In the sport of judo, beginners wear white belts and experts wear black belts. It’s interesting that the creator of the sport, Jigoro Kano, laid on his death bed at the end of his life and gathered some of his students around him with one request. He asked that he be buried in his white belt.
Why would an expert in the sport want to wear a beginner’s belt? He said he wanted to take on the posture of a learner in the new journey he was about to take.
In his message on Sunday, Aug. 30, pastor Troy Murphy compared Kono’s attitude to our Christian walk. One of the biggest problems we face in our faith journey is that we must fight the urge to become experts. When we wear the black belt of Christianity and posture ourselves as experts we lose the value of being a hungry learner.
It’s easy to fall into being an “expert" in our faith, and stereotyping other people who we don’t consider as mature or far along in the journey. We create labels and become arrogant “experts” in our faith, which according to scripture is not the attitude we should carry.
We should take on the “white belt” in our spiritual journey, which means wanting to constantly learn and never feeling like we’ve arrived. It means looking at people differently and wanting to dive into the story of others and not trying to label them.
We have so much information available to us in the area of theology that we tend to become “black belt” Christians and beat people up for their beliefs or where they are in their faith journey. But everyone has a story that God is writing into their souls.
Instead of labeling and judging and putting people in certain categories, we as Christ followers are called to get out into the world and make ourselves available. We should not take on the posture of protecting ourselves from a sinful and dark world. Instead, we are called to reach out and take part in the Great Commission. Too often we engage in the Great Omission, which entails separating ourselves from the world.
We are called to start conversations with the people, just like Jesus did. We are to find out where people are at and enter into their space. Don’t get overwhelmed with having to talk to a hundred people. For starters, just find one person and treat them not as a project, but as someone God created and loves. Ask questions and listen as people tell you their stories.
Let us as Christ followers put on our white belts as we enter into the world. Let’s meet people where they’re at, enter into their lives and not put ourselves on a pedestal and look down them.
