Multiethnic Ministry: I am not “used to” this!

Based on a sermon by Rev. David Jung, at daily chapel on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, during our 2026 Multiethnic Symposium.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3:12–17)

I recently learned an interesting fact. I was reading an article about the history of hymnody in our church. According to the article, there were no actual melodies in our very first hymnbook, only lyrics. It was only in subsequent hymnals that melodies were provided as well. When The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) came out in 1941, for the first time ever, it included not only the melody lines of the hymns but harmony. Do you know what the response was from people? According to the article, they said, “We are Lutherans. Why would the congregation sing in parts? That’s what Methodists do.” Now, as far as I know, Bach was a Lutheran, and I think he would see that issue differently! I have it from Peter Reske (from CPH’s music department) however, that it was just not something we in the LCMS did prior to TLH. We were not used to it.

One of the reasons why ministry is hard in general, and why multiethnic ministry in particular is hard, is that you have to get used to things that you are not used to, things that just don’t feel right for you. If singing in parts for a good old hymn is something you have to get used to, imagine being in a church that had Greeks, Jews, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarians, Scythians, slave or free, all of them together in one church. Can you imagine how much stuff you’re not used to you’d have to get used to?

But I get why our congregations responded the way they did when the harmony edition of TLH came out for the first time. Getting used to ways that are new and strange to you makes you very tired and fatigued. It can be testing and even irritating. It can be tiring giving up what you are used to for the sake of others. You feel exhausted with the effort of getting used to something that is unfamiliar. It does not come automatically or easily. You have to make an effort, continuously.

Multiethnic ministry is “wall-to-wall new and different.” It is “what you are not used to” on steroids. Different customs, music, language, and aesthetics. It is hard and tiring work to minister in this context.

And that’s why you need all the virtues that Paul writes about in this text from Colossians 3. We need compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, to bear with one another, forgiving each other if we have complaints. Why do you need all of that? Because you have to get used to the things that you’re not used to. It’s like a marriage; you need to learn to live with the new and different. Your spouse does things differently than you do.

The same thing happens in the church. God calls us to change. We have to get used to the things that we’re not used to because that’s what our brothers and sisters are used to. Love calls us to it.

It is very human at this point to ask: so why should we get involved in this? Why should we pursue the ministry in general (which is hard enough) and multiethnic ministry in particular, which is even harder? It’s because of two things. Number one—identity, and number two—foreshadowing.

Identity and foreshadowing

[See] that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Galatians 3:9–11)

First identity. In verses 9 through 11 Paul says that our old self needs to be stripped off so that the new self can be put on, the new self which is restored according to the image of its Creator. And he says that, as far as we are concerned with the new image we are receiving, “there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is in all.” So Greek and Jew, Anglo, Asian, Latino, Latvian and all kinds of other people from other backgrounds, have different customs and their own ways that they are used to.

But different as they are, they all share, according to Paul, the same identity. How so? In the sense that their old self, which is enslaved to sin and death is getting stripped off and they are being reclothed with the new self, according to the risen Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who is the exact image of the Creator of the universe. In this sense, we all share this new identity. We are all wearing the same new self in Jesus. And that’s what we have in common, Paul says. We are one in Christ, and we are called to find out what that means in practice, in life, as we get used to one another.

But that’s not the only reason. The other reason is because of this thing called “foreshadowing.”

According to New Testament scholars, in the ancient Near East the image of putting on a new coat, as Paul describes it in Colossians 3, wasn’t just about receiving a higher status or a new identity, but also about receiving the promise of a future inheritance. Putting on a new coat signifies that you have a new future because you are an heir to an inheritance that is yet to come. And what is the inheritance of the one reclothed with a new self in Christ? It’s the kingdom of God, fully completed and consummated, the new creation, fully done. And that kingdom, the coming kingdom in the new creation, will feature multiple people from multiple ethnic groups, multiple family groups, multiple languages, multiple cultures who all share same identity: a new self, created in Christ Jesus, the Son of God.

That’s our inheritance. And God calls us to live in the wealth of that inheritance—even though it’s in the future—today. Because being a Christian means we get to live as citizens of the world to come, here and now, today, as a foreshadowing of what is sure and certain to come. As a multiethnic body, as the body of the church that has different people from different nations, we’re living out Jesus’s future kingdom proleptically today (as Dr. Voelz would say). And therefore because of who we are, the new self in Christ, and because we get to live out what is still to come, we really need to figure out how to get used to the things that we’re not used to, for the sake of our brothers and sisters.

So how can we do this difficult, tiring, exhausting, demanding task?

The power of the love of God

Well, here’s the truth. We can’t do it with our own power or our own will. But we can do it, and we are doing it, by the power of the love of God. In Colossians 3:14 Paul talks about the love which binds all together in perfect harmony. Only when our hearts are flooded with the love provided by God can we pursue those who are so different from us and try to learn their different ways. We need more than human ideals of tolerance and racial diversity. We need love from outside of our humanity. We need God, just like we do in marriage; because you love your spouse, you embrace change, you get used to their differences. You learn to live differently. You get used to what you are not used to.

God’s love is the only love that can create such a great change in human beings. When we have it in our hearts, we have the power to carry on in tiring and testing situations, situations that fatigue us because they challenge us every moment to get used to living differently. This love enables that old self to die and be replaced by the new self. And our hearts will be filled with the love of God, when we remember how much God had to get used to what he was not used, but was prepared to suffer, for us.

Think about Jesus. There is no one who endured more than Jesus—the hard work of getting used to what he was not used to. Though he was equal with God, he became one of us. He was light itself but had to throw himself into the darkness. He was perfectly loving and just but had to get used to people persecuting him, mocking him, betraying him, and killing him. And he who knew no sin became sin. He had to get used to it.

Why did he do that? Why did he get used to all of that? So that he could clothe you with your new humanity, that new self, created in his resurrection. He gave up his own body and his own lifeblood, to make us new. We will receive that very gift again tomorrow at the Divine Service—that Body given into death, that Blood shed for us.

Paul reminds us of what all this means for our daily lives. He says: Put on, put off, put on, put off, put on. The old self gets stripped off, and the new self gets put on.

We human beings are always trying to put on something that makes us look good. We put on good faces, good performances, good makeup, good morals, good credentials, good careers, and so on. Sometimes we appeal to the nationality or family or class that we come from in an attempt to make us look good. But the truth is this, my brothers and sisters. All of them are fig leaves, the same as Adam and Eve used to cover their shame, the same that we continue to use to cover ourselves. And fig leaves don’t cover everything. We are still exposed and vulnerable.

But God loves you more than you can imagine. He has you covered. At your baptism, God clothed you completely with a perfect new self and made you a new human being. At your baptism, God clothed you completely with a perfect new self and made you a new human being according to the last Adam Jesus, bearing the image of the man of heaven. Therefore, when you are wearing Christ, you look good. In fact, you look fabulous, no matter who you are and where you come from and whatever you’re used to. 

So, who loves you like that? Nobody, except God the Father, Son, and the Spirit. And such love is the only power that can sustain us for the hard work of getting used to what we’re not used to, in order to love our brothers and sisters who come from different places. Now, we could get used to that!