There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free,
male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 (NLT)
Inclusivism is big these days – sorry
is the lot of anyone who leaves anyone out!
A pastor helped plan a lovely garden
tea party for the ladies of the church, set up chairs on the church lawn. Unfortunately he forgot to add the head of
the ladies auxilliary to the list of invitations. Late on the night before the event the pastor
suddenly remembered and called her to apologize and beg her to come. It’s too late for that Reverend, she
snorted, I’ve already prayed for rain!
As a new pastor more than 30 years
ago I struggled with announcements and recognitions in church worship
services. I once neglected recognizing
the matriarch of our church on Mother’s Day; I’m not sure I was ever forgiven!
In the denomination to which I belong
and serve, we go to great pains to use inclusive language, inclusive attitudes,
and we succeed (or die trying) to be so inclusive and open minded that nobody
gets offended. We don’t always
succeed!
As inclusive as we claim to be, we
promote, even pay-for segregation in the strangest places. We call it “mission” when we pay a smaller
group of ethnic or language Christians (Hispanic, Korean, Vietnamese,
African-American) to worship in some place other than “ours”. We buy them a building (or give them one of
our castoff buildings from a failed anglo group), pay for a pastor and bid them
much success….over there!
We United Methodists are poster
children for the most segregated hour of the week – Sunday morning at
11am!
I know all the arguments about why we
do such things; the birds of a feather flock together argument says that folk with
the same language, customs or history would much rather be with their
own.
Well, I’m here to ask the question
today – which is stronger, the nationalistic pride of this country or that
country, this language or that language, this skin color or that skin color….or
is it the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us?
Are we not HIS own?
I get it that we have
differences in ideaology or theology, but if we are United in our
Methodism, why doesn’t it show in our willingness to be children of God under
the same roof?
I think the fact remains that we are
perhaps more willing to be separated, like the
scattered language groups leaving the Tower of Babel, than we are willing to be
drawn together by the Spirit under Christ.
Lord have mercy.
We already have cowboy churches,
trucker churches, camper churches; I would not be surprised one day to see
church plants in the future that are so inclusive they limit membership by
special interest. There will be the old
people’s church (for Baby Boomers like me who are a formidable voting block),
or churches that only accept retired tennis players, or the church for LGBT
poodle owners.
When is all the nonsense going to
stop?
If we are people within whom the Holy
Spirit dwells, is that not enough to accept each other and be obedient to the
call of Christ?
For You Today
When you encounter someone of different ethnicity,
social status, economic means, skin color, or challenges galore, the choice is
there to act strangely warmed by the presence of the Spirit bearing witness…or
to just act strangely (for a Christian) and reject that person’s “otherness”.
Be inclusive – embrace the Spirit!
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