Included

I remember a Wednesday night pre-Bible class moment when we'd open "the church building" for anyone who wanted to bring their dinner and eat on the spot before class.  It was also a time when people would come to get clothes from the clothes closet the church had to give away.

On this particular Wednesday night, a mom came in the front door looking for the clothes closet and had her three or four year old daughter with her.  I went over to greet them and ask if I could help, told them about where the closet was, etc.  The young daughter smelled the food and saw the room of people.

For the next minute or so, the mom struggled to pick up the girl who was squirming out of her hands and yelling, "I want to go in there!  I want to eat here, mom!  Why can't we go in there to eat!  Mom I want to go in there, please!  I want to eat here, mom!"  It was like watching her mom wrestle jello.

She finally got her up and moving down the hall, obviously embarrassed for the scene her daughter was causing on top of being there to get free clothes.  It was one of those super awkward scenes in life that just happened and didn't end with a nice bow on top of it with everyone feeling great.

Lots of awkward variables came together and did the opposite of what the created schedule intended. Making a time for people to bring their food so they could "make it to church" overlapped with the people coming for free clothes and made a moment where, instead of including more people, did the opposite.

__________

The good news is that God reconciled us to himself through Christ.  For those who don't know, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.  You are free from all that separation and such from God.

In Jesus, God tore down the walls of culture and religion and created one new people that welcomes anyone and everyone, regardless of where they've come from. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once even regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

__________

Included is one of the more desired or sought after things in this world.  To be excluded is the opposite.  Some desire to be excluded, usually only after a long period of time of NOT having been included and then the thought of being included by those who excluded them (or anyone) just seems painful.

Not being picked for a team.  Being ignored by an "in crowd" you did nothing wrong to but because or who you are or are not.  Being handed a second or third place social position or lower because of things beyond your control.  Being labeled with a label you'd never imagined.

One of the beautiful pictures that emerges in the New Testament is this new crowd of people who understand what God did in the world through Jesus - those people who "get it" are a new people, a new creation and God has freed them from "pleasing him" through the law so they can love/serve each other.

Instead of people being excluded at all, everyone is included.  Instead of being included on some kind of scale that reflects the human view point/high school social ladder, everyone is included at an equal level and no one is useless or the "special case" we include because God said we have to.

__________

There is a world of special interest groups that has risen up over the past 30 years or so in our culture in the US.  People, who for reasons of sexuality, money, race, and other variables were excluded or pushed aside for a long time, and now, they are demanding inclusion.

It's interesting that the very group of people you'd think would be the first to reach out to them and say, "No, you're welcomed! We're all one!" are the most common group to pull back from anyone who is a little or a lot different and keep them at arms length, sometimes even condemning or despising.

Instead of asking, "What is it about our culture that is creating situations where people feel the need to act out?" or "What is it about the environments we have developed that cause people to grow up that way?" or "Why don't we try loving those people?", they hire security, create laws, and wag their fingers at them.

I get it. We want to protect our children and the vulnerable from people and situations they're not ready for, should never need to face, and who "make us cringe" and in doing so, we create more division, more environments that grow more separation and more of the opposite of what Jesus came to do.

It's a catch-22 that causes a lot of Christians and churches to run farther away and chase after a gospel of social purity that acts charitable occasionally, but has little desire to get their hands dirty except for the occasional scheduled event where they can invite "those people" in for a service project.

__________

There aren't any easy answers except believing what God has done in Jesus and living on that basis.  Creating more collections of people that center around a certain social and economic flavors is not "growing the church" but instead is circling the wagons.

Man, that is hard.  

And people "in the church" want to do better but "those people" are jerks toward them.  And the response from "church people" is to be jerks back and to create more walls and more separation and more rhetoric designed to condemn and damn.

It is no wonder that many people who are screwed over by churches often run toward those groups who have been excluded - they are the ones who "get it" and often gladly and willingly accept and include the "cast offs" from church.

There's really no slight modifications to be done to "fix that".  You can have nice, emotional songs and moderately woke messages from the stage designed to act like we're inclusive, but when it's over, watch who is included in conversations, who is invited to lunch, etc - it's high school all over again and worse.

Quit playing; no one is fooled.

When I read through Paul's letters, you kinda get that the same kind of dynamic was unfolding in the early church as well.  Paul's message to the churches was, "God has set you free!  Don't use your freedom to just do you!  Share what you've been given by God - spread that acceptance and welcoming around!"

And that's hard for anyone to hear, especially if you've lived a "pure" life, as it were, and God is bringing people who have his freedom into your circle who are not "pure" and who have some cultural slants that are very different from yours.

Paul doesn't condemn the believers who struggled with that - he doesn't say, "God's not gonna save you!" or other spiritual blackmail kinds of language.  But he does appeal to them (and to us) to figure this thing out and make it work.

Find a way to live out the good news of Jesus with people who don't fit because that IS THE WAY that God's message of love and grace is seen and heard best - it's not through a service project, it's not through a special event, it is through you doing this Jesus thing in and through your life.

__________

I think if the church could figure this out and spend a generation or so living this way, it'd solve a lot of "other problems" in our culture that surface in politics, education, the economy, families, and much more.  You can't just vote things away, you have to live your beliefs and actually include others in your life.

Well, at least that's my homespun wisdom running on a single cup of coffee.

I'm not mad about it.  Well, maybe a little sometimes.  But it's what I see all the time.  

God has called us and invited us and included us.  He calls us to do the same.

Grace and peace. 

10/25