I had my head in the clouds (literally) and was hiking at 12,000 feet as the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, erupted a few weeks ago. But as I began to “plug in” to the news again, my heart sank. When I think of race issues I often recall my own family history. My grandfather was the sheriff of a small town in Texas and his views on race were far from enlightened. My father was born in Waxahachie, Texas. When I first moved to Kansas City, I heard Mayor Emanuel Cleaver tell about his childhood in Waxahachie, Texas, where he first learned that he was no longer allowed to play with his best friend because the color of their skin differed. And I knew that friend could have been one of my relatives. When my father was in college he earned his living hauling hay and his co-worker was African American. My father often told us about the time he snuck his co-worker into the drive-in movie, fooling the ticket taker by placing a ball cap on his co-worker’s head and sneaking in at dusk in their hay truck. All of this flashed back for me when I heard the news from Charlottesville. History suddenly seemed frighteningly present.

How is a Christian to respond to shouts of white supremacy and anti-semitic slogans? And how can we hold fast to our conviction to “love neighbor as self” without escalating the conflict? I was moved and shocked when I listened to an interview with a young man who was raised by a leader in the white supremacy movement. When he went away to college he was befriended by an orthodox Jewish man who invited him to Friday night Shabbat. Through this friendship, he lost his passion for hate and denounced his family’s ideology. So it seems to me that we need to build bridges to those with whom we disagree. Jesus died on the cross for you, for me, for the white supremacist. That is the shocking truth of the gospel. And so how do we change one another’s hearts? How do we create a world where all know the fullness of God’s welcome and the justice that every human being deserves?

The apostle Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, we are all one in Christ.” And Jesus reminded us over and over again that only God is Supreme. Jesus made a habit of hanging out with folks who were different from him. His love was so radical, so revolutionary, so challenging, that they killed him. And there he prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

None of us dare follow that Christ and hate another person. The distinctions we make among ourselves are irrelevant to God.