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By Pastor Glenn Pease
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 recognize that they have prejudice, and to keep it under control so it does not do damage.
I know Christian leaders who are prejudice against others, but they know it and face it honestly, and they do not let it block their Christ-like response to others.
It is there, but it is Christ who is controlling their actions.
Overcoming the power of prejudice may be the hardest battle many Christians will fight.
Lavonne and I are grateful for our mostly prejudice free upbringing.
We have very seldom felt the power of prejudices in our lives, and we have not found it hard to love people of a wide variety of differences.
This has not been the case for many Christians, and the result is they have a perpetual fight with the power of prejudice.
Bad circumstances that lead you to suffer because of other people's behavior leads to prejudice.
I read a funny story that illustrates this point.
A Jewish painter in Tel Avive was hired to paint a church.
The ladder began to slip when he was painting the ceiling, and he fell into the baptismal fount and was knocked out.
The priest passed by and tried to revive him, but he could not do it.
He made the sign of the cross over him and uttered a few Latin phrases.
He was about to leave when Mr. Feldman awoke.
He asked, "What happened?
Where am I?" The priest said, "You are in a church and I just bestowed a blessing on you.
You are now a Christian."
Feldman went home feeling very shaky, and he called out to his wife, "Rachel do you want to hear what happened to me today?"
She shot back from the kitchen, "No time!
I'm late for my tennis game.
Supper is on the table."
He went to his daughter's door and said, "Marian, do you want to hear what happened to me at work today?"
She came bursting out of the door saying, no time!
I hear Don honking the horn for us.
Bye."
He walked down the hall to his 17-year-old sons room, and before he could even ask his son he came out clutching his basketball and said, "Hi dad.
The guys are waiting to get started.
I'll see you tonight."
Feldman sat down on the living room couch and thought to himself, "I'm a Christian only a few hours and already I hate three Jews."
The point is, if you are in some way mistreated by a person who is of another race, class, sex, or religion, you will tend to hold all people in that category accountable for your suffering, and that is prejudice.
Let one woman driver do something stupid and almost cause you to have an accident and you will say, "Those awful women drivers," and condemn the whole class because of the mistake of one.
Then every time you see a female driver you have the preconceived judgment that she is a menace on the road.
Prejudice is based on magnifying a particular experience into a universal principle.
I know a Mexican who will not get out and get a job.
Therefore, all Mexicans are lazy.
I know an Irishman who drinks too much.
Therefore, all Irishmen are drunks.
We could go on endlessly describing how people make universals out of particulars.
Jesus refused to do this, and instead, he treated all people as individuals without judging them as a part of a class.
Other Rabbis would be saying that you do not talk to a woman because they are uneducated and ignorant.
Jesus did not assume such a thing, and the result was that He found her to be quite intelligent.
Jesus did not assume anything, but He treated her as an individual with as much worth as any other individual.
Jesus did the same thing with Zachaeus.
Others were prejudice against this little man, for he was a tax collector.
He was pre-judged as being a scoundrel with no potential to be an asset to society.
Jesus did not prejudge him, but He loved him and treated him with respect.
Because of this He won him as a disciple.
Jesus did not right anybody off as having no potential to be a part of His kingdom.
Gentiles, women, children, publicans and prostitutes, and even Pharisees were welcome.
Jesus never shut the door on any individual, for He was prejudice free.
This is the goal for every believer.
Jesus lived in a world filled with all forms of prejudice.
The Jews hated Samaritans, and both hated Romans.
The Jewish and Gentile conflict was perpetual.
All of these conflicts are still a part of that area of the world.
Jesus did not change that at all but He produced a kingdom within the world where prejudice is not allowed.
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