What are we to do about our ethnicity?  Nothing.  It's no secret that disputes over ethnicity comprise a good portion of the conflicts that are tearing the human community apart. This is tragic, really, as none of us can help having and being the ethnicity into which we are born.  Our ethnicity is the way we are.  And the way we always will be.
     When Jesus walked the earth, he was walking in a world dominated by the mighty Roman Empire, a vast cacophony of racial and religious diversity.  Although the land in which he lived (Israel) was less diverse than other parts of the empire, it nonetheless reflected its own share of ethnic variation--and rancor.  Yet Jesus made clear that all people were welcome in his family, that everyone, regardless of who or what he or she may be or where he or she is from, can step into and experience the grace of God.
     Though we live in a very different world than that in which Jesus lived, we remain ethnic beings.  We will always be different from each other, we will always be distinctive from each other, and we will never have a choice in the ethnicity into which we are born. And this is good.  Better that we learn to live with ourselves and each other, as we are, where we are, than what we wish we were or what we wish, in adverse fashion, about the fate or destiny of other people.
     Jesus embraces us as we are.  Surely, we can do the same.