Translating Your PastSample

Trading lederhosen for a kilt?

If you’ve taken a consumer DNA test like that offered by AncestryDNA or 23andMe, you’ve gotten results that give a breakdown of where your ancestors may have originated. We might discover that we have some surprising results in the mix, like an unexpected percentage of Norwegian or Nigerian, or Indigenous American ancestry that may change the way we understand where we’ve come from.

An AncestryDNA commercial a few years ago illustrated this. A man named Kyle Merker told viewers that his family always thought of themselves as Germans, but after he took a DNA test, he discovered that he wasn’t German at all, but was a majority Scottish and Irish. As a result of those findings, he said, “I traded in my lederhosen for a kilt.”

However, Merker might not want to toss that lederhosen too quickly. Ethnic identity is formed out of a lifetime of experiences. We learn about that identity in many different ways, including treasured legacy recipes, wedding celebrations, reunions, funerals, and the language spoken in our home or by relatives. We learn to understand something about ourselves via the group or groups with which our family identifies.

The apostle Paul’s words to his friends in the Galatian church in today’s reading may seem to imply that our ethnic identity no longer matters once we become followers of Jesus. Paul emphasizes that because of Jesus, the kinds of categories that tend to divide us from one another, like race, gender, or social status, don’t give us special standing before God. Our faith in the risen Christ to save and forgive us forms his followers into a new kind of community free from dividing walls.

Yet we also see in three places in the book of Revelation that people of every tribe, language, people, and nation have gathered as one to worship the living God (Revelation 5:9–10; 7:9–10; 14:6–7). It is worth noting that those earthly distinctions between the various groups and categories were evident. Being in the presence of God didn’t cancel those distinctions.

Our ethnicity is a gift from God, and there is much to learn and appreciate about our cultural backgrounds. God placed us in our specific family line, but God is also calling us to keep this heritage in its proper perspective. One ethnic identity is not superior to another. It is often said that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. It is not our ethnicity that connects us to Christ or others within or outside of our own tribe. It is our faith in God—a faith that is available to every people group in the whole world.

Pray: Jesus, I thank you for my tribe, language, people, and nationality. Help me today to recognize in a new way that I will be singing your praise for eternity in harmony with all your redeemed people.