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On Monday, October 27, speaking in Chapel, Josh Samarco, director of Calvin’s Center for Intercultural Student Development (CISD), explored a big question: What does it mean to belong? 
 
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UnLearn Week is an intentional week (October 26-31) designed to provide students, faculty, staff, and the wider community with an opportunity to unlearn biases and promote biblical antiracism.  
 
During the service, Samarco framed the theme for the week: “Meet Me in the Middle.” 

“This week we want to be people who learn and unlearn what it means to meet in the middle,” said Samarco. “So, we are going to engage in healthy dialogue, we are going to dive deeper into informative topics, we are going to celebrate our commonalities and differences. So, we look forward to seeing how Jesus is going to meet us in the middle of some of our mess, some of our lives, and he’s going to lead us and transform us.”

Removing labels

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Samarco shared some of his own personal journey with discovering belonging as he helped attendees understand how it is that they fall into the trap of labeling and being labeled by others.   
 
“When we don’t feel like we belong, we often project our hurt and pain onto others and not just onto others, but also onto ourselves,” said Samarco. “In essence, we begin to create labels … We cannot love someone past the label that we’ve placed on them.” 
 
Samarco said sometimes those labels get placed on entire groups of people, which makes it impossible to love them and see them the way God has created them to be.

Replacing lies with truth

He suggests the solution is for people to start naming the labels that others have placed on them and those that they’ve projected onto others. And then, to be reminded what Jesus says about labels. In essence, that belonging isn’t something we earn. 
 
“I don’t have to work for acceptance or love, He freely gives that,” said Samarco reflecting on the truths of Scripture. 
 
Samarco then referred to Jesus as the ultimate middleman.

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“He's the one who has all the resources. He’s the one who connects people and things together to make things work. In fact, according to Dr. Google,” said Samarco with a grin, “the role of the middleman is to connect parties that might not otherwise be able to connect directly, often for a commission or fee. That sentence right there will preach itself. So, Jesus becomes the middleman for you and I.”

Remembering one’s true identity

Samarco then rattled off a series of statements that drew “Amens” from the gathered assembly as they were reminded of their true identity.

“I’m so glad that Jesus hung in the middle so that you and I could be set free, so that our eyes could be open,” said Samarco. “I’m so glad that Jesus hung in the middle for you and I to say we are His kids, we are Kingdom kids. I’m so glad He went to the middle on our behalf to carry a cross that you and I couldn’t carry, to bear a cross that you and I couldn’t bear, so that you and I could too be adopted into the family of God.

“I’m so glad that Jesus hung in the middle so that widows and orphans and immigrants and refugees and people from all different kinds of ethnicities and nationalities and countries can now be one in Christ Jesus.” 
 
To conclude, Samarco challenged those in attendance to live into their true identity, and to meet people in the middle. 

“Following Jesus is going to cost us something, but may the cost not be pushing people to the margins, may the cost not be boxing people in to be liberals, to be conservatives, to be democrats, to be republicans, to be this or that,” said Samarco. “We live in a polarized society in a polarized world where so many people are being pushed to the left and the right. But where can we push people to the middle? Jesus invites us into this opportunity this week to go outside of ourselves, to look beyond our pain, to look beyond our preferences, to pick up our crosses and say let’s bear this together.”

View the full lineup of UnLearn Week events.