For Christians in the YMCA, our principles are personal; not just that they mean a lot to us and we take them personally, but that they are Personal – that they are birthed out of a Real Person, out of the Way, Truth and Life of Christ Jesus.
Equity is a central Christian principle because it is central to the life and teachings of Christ.
When Jesus announced his “personal mission statement” to family and friends in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth, he declared a salvific message of justice and healing, of equity and liberation, of righteousness and goodness.
He wasn’t just stating the principles he would be putting into practice, Jesus was putting forth the way the Spirit of God was present in the world: with the poor against the rich who rob them, with the captives against their enslavers, with the blind against the gougers, with the oppressed against the elite who erode their freedoms.
“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.
He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.
He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.””
Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel according to Luke, 4.14-19 NIV
Christian theologian Michael Gorman remarks on the obvious:
These words became the substance and shape of Jesus’ ministry. More precisely, then, Jesus, filled with God’s Spirit, embodied biblical justice, especially in his concern for the weak and marginalized; the evangelists bear witness to this…. It was integral to his identity and mission. We might even say that Jesus not only proclaimed the good news to the poor…but he also became the gospel. And like the God of Israel’s Scriptures, Jesus expected those who walked with him to do likewise….”
Michael Gorman, Becoming The Gospel, 216-217
It was this atoning Same Spirit of God that was upon George Williams and his eleven Christian friends when they started the Young Men’s Christian Association in 1844 London England.
It was this Same cruciform Spirit of God that was upon Anthony Bowen when he courageously started a YMCA in the USA.
And it’s been the Same Spirit of Equity, Justice, Righteousness and Love which has animated the best of the YMCA since 1844; it’s also the Same Spirit that critiques and convicts us when we fall short of the glory of God and sin against one another.
Christians in the YMCA have an opportunity in every generation to powerfully experience the redemptive Power of God through their participation in the Gospel of Christ – and this mostly happens when we faith-fully participate in actions of justice and mercy, in sowing seeds of equity, in hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
The spirit of the YMCA must be renewed every generation.
The Same Spirit which was upon Jesus of Nazareth is the Same Spirit upon every follower of Jesus in the YMCA who is Born of the Spirit, upon everyone who bravely trusts in Christ, it’s for all who will humbly imitate him in love and equity by His Spirit.
When Christian’s in the YMCA get it wrong, when we perpetuate injustice and inequity, when we are guilty of unrighteousness, when we are convicted in our spirit by The Spirit of our sins against our neighbors, we know what we ought to do:
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our injustices, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our inequities and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
The beloved apostle John, adapted from his first letter, 1.8-10 NIV
How serious is Jesus about those who follow him, who bear His Spirit, to speak truth in love to each other when we sin, when we are at fault for inequity, injustice, and unrighteousness?
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.
If they listen to you, you have won them over.
But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’
If they still refuse to listen, tell it to your assembly of fellow followers; and if they refuse to listen even to them, treat them as you would an unrepentant and hard-hearted enemy.”
Christ Jesus in the Gospel according to Matthew, adapted, 18.15-17, NIV
The YMCA was started by Christians that we now revere, and it’s been built up and sustained almost eighteen decades by millions of Christians with the Same Spirit of Jesus upon them. Hallelujah! What a glorious reality for our communities and world!
But alas, all of those same Christians have never been without sin, each of us, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn says, experiences: “the battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man and woman.”
It shouldn’t be a shock when Christians in the YMCA commit injustices, rather it ought to produce sorrow and righteous anger, especially when it gets denied, goes unrepented, and unhealed; truth is crucial for reconciliation to flourish.
Whatever the future of Christianity in the YMCA can look like, I’m hoping it is one where we experience a humble religion sustained by the Same Spirit of Christ Jesus that makes equity and justice a reality.
Christians in the YMCA can strengthen the presence of Christ, they participate in the gospel of Jesus, they become the Good News of God when they “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our Lord.”
Wherever there is a cry to experience equity, wherever there is a protest against injustice, wherever unrighteousness darkens a soul, we ought to as followers of Jesus keep his Nazareth manifesto at the front of our minds, at the tip of our fingers, at the center of our spirit.
In the YMCA, may we who are brothers and sisters in the Lord, always strive to put Christ’s personal principles of equity and peace, of justice and love, of righteousness and mercy into practice everyday, that together by the Spirit of the Lord that is upon us, that has called us, we build up a healed spirit, a mind liberated by good news, a body released from oppression, that there would be flourishing for all.
