By PASTOR JOHN ZIMMERMAN-HARDMAN
“Ebony and Ivory, living in perfect harmony, side by side on my piano keyboard. Oh Lord, why don’t we? We all know that people are the same wherever we go; there’s good and bad in everyone. We learn to live when we give to each other what we need to survive” (“Ebony and Ivory” by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder – check out the Official Music Video on YouTube).
Ebony and Ivory. Black and White. We are meant to complement one another, like the keys on a piano. Together we make possible goodness, beauty, and well-being beyond individual attainment. We need each other. We are incomplete without each other. The harmonies of life require the love of us all.
I just returned from the annual conference of the International Council of Community Churches, in which I was ordained. The Council was formed in 1950 as a response to the racial divide in our country, and to one of its particular expressions, the most segregated hour of the week: Sunday morning, when Black folks went to one church and White folks went to another church. Back then, and too much now, there wasn’t much integration or intermingling. But there was at the ICCC conference and there has been ever since its inception. As a result, conferences have been immeasurably enriched – musically, theologically, energetically, inspirationally, cross-culturally, and relationally, demonstrating that it is true, we are all one in the Spirit.
Christian scripture puts it this way: Love as made known in Jesus has broken down the dividing walls of hostility between peoples. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in the Spirit. We can also add: there is neither Black nor White, rich nor poor, Republican nor Democrat, American nor Russian, gay nor straight, able or disabled nor any other less than loving distinction. We are one in God’s eyes and heart.
Ebony and Ivory and every color and shade of the rainbow, such is the love of God, the love we are called to be and the love we are called to be about.
John Zimmerman-Hardman is Pastor at the United Methodist Church of Brandon.
