled family with nothing remarkable in his background except he was a nice person and good to have at a party. The latter man was appalled and insulted that our American friends would invite him to dinner with the brilliant young barrister who was from a lower level of social class than he was. As the English would say, "That just isn't done." This incident took place not a hundred years ago, but in recent decades, and illustrates how easy it is to close out a process of growth.

Some years ago I read an interesting article in the Sunday New York Times about a fraternity in California. This particular chapter was part of a national brotherhood that was in trouble at that time because they had restrictive covenants in their membership, specifically, people of color and Jews were excluded. University policy and the reform pressures of that day had caused this particular chapter to dwindle to four or five members. The chapter president made a statement to the effect that they would never change. He said that if they reached the point where they had to close the house, then so be it. At least, under those circumstances, he said, "The last member of this chapter would be a real member." Oh yes, there is a footnote. This particular fraternity was based upon membership offered only to Arian Christians.

To grow in faith means that we have to be open to the insights that new experiences bring us. To enter any realm of life with a closed mind and a tight fist is to invite disaster. As James Russell Lowell said in the poem, which became a favorite hymn, "New occasions teach new duties. Time makes ancient truth uncouth."

II. The Good Race, God's people are characterized by living versus static relationships. New situations will test whether we are growing in salvation and whether we are like the living stones that become part of a structure of belonging that works to the good of all. The Good Race, God's people will find themselves doing things differently because building new relationships requires it.

It doesn't even have to be religious, overtly, in order to come out as a challenge. One of the fascinating books I have read recently was written by Robert Sapolsky, entitled A Primate's Memoir. He spent more than twenty years of his life between semesters of graduate school and teaching living among a troupe of baboons in East Africa. His worldview was turned upside down. During the later years of his assignment, his fiancée joined him for the field observations. He wanted her to know what she was getting into, no doubt. In the course of their stay, they would be invited by local friends to have dinner in the village of one tribe or another. For the festive occasion, typically, the family would slaughter and cook a goat. In this situation, Robert's fiancée Lisa was a staunch vegetarian. You might say "doctrinaire" vegetarian. It seemed that the way to serve the meal was to pass a piece of the goat from one person to the next and as it came one's turn, one took a bite out of it. Robert worried about what Lisa would do, and what her choice would mean to the people who had offered them such gracious hospitality. Would she deny it, making a fuss, or would she go ahead and eat it, and disrupt her own dogma about dietary regulations. When it came her turn, she offered a big smile and took a bite of the goat. That's a living approach to relationships.

One of the great challenges of people of faith today is to see ourselves as brothers and sisters under the skin, to see ourselves as related to each other across national and ethnic boundaries, and to see ourselves as living and growing entities taking our heritage with us as a dowry into a future where it will be transformed into a resource for God's Good Race.

III. People of The Good Race are characterized by a measure of humility and not arrogance. The stumbling block to people who belong to The Good Race is power. If they do not have power, it is easy for them to be humble. But if they have power, it is a temptation, almost a reflex, to become arrogant. It's the people of power who kicked out the cornerstone, that is Christ, and refused to incorporate it into the structure of their religion. So instead the rejected cornerstone had to become the first building block of a new entity.

But when the new people had grown in numbers and influence, they faced the first great challenge of any successful people. Would their prominence degenerate into arrogance? In his little book called Discernment, Morton Kelsey talked about the difference between angelic and demonic influences in the church. These influences would apply to most organizations and institutions, and it works out like this. Angelic influences seek to relate. Demonic forces seek to dominate. He went on to note that the power struggle was a sure-fire way to invite demonic forces into the life of an organization. The power struggle to win, to have victory at any cost over another is destructive work, and in traditional terms we would say it is an act of the devil. The most horrible example we see today on the international scale of that set of dynamics is the Israelis and Palestinians. One overriding aspect of this tragedy is the unwillingness of anyone to become a little bit humble and say that other options apart from total domination are possible.

God's people, The Good Race, always have their work cut out for them. To be humble and involved in a living process of growing into salvation is to constantly evaluate and assess where we are, who we are, and who we're called to become. The Good Race will go on, but it will always be reborn of those people who look at the rejected Christ in their midst, and choose to build a life of faith on that foundation.