Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! Color is a complicated concept. While even a 2 year old can correctly name a color, to understand how we see color is difficult. A simplified explanation tells us that color has three properties: hue, the shade, e.g. red or green; saturation, the strength of the color; and luminance, the brightness of the color. When I took this image with my camera it recorded all the properties of color. You see the image in black and white because I changed the color properties with my image editing software. My software allows me to change any one of the color properties of the image and when I do it changes the whole image. For example I can take a fall scene and increase the saturation of the yellows and reds to make the trees stand out. Or, as I did in this image, I can de-saturation an image so that the green of the grass and the pine needles and the brown of the tree trunk become shades of gray.
When we say that someone is color blind what we are saying is that the person doesn’t see all the properties of color. He or she only sees saturation and brightness but not hue. The image a color blind person sees is incomplete. In the same way we can be color blind when we look at our world. Just like the properties of color we all have properties though which we look at the world - our race, our economic status, our neighborhoods, our politics, and even our religious beliefs. We develop a kind of blindness, our vision is incomplete. The result of all of our color blindness is division and disunity. The church at Corinth was having such a problem with discord and division. Paul wrote to them to help them get over their color blindness, to develop a complete vision. He admonished them first to examine themselves to look to see what properties were missing. If we are going to live in unity with all, we will need to begin by examining the way the properties of our lives influence the image we see. We will need to listen to those people whose properties are different from ours. We will need to see where and how we are color blind. It won’t be easy and will most likely be painful. We don’t like to think of ourselves as racist or prejudice but when we look carefully we will find that we are. Our vision is incomplete and our image of the world is missing something. While we don’t have editing software that will allow us to easily change the properties that we are using to see each other, Paul writes to the Corinthians that we have something more powerful - “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” This is the only way we can began to remove the divisions and walk in unity with each other. Prayer God Of All People Examine our hearts and show us where the properties of our lives keep us from seeing the unjust way we and our culture treat others. Give us the courage to reach out to someone whose properties of life are different from ours. As we listen to each other give us wisdom to find ways to seek justice for all who have been oppressed so we can live in unity. Amen
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Soli Deo Gloria,
1 Corinthians 10:31
© 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Karen Milligan
1 Corinthians 10:31
© 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Karen Milligan