Beauty in Diversity (Genesis 1:20-24; 10:1-5 / 1 Cor. 12:27-30)

Imagine a world where everyone talks alike, thinks alike, moves alike, dresses alike, and even looks alike. That would be boring to death. Don’t you think so?

Immediate members of a family may have similarities in ways, habits, tastes, and physical features. But they are not exactly alike. Even identical twins have distinguishing features. If your neighbor who is not in any way related to you looks almost like you, you should be alarmed. Why? Because there is a big difference between heredity and environment. “What is the difference?” you may be asking. Someone told me, when you look like your father that is heredity. But when you look like your neighbor’s father that is environment. If we look at both creation and the Church it appears that God delights in diversity. Let us look at God’s creation.

I. IN CREATION God created a wide variety of creatures on land, air, and water.

The Good News Bible highlights this in Genesis 1:20-21:

Then God commanded, "Let the water be filled with many kinds of living beings, and let the air be filled with birds." So God created the great sea monsters, all kinds of creatures that live in the water, and all kinds of birds. And God was pleased with what he saw.

God's world is full of many colors, shapes, functions, purposes, and textures, and this is precisely what makes the world so amazingly and breathtakingly beautiful! Yes, there are general groups of life forms and they have distinctive similarities among them. But there is also an infinite profusion of variation within a particular life form.

Some 1000 scientists in 70 countries are participating in the 10-year Census of Marine Life project to discover new marine species in the world’s oceans. So far, scientists have discovered 15,482 marine fish species. And they are discovering two new species a week. They have identified a total of 254,000 life forms – including animal and plants in the world’s oceans. Scientists are expecting to find 1.98 million species of sea life forms by the end of the project.[1] And we are only talking about marine life forms here. We have not yet touched fresh water life! How about creatures on land? Believe it or not there are more than 950,000 known species of insects alone. No one knows for sure how many species of animals exist on Earth. In fact, over 1.9 million species are already described and some 10,000 species of animals are discovered each year. Projections for the total number of species on Earth range from 2 million to 50 million. [2] Scientist Rosenzweig of the Society for Conservation of Biology estimated that there may even be as much as 100 million species.[3]

Dutch Theologian Abraham Kuyper states it beautifully. He writes, In God’s creation you find an “infinite diversity, and inexhaustible profusion of variations that strikes and fascinates you in every domain of nature, in the ever-varying shape of a snowflake as well as in the endlessly differentiated form of flower and leaf. Where in God's entire creation do you encounter life that does not display the unmistakable hallmark of life precisely in the multiplicity of colors and dimensions in the capriciousness of its ever-changing forms? [4]

The wide variety and vast diversity in creation is a reflection of the infinite majesty of the Creator who made all these. God’s creativity is inexhaustible and his wisdom is beyond measure. Truly the God who created the universe is a majestically awesome God.

God does not only delight in variety, He also wants variety and diversity in his world to be preserved by us human beings.

You will recall that according to the book of Genesis before the Great Flood God instructed Noah to build an ark and bring pairs of all the animals into the big ark.

Whether the ark should be interpreted literally or symbolically is beside the point.

It appears that the thrust of God’s command is for Noah to preserve the creatures in their diversity.

Promoting the uniformity in creation in any way is a violation God’s original design. Doing so brings with it negative repercussions.

With cloning science can now produce genetically identical organisms – exact copies of the original parent organism. Some of us are familiar with Dolly, the first successfully cloned sheep. They have successfully cloned other life forms since.

New research, however, suggests that even seemingly healthy animal clones have subtle genetic abnormalities with unknown consequences. [5]

Her keepers at the Roslin Institute in Scotland recently disclosed that Dolly has arthritis and age faster. Cloned mice, for example, have problems with their immune system. They have liver failure, tumors, severe pneumonia and are prone to spontaneous abortion.[6] Most clones live only one third of their normal life span.

God’s creation is intended to have variety. Let us celebrate the infinite variety and beauty of God’s creation! And let us keep it that way.

God delights in diversity and yet in church we want uniformity. We want other people to think the way we do, to talk the way we do, to love the same kind of music we do.

We have forgotten that the Church, the Body of Christ, is made up of people who are not the same.

Let us look at the Church.

II. IN CHURCH

The apostle Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthian Christian (12:28-30):

In the church God has put all in place: in the first place apostles, in the second place prophets, and in the third place teachers; then those who perform miracles, followed by those who are given the power to heal or to help others or to direct them or to speak in strange tongues. They are not all apostles or prophets or teachers. Not everyone has the power to work miracles or to heal diseases or to speak strange tongues or to explain what is said.

There is a wide diversity within the Body of Christ. In fact, Christianity was birthed in a mixed atmosphere.

The Twelve Disciples were a diverse bunch of people. Their trades were different: One was a tax-collector; four were fishermen.

The Twelve were also different in character and personality. Peter was impulsive and confident. Thomas, on the other hand, was overly cautious.

James and John were called Sons of Thunder because they were men of violent nature.

One time they were rebuked by Jesus for suggesting that they order down fire from heaven to burn up a Samaritan village that refused and turned them away.

Andrew, on the other hand, was a friendly individual. From among 5,000 men, not to mention the women and children, he was able to identify and effectively convinced a boy to give his five loaves and two fishes to Jesus.

Their political orientations were also different. Matthew was a tax collector, a collaborator of the Romans – thus considered a traitor by the Jews. Simon the Zealot, was a member of the Jewish rebel movement – enemy of the Romans. Judas the Iscariot – was most likely a member of the assassination squad of the Zealots for scarii is an Aramaic word for dagger or knife.

They are from the opposite ends of the political pole and yet they belonged to the same group. Their loyalty to Jesus Christ was probably their only commonality. But it was enough! In fact, it was more than enough.

We generally prefer to hang around with those who have the same views, interests, and preferences as we do. There is nothing wrong with that. I myself do that.

But we need to learn to embrace those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord but whose views, preferences, faith expression, or ways of worship may be totally different from ours. To do so is to be Christ-like.

Somebody said, “We can be brothers and sisters without being twin brothers and sisters.”

Embracing those who differ from us is not only Christ-like it will also widen our horizon and enrich our perspective and understanding of the Christian faith.

Paul used the human body as an analogy to describe the Church. Each believer is a part the Body of Church and each part is important. Remove one part and the whole body suffers.

Someone likened the Church to a jigsaw puzzle. Each of us is a piece and every piece has a place. If one piece is missing, the picture becomes incomplete.

For instance, the Presbyterians’ strength is their emphasis on Biblical education and social involvement.

The Baptists’ contribution to Christian spirituality is their emphasis on evangelism.

The Charismatics’ contribution to Christian spirituality is their vibrant and dynamic form of worship.

The Methodists’ tradition is strong on order and organizational system.

The Mennonites and Amish Christians can teach us lessons on simple and communal living.

The conservatives focus on the development of personal piety.

The progressives emphasize the fight for truth, peace and justice.

The traditionalists help us appreciate our rich heritage of psalms and hymns.

The youth remind us that there is a “sing a new song to the Lord”

Each of them has an important contribution toward a complete whole. Remove one and you will have an incomplete expression of the Christian faith. Overemphasize one and you will have an imbalance.

Our faith is enriched by the variety of perspectives, views, and faith expressions within the Body of Christ. We need each other. None of us is a whole, independent, self-sufficient, all-powerful big time star.

While it is true that others can learn from us, it also true that we can learn from others.

We complement each other. That’s probably one of the reasons why God made us different from each other in the Body of Christ. Don’t you think so, too?

PRAYER

Open our eyes, dear Lord, to see things from your perspective.

[1] www.mnnbc.msn.com/id/6565772

[2] www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0934288.html

[3] hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/FelixNisimov.shtml -

[4] www.chicagosemester.org

[5] www.news.bbc.co.uk. Warning Over Dangers of Cloning. 6 July 2001

[6] www.news.bbc.co.uk. Fresh Warning Over Cloning Dangers. 11 February 2002.