I know the nice thing to say is, “Yes, all truly are welcome.” But just because it’s nice
doesn’t make it true, or even right. And also, come to think of it, are we
really so sure saying “All are welcome” is even nice? Isn’t saying “All are
welcome” actually kind of condescending when our actions don’t bare it out? I
tend to think so, and I would be willing to bet that some folks who have
drifted away from the church probably have similar thoughts.
It’s much easier to say “All are
welcome” than to make it so. When we put it into practice welcoming people
often comes with strings attached--i.e., you need to look more like us, or you need
to talk more like us, or you need to believe more like us, or you need to work
in one way or another on becoming more like us. You might say that you don’t
actually believe that, but isn’t that exactly why we teach Confirmation, or
send leaders to seminary, or teach deacons to serve communion?
See, this is what I’m getting at: It’s OK that not everybody is welcome to
everything. Really, it is. An example: it’s OK that a person who refuses to
confess a faith in Jesus is not allowed to become a member of the church. That
doesn’t mean that they can’t be in the church at all. It doesn’t mean we don’t
have room for “seekers.” It just means that there are doctrinal boundaries for the sake
of defining who we are. It’s also OK that we create rules around people in our
community who have issues with emotional or physical boundaries; it’s OK that
we protect victims by helping to maintain good boundaries with those who have
victimized them (in fact it’s more than OK; it’s necessary). It’s also OK that
we have our own practices about when a person can take part in the various
milestones of the church.
But that’s
not usually what we mean when we say “All are welcome.” We’re usually not
talking about the creedal stuff (what we believe) or the legal stuff (who we need
to protect). We’re usually talking about people who are nominally Christians,
or former Christians, or people who could become Christians, but they don’t
come to church. If we consider this ideal imaginary person whom we are
welcoming then I would hazard to guess that he/she is a person who looks, acts,
and thinks like us, but who, for whatever reason, has never discovered this
church that will feed him/her with exactly what he/she needs. Rarely do we
consider that every person we are welcoming is a person who is necessarily different from us. Rarely do
we consider that every act of welcoming a person is an act of changing who we
are.
The church body changes every time
it adds a new member. “All are welcome” requires not only that we
allow people to be physically present with us, but also that they have some
stock and some influence in molding the church into their own. That is what
it means to be the body of Christ. And, let me tell you, it is scary, because the very same people who we want to feel
“welcome” in the church are absent right now because there’s something about
church that upsets them or offends them, or we have nothing that appeals to
them or feels relevant to them.
I’m not saying the church needs to bend to the will of outsiders; in
fact, quite the opposite: I’m saying that we need to know what we believe, what
is essential, and what is unessential; what never changes and what is always
reforming. In this way we can look at strangers who were once part of our
community but no longer, or others who are new to our community completely, and
we can say “We know what is essential to us, but how are you going to widen our
perspective and make us even better? We have a promise for you in this God we know in Jesus Christ. Now how are you going to show us Jesus in a different way?"
Being a church should be messy.
Jesus chose to be with people who were not the “right” kind of people. He
didn’t hang out with white collar workers, but with those who were despised
(tax collectors, et al) and those who were ignored and reviled (prostitutes,
the diseased, the poor, the disfigured, criminals). We all know that, but how often do we use it to inform how we act as the church?
A church that is welcoming should
meet the same kind of people that Jesus met. I have some thoughts about what
that might look like for us, but rather than telling you what they are, which
frankly won’t much matter because it all depends on whether this church owns it
and not whether the pastor prescribes it, instead I’m going to leave you with
some questions to ponder that might lead to something concrete down the road.
The questions concern who is really welcome in our church:
Do you really want to welcome children whose parents are not around?
Do you
really want to welcome people who ask that worship take on different forms
or occur at different times?
Do you
really want to welcome a person who believes their infant should have communion?
Do you
really want to welcome people who do not dress well or do not take care of themselves?
Do you
really want to welcome people who are loud and distracting?
Do you
really want to welcome people who don’t know the rules—written and unwritten—or
who have no common decency?
Do you
really want to welcome parents who don’t know how to parent, or children who
don’t know how to listen, or elderly folks who are going senile?
I’d
challenge you to think these through those questions and honestly assess what
you want. Then I would ask that you imagine what it would be like to answer
“Yes!” to everyone of them. It would be messy. It would be loud and confusing and very likely
frustrating. I dare say it would not mark an improvement in many peoples’
vision of the church. This is the world of the outsider. It’s a scary place.
I’m not asking that you become an outsider in your own community. No. I’m
asking that your community becomes a place where outsiders gather.
No comments:
Post a Comment