Source: Act Beyond, December 2015
“We cannot take the Lord’s Supper across caste lines,” some Indian believers explained. Sam [a ministry partner] did not know quite how to tackle this issue, so he asked the Beyond team in India, “What should we do?”
We see in the book of Acts (Acts 2:46) that the early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Specifically, the verse says they worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. It came to light this summer that a whole segment of the movement in India, involving many churches, were not taking the Lord’s Supper.
As Sam investigated this, he learned that caste-ism was the problem. India’s systemic sin, caste-ism, states that a high-caste person becomes spiritually unclean when he or she eats with a low-caste person.
Teaching obedience is very different from simply teaching about Jesus or about the Bible. Jesus’ final command to his disciples was to teach others to “teach them to obey [him].” Racism in any form is unacceptable to God. Prejudice in any form, having a preconceived notion about another person, is anathema to the gospel. Caste-ism is racism taken to the extreme. Caste teaches that, from birth, some people are simply better and more valuable people than others. It is a huge issue, and it must be dealt with in the new churches. So, the team needed to get this right. They needed a heart change on a core Indian problem, not just verbal assent to some teaching they might give.
Only the Lord can touch a heart. The team knew the new churches needed to learn from the Bible, not from them, so they gave Sam a list of verses which address caste-ism, the equality of all people in God’s Kingdom, as well as who can take the Lord’s Supper. The team also prayed. Sam took these Scriptures to the leaders.
They studied God’s Word together. They discussed what God was saying regarding caste-ism and the Lord’s Supper. Sam did not preach or teach. He gave them the Scriptures. He prayed. He asked questions. They all looked at Scripture together. Finally, the leaders came to the conclusion that, “If I am in Jesus, I am no longer Brahmin (or whatever caste I was born into). I can either be a Brahmin, or in Jesus, but I cannot be both. If that’s the option, then I want to be in Jesus!”
Then, the leaders did something the team seldom have seen. They apologized. In front of each other, without attempting to save face or defend themselves, they admitted, “I am sorry; I was wrong” to Sam and to their disciples. Apologizing in public is a big deal anywhere, but it is huge in Asia. Usually apologies there are passive at best. For someone to take ownership of a wrong he has done, and then to apologize, not just to someone he considers “above” himself (Sam), but also to people who look up to one (disciples) was astounding. Our team was speechless.
The story does not end there though. After apologizing, the leaders intentionally gathered multiple churches with mixed caste-background people, and they all took communion together!
This may sound like a small thing to us, but this is so major for India. Caste-ism is the filter through which the vast majority of Indians think about relationships and community. God broke through their hearts and minds through his Word alone.