We need to remind ourselves that if Jesus had been incarnated in twentieth century America, the odds are, based on holy scripture, that he would not appear among the white suburbanites, the world in which we live and move and have our being but, more than likely, in the chaos of the ghetto or the despair of the homeless or the frustration of a woman’s support group. Indeed, if Jesus had been incarnated in twentieth century America, he just might have been she!

The point here is not to shock but to liberate us from images of God that are no longer viable, images that can, in fact, be destructive. Despite what the church has for too long proclaimed, the fact that Jesus was a Jewish male living two thousand years ago has no bearing on the gender, race or religion of God. God cannot and must not be contained by such limited understandings and descriptions. The God revealed by Jesus the Christ is a God for all people and of all people and must never be confined to any particular time, place or people.

If we believe that Christ is the symbol of God’s never-ending love, then that Christ will take on any and all forms to announce God’s love to the world. For the racist, Christ must become Black. For the sexist, Christ becomes a woman. For the homophobic, Christ becomes gay. What else do we think loving our enemy is all about? It is realizing, in a deep, profound, life-changing way, that God’s love is not reserved only for people who think like us or look like us or act like us or even believe like us.

Christ is Christ for all or Christ is Christ for no one.