Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. These buzzwords of a generation are intended to make employees, customers, donors feel accepted, included, welcomed.  

Marketers use DEI to make products more attractive to specific demographic groups. I noticed this display at a major retailer.

This is DEI used as a tool to gain market share and an edge in “talent acquisition” and retention in a society that increasingly expects the workplace and marketplace to resemble the populace.

But maybe DEI is really a marred picture of something God, the Maker of all people, wants us to see.

In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve. Then came Eve’s conversation with the serpent who introduced doubt about God’s trustworthiness: “Is it really true that God said?” (Genesis 3:1, NET)

Eve ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then gave some to Adam. Both were banished from the garden of Eden. Their descendants became so vile God sent a flood to wash the earth clean – except for Noah and his family and the animal kingdom aboard the ark.

After flood waters subsided, Noah and his descendants were to fill the earth. Instead, speaking a common language they gathered in one place intent on building a city and tower reaching to heaven. They might have succeeded, but God confused their languages and scattered them.

One race of people – the human race – went its way to settle in language groups in locations that would influence their complexions, diets, cultural habits etc.

Diversity: a common humanity expressed in different ways in different places.

Our differences are manifest in many ways. Religious practice, for example.

• Some have no religious training. A friend’s childhood Sundays were when her Dad made a delicious family brunch and they read all day.
• Some are uber churched: Sunday sermons, Wednesday night Bible studies, VBS, Bible camp, Awana, Royal Rangers, revival meetings, conferences.
• Some have very negative church interactions such as being raped or molested by a priest, pastor or youth minister.

Equity: God, being just, acknowledges these differences and makes adjustments to overcome barriers that would keep us from Him.

Inclusion: God’s “Whosoever will” clause. All have sinned and need a savior. Jesus sacrificed Himself to save us. That salvation is available to “Whosoever.”

• For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 8:13)
• Whosoever will may come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Rev. 22:17b)
• Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26)

An old friend once told me: “God made us for His flower garden.” Flowering plants can be annuals, biennials, perennials. They come in a multitude of hues, heights and aromas. Flowers can be single or grouped and appear in winter, summer or anytime. Some flower once every few years for only a few hours – and carry the stench of death. All flowers. One Creator.

If we can appreciate this diversity within sameness in a garden, why not in souls for whom Christ died? God’s invitation is: “Come to me, all…“