Tribes, The World Cup, & A Third Race

I spent last Sunday afternoon with my guts knotted and my voice increasingly hoarse as I watched the Wallabies wrestle their way into the Rugby World Cup semi-finals. For those 2 hours I was almost entirely Australian in my focus, a passionate tribal member, willing the defeat of another tribe’s men. After the victory, I was both exhausted and pumped, with adrenaline flowing for some time afterwards. (Rugby is the only sport that currently has the power to capture me in this way. I used to feel the same way about the cricket – but then we started thrashing everyone and it got boring.)

Within an hour of that victory I was on my feet again, my voice raised in public. This time there was far less tension in my stomach and voice, but a much greater clarity and intent in what I said. I was speaking not as a mere Australian, but as a follower of Jesus Christ and, therefore, a member of the ‘Third Race’. This was a term coined by early Christians to reflect the radical change in identity that had come about because of Jesus. Having been dead in sin, dead to God, they knew what it was to be forgiven and made alive to him because of Jesus’ sacrificial death on their behalf. They had been drawn from every tribe, every strata of society and brought together in churches comprised of a ‘new humanity’ (Ephesians 2: 11-18). It was this that led Paul to write this explosive and wonderful truth in Colossians 3:11

      ‘Here there is no Jew or Greek, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.’

It was this removal of all the dividing walls, this onenss in Christ, that the early Christians were trying to capture when they used the appellation ‘Third Race’. They were still culturally Roman, Egyptian, or Sythian and economically slaves or free, but race and social status no longer mattered when it came to relating to God and each other. I’m sure they still followed their teams (and Pauls’ use of sporting metaphors suggests he loved sport) and even fought for their country in war (when justified), but this did not, in the end, define them. 

An hour after I’d yelled myself hoarse as a member of the Wallaby tribe, I was standing with a group far more varied, yet far more precious. A very different tribe, a sample of that new humanity that Jesus came to create – a  Third race defined by our forgiven state, our love for the Lord and our common access to the heavenly Father.

When the Wallabies run onto Eden park for that semi-final I will be with my precious tribe, celebrating our oneness in Christ, preaching the glorious mystery revealed in Ephesians 3. A couple of us will catch the game later and we will once again emotionally rise and fall with the fortunes of our men in gold. But win or lose, my mind will eventually go back to the earlier meeting, to my most defining tribe, to those of whom this rings eternally true:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” ( Galatians 3)