Minority - the term applied to the majority of the world's population

Minority - the term applied to the majority of the world's people.

I can't remember who said this to me, but I instantly liked the thoughts behind it. Think about it.

We are all very good at marginalising people. We started doing it in school - the playground games, those who were allowed to play and those who weren't. The excuses why were many and varied but the reason was usually that they didn't fit in.

We continue the establish trend into adulthood and by then it's ingrained into us - that idea of us & them, with us being right and them wrong.

Through school, Uni, work and our social lives we develop this pattern. The divisions become wider and more numerous. And, like in school, they are usually just as ridiculous.

Different clothes, different tastes in music, different political ideas, the list goes on and on and the only people who can break its cycle is us, ourselves. Only we can make a difference and change the minorities into the accepted.

Those of you who come to the Melbourne Welsh Church think how you would feel if you went to a Mosque or Synagogue for a service. You would have no clue what to do - you certainly wouldn't fit in, you'd need someone to show you the ropes.

We are all in the minority when we look at things in different ways.

I have a friend called Columbus. Columbus is a very tall gentleman from Ghana. He is also (in his own words), "Very, very black". I went with him to one of his family parties once. I was the only non-Ghanaian there, one white face in a gathering of over 100 people. I could have felt very uncomfortable but I was made to feel part of the group, included in the festivities, although very much in the minority I was accepted, I still look back at that day as a wonderful time.

If we look at the New Testament at the life of Jesus and the work of the early Church we see minorities valued, cherished and loved.

A young, unmarried woman from a little backwater town.

A group of smelly fishermen.

A band of followers in which women were number and counted.

Meals with prostitutes & sinners.

Work with outcasts, even tax collectors.

Healing of lepers and the family of Romans!

Talks with Samaritans.

The very first gentile convert to this new way was an Ethiopian Eunuch - can't get much more marginalised than that. No one would want him around - except God to whom he had great worth.

It seems that in God's eyes there are no minorities; no us and them - just us, all of us, children of God, brothers and sisters on the same journey.

As we approach Easter when we remember that Christ died and rose again for ALL - let us try and view the world with the eyes of God and see, not that which divides us, but that which makes us all the same.