In their new IVP® book, Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World, Doug Schaupp and Paula Harris tell their stories and describe their journeys on the way to making a difference as people in a multiethnic context. The first stage of racial understanding is encounter. In the last issue, Doug told his story; in this issue, Paula tells hers. These excerpts are just the beginning. Please take time to read the whole book!

 
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When God sends us cross-cultural encounters with people of color, all we have to do is to respond. Just as often, God commands us to be people of encounter. Scripture teaches us to become people who learn to embrace those who are different from us.

When God first chose a unique people for covenant-making, he gave their founder, Abram, some very interesting instructions. God told him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). Abram, whom God later renamed Abraham, must have wondered, Where is that place—“the land that I will show you”? What was clear is that Abram and his wife Sarai must go, must leave their familiar people, their familiar place, and follow God, listening to God’s directions to discern the final destination. God’s covenantal promise is also clear. If Abram goes, if he obeys, God will bless him, God will make him a nation, God will make his name great, “so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2–3).

How were this man and his wife different from others who followed God in the ancient Near East? Genesis 12, which tells the story of Abram’s call, doesn’t explain why God called him. When we meet him, we don’t know anything about Abram/Abraham except his genealogy. In Hebrews 11 we get the key to the mystery: he was a man of faith and obeyed God. “By faith Abraham obeyed . . . and he set out. . . . By faith he stayed for a time in the land. . . . By faith he received power of procreation” (Hebrews 11:8–11).

Back in the subsequent chapters of Genesis we can read the details of Abraham and Sarah’s journey. God didn’t lead them directly to Canaan/ Palestine, if we read the story geographically. Both Genesis and Hebrews admit that Abraham and Sarah never reached the physical destination. The point was not the camping trip or the destination. God was leading them on an inner journey of obedience as well as an outer journey to encounter a series of different people groups. Why was cross-cultural encounter an intrinsic part of their journey with God? God had promised Abraham to bless him so that he would be a blessing. In Genesis 12–25, God leads Abraham and Sarah through encounters with different nations. God used cross-cultural encounter and displacement to grow their faith and obedience as they wandered through the desert.

Jesus, too, found cultural encounter a necessary part of his journey in ministry. In his inaugural sermon in Luke 4, where he announced to his hometown (and now to us) what would be the shape and result of his ministry, Jesus was intentionally cross-cultural. After the reading, Jesus pointed out: “The truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah . . . and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:25–27). In other words, the good news of God is not simply for the Jews. Jesus seems to be pointing out an intentional model of God’s people reaching out to others across cultural boundaries. Jesus also modeled what he preached. He had encounters with everyone from Roman soldiers to Gentile women.

The account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4) says that Jesus needed to go through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem. “He had to” go that way, my translation says. Well, yes, geographically that was true. But Jews in that time frequently went long distances out of their way to stay in familiar territory with familiar people. They were taking the beltline freeway around a place they didn’t like. Scripture says it was necessary for Jesus to go straight through. Why?

In Luke 10 Jesus makes his point clear about this. A lawyer “stood up to test Jesus,” asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Read the scriptural law, Jesus responded; what does it say? I can hear him teasing: “You’re the lawyer, what’s the answer?”

So the lawyer responded, quoting Deuteronomy and Leviticus: Love God, love my neighbor. Then he posed a lawyer’s technical question: “But who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the powerful story of the good Samaritan. Who was the man the good Samaritan saved? Everybody else in the story was a Jew. The priest: a Jew. The Levite: a Jew. The origin of the journey: a Jewish city. The destination: a Jewish city. So the victim of the robbers must be a Jew.

This is a cross-cultural encounter. A minority person who is willing to love across cultural boundaries is Jesus’ model of faithfulness. Jesus is using a Samaritan loving a Jew as a model of how to get saved.

Loving across cultures
The question posed when a minority person reaches out to us is, can we love back? Can we respond with welcome and kindness? But Jesus challenges us to a higher standard. Can we find it necessary to go through the heart of the city? Can we take a good Samaritan as a model?

A few years ago I was at a missionary meeting in Brazil. One evening I joined a Kenyan missionary for dinner. As we began getting to know one another, I started to realize that he was ordering his food in Portuguese. He knew the waitress’s name. He taught me how to order my drink so I got the lemon-lime soda I hoped for instead of lemonade. He helped me tell the waitress my room number in Portuguese, so I could charge my meal.

I asked him, “When did you learn Portuguese? Have you been a missionary in Brazil or Portugal?”

“No,” he laughed merrily. “I came here the same day you did.”

After I got over being embarrassed, I realized he’d taught me a valuable lesson about good encounters. My Kenyan friend was learning Portuguese by developing relationships with people. Today he is a dear friend and brother to me.

In Bonding and the Missionary Task, cross-cultural professor Betty Sue Brewster writes about forming new cross-cultural relationships. When we enter a new, foreign culture, we “are bombarded by a multitude of new sensations, sights, sounds, and smells, . . . [and we] are able to respond to these new experiences and even enjoy them.” At this critical point of beginning, she says, we are “ready to bond—to become a belonger with those to whom [we] are called to be good news. The timing is critical. Imprinting occurs at the critical time. Bonding best occurs when the participants are uniquely ready for the experience.” If we bond in our cross-cultural encounters, if we form a warm, affectionate beginning to our friendship and start by curiously enjoying our differences, we have far less culture shock later on.

But some of us miss the critical time for bonding. Is it still possible later? Of course it is. Developing a relationship in which we belong to people and they belong to us is natural to human beings.

Most white people in North America don’t have a chance to start “at the beginning” like missionaries. Those of us who are white have a lot of history in our culture. Everything is familiar, and we have expectations that people in our milieu will relate in certain ways and things will function in certain ways. In order to step out into a multiethnic encounter, we need to take a risk. In some ways we’re starting over to create multiethnic relationships. The best place to start is with our own hearts and our immediate circumstances. I can ask myself, What ethnic minority people are around me, and how can I get to know them as individuals? If a person does things differently from my way, how can I gently ask, “Would you explain this to me?” How can I show honor to my brothers and sisters in Christ? How can I relate to them comfortably as friends?

How is God already working?
In what ways are you already drawn to ethnic minority cultures? Has God given you a real joy in something that is not from your own culture? It doesn’t have to be something profound or difficult. Maybe it’s a particular kind of food or music. For example, if you love reggae music, you could start to explore that culture. Find a local band and start going to its concerts. You might get to know some other fans, and even meet a family member or friend of the band selling CDs. It’s not hard to start a conversation with someone if you already love the music. Keep going back and keep on enjoying the music and the people. Perhaps you’ll find spiritual bridges for conversation as well; reggae grew out of the Rastafarian religion and poor black Jamaicans’ need for justice (they have a very similar history to our own, with slavery and its aftermath). Because you love the music, you’ll probably find that you love the people too.

To find where God is working, all you have to do is go. Go outside where you usually go and just talk to somebody—anybody. Be friendly and start to ask questions. Become a learner. See others as unique, and care about them and what’s happening in their lives.

A few years ago I went out to lunch with an out-of-town mentor. He is Pakistani, so I chose my favorite Indian buffet because I love the food there and wondered what he would think of it. I figured it might resemble his home cuisine. We were chatting about our families and our work. When the waiter came, my friend started asking him about his family and his restaurant. He obviously knew the guy. He even knew his wife’s name. I realized that my friend had been there before—a lot.

Later, when I asked him about it, I learned that every time he came to Madison, he had lunch at this restaurant. He had chosen it so he could befriend the waiter and proprietor. Soon enough he had learned about their families, the ups and downs of the business, even what was going on back home in India. (India and Pakistan are not friends, as countries go.) My mentor was acting like Jesus. Following him, I learned it’s not that hard to choose a favorite ethnic restaurant and get to know the owner.

When I was in graduate school, I enjoyed hanging out with an African-American woman in my fellowship. I really wanted a deeper friendship with Kim but had no idea how to build it or ask for it. How do you go past superficial encounters? Finally I decided to ask her to do something big with me. We talked about it and decided to lead a year-long Bible study together. We chose to study Acts, a cross-cultural book. We recruited a diverse group of people for our study.

I think, in retrospect, that when I asked her if she’d lead the study with me, I was really asking her, “Will you be my friend? Will you commit yourself to a longer-term relationship with me?” She did. Soon I knew about her department in the university and some of the struggles of African-American students on our campus. I knew about her family, her mother. Later we decided to be roommates. That initial invitation had been the hardest one.

Making mistakes and judging too quickly
Two things often happen when we develop a cross-cultural relationship. Sooner or later we make a mistake. We are fallen, so we sin. But also, in a cultural situation that is new to us, we just can’t predict what might happen next. We don’t really understand things yet. We don’t know why things happen in a certain way. We feel a bit out of control. These feelings are natural parts of culture shock, and they are why we need a friend of that culture to guide us and tell us what’s next.

One time I was having dinner with some Middle Eastern friends. My hosts were secular people from Lebanon. I had been to Rana and Ahmed’s place several times for dinner with them, usually sitting down to eat between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. This particular evening there were other guests, a Palestinian man, some men from Lebanon and some others I couldn’t place.

As usual, Rana and I laughed and talked and cooked for hours. We joked with the other guests. When it finally came time to eat, Rana served the men first, at one corner of the small apartment, and then brought her plate and mine to another corner. Okay, I thought, I’ll just follow her lead and eat over here. But it bothered me. Why were we eating separately? I couldn’t pay good attention to her. So finally I asked her, “Why are we eating over here? Is it because you have men as guests tonight? Are you separating the men and women?”

She looked at me strangely. “No, Paula.”

“Then why?” I persisted.

“Because you are American and you eat with a spoon. They want to eat with their hands, and they don’t want you to look down on them.”

I had made a few mistakes in this situation. I was judgmental about why dinner was so late. It took me a lot of dinners to realize that one reason was to enjoy the time hanging out in the kitchen first. If dinner were earlier, when would my friend and I get so many hours to talk and laugh? Also, I wasn’t brave enough to eat with my hands, if I could eat in the familiar (clean) way using silverware. What was the big deal? There was a sink to wash in afterward. Now this style of dining reminds me of art class, being given permission to use fingerpaints instead of a ballpoint pen.

Although it was good that I asked Rana for clarification instead of just assuming, my very questions included a value judgment. I could have asked, “Why are we eating differently tonight?” Instead I assumed that these Middle Eastern people must practice strict gender separation—which is often true but wasn’t in this situation. In fact, I was the reason for the separation.

In spite of my mistakes, I persisted, and Rana could see I liked her. I just kept going back to her place and inviting her to mine. I apologized when I made mistakes. When I saw from her face that something wasn’t quite right, I would ask, “Did I do something to offend you?” But mostly we just hung out and had a good time. The second thing that happens sooner or later is that we judge people too quickly. As Christians, we know that God is both loving and holy and that we are called to both love people and challenge their sin. This truth is clear throughout Scripture. At the same time, in a cross-cultural situation we cannot fully understand what is going on. We must slow down and become learners, truly understand what they do, why they do it and the cultural dynamics behind the behavior.

I am just beginning to learn about Native-American cultures. I am very slowly learning to build friendships. Early on in my encounter with Native American Christian leader Terry LeBlanc, I told him the story of a dream. I had dreamed about some Pacific Island-type sculptures that came to life and frightened me. Recounting my dream, I called the sculptures demonic. Terry responded very gently, “Why do you call them that, Paula? What made you think they were demons?”

It took me several years to absorb the depths of his challenge to me. I had not judged the dream images out of spiritual discernment. I called them demonic because they frightened me. When I was a very small girl, I had attended ceremonies of Papua New Guinean tribes, and the traditional art, fierce costumes and loud drumming had been frightening. As I reflected now on Terry’s challenge, I realized that my judgment had come out of fear, not godliness.

Since then I have learned something of how my judgment fits in a broader context of encounters between Native and white people. I have read the history of white missionaries trying to reach out to Native Americans. I have met Native Americans and heard stories of those who were taken from their families by white Christians, put in boarding schools and told not to speak their language or live out their cultural traditions. To my shame, I have learned how often other white people before me have called Native art, music and dance “demonic,” how we have suppressed it and told Native Americans that God cannot be worshiped with their cultural traditions, as if Jesus were a white American who spoke English.

Of course Terry knew all this. I was the ignorant one, blundering into the painful place where he and his people had been repeatedly wounded. It is only in retrospect that I realize the depth of his kindness to me with that gentle question. He had reason to judge me, not the other way around. Thank God I answered his question with silence, thinking, I don’t know.

Persistence and obedience
I’ve told stories about making mistakes in multiethnic encounters because it happens and that’s one way we learn. I have some treasured friendships that developed from the encounters I’ve described. The lessons and the love made the mistakes worthwhile.

We are not unique in our mistakes. Scripture shows Peter, the rock on whom Christ built the church, making cross-cultural mistakes. Sometimes I think “the rock” nickname just meant Peter was hard-headed. In Acts, the Holy Spirit had repeatedly corrected Peter’s cultural and theological ethnocentrism. Peter was not the apostle to the Gentiles, but God left him no choice but to include them. Struggling but obeying God, Peter went to Cornelius, a Gentile who is described as “an upright and God-fearing man . . . well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation” (Acts 10:22). But Peter started with a cross-cultural mistake, insulting Cornelius: “You know I’m not supposed to associate with you or visit you. But God showed me . . . “ (see Acts 10:28–29).

Somehow Cornelius forgave Peter, perceiving that God was working in him and waiting for what he had to offer. Jesus also forgave Peter, seeing his persistence and obedience. For those of us who are white, the great news is that people of color will forgive us when we take risks and make mistakes as we follow Jesus. No beginner does things perfectly.

Whether we look at Abraham and Sarah, at Jesus’ first sermon in Luke 4 or at his last instruction in Matthew 28, God’s message is quite clear. We are to reach across cultural boundaries to love and bless one another.

Paula Harris is senior associate director of the Urbana student mission convention. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, she also speaks and writes on missiology, missionary recruitment, postmodernism and racial issues. this article was excerpted from Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World (IVP). Used by permission. Part 1 of this series can be found here (in the fall 2004 issue).