ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
June 23, 2022
I think we’ve all had the experience of standing on the outside looking in. As kids, at least at some point, most of us were not a part of the In Crowd. We might have tried to save up money to buy the newest pair of cool jeans, only to discover that by the time we could afford them, they were on their way out of style. Or maybe you tried the rebel approach, acting as if you didn’t care about anything. In the end, after you failed your math test, you got grounded. And you were a lonely rebel sitting in your room. A lot of the movies, for the last five decades or so, have been about the lonesome loser who somehow has a breakthrough and becomes popular. There is something within all of us that loves that story, but what happens when someone spends an entire lifetime wishing for that hope-filled ending that never comes? Generations of Israelites lived their entire lives enslaved in Egypt and exiled in Babylon, never realizing their dream. There are a handful of passages that suggest God was the source of people’s slavery and exile, yet the God I see through the lens of Jesus is one who is always seeking to bring the rejected, marginalized and oppressed into a life of abundance. Some might think of it as a nice dream, but when Jesus put forth his mission statement in Luke 4, he spoke of prisoners being released and the oppressed being liberated. And, of course, he concluded his great vision with the words, “Today, these words have been fulfilled in your hearing.” I think it is time for the church to start living a radically different expression of life where every marginalized and forgotten person, every oppressed and detested individual, finds welcome. In Matthew 21, Jesus spoke about specific groups of rejected and ostracized people going into the Kin(g)dom of God ahead of the religious leaders. They must have been unsettling words to the religious leaders, but for all of us religious folks today, we need to remember that the church is to be an embodied expression of the Kin(g)dom of God in the here and now. And if that’s the case, then we should be on the outside inviting everyone in and allowing them to go in first.
For all of your beloved who have been pushed out and suffered unfairly, O Loving God, I pray for a church that represents the glorious hospitality and merciful kindness of your Kin(g)dom. Amen.
