I am a blogger, which means I
write stuff and post it on the Internet.
Here’s what I wrote about you this past week.
We stumbled into this little old church in Paris and
soon discovered that they are attempting a grand experiment--welcoming anyone
and everyone. Based on the half-empty sanctuary on any given Sunday, this
experiment has not yet “caught on,” which is unfortunate but perhaps
understandable. There are Democrats and
Republicans sitting on the same pew; open and proud heterosexuals sharing a hymnbook
with open and proud homosexuals; Bible devotees in conversation with people who
distrust the Bible, believers in the virgin birth sharing pot-luck suppers with
folks who dismissed that notion years ago.
It’s a strange group.
Every Sunday, Pastor Charlotte spreads her arms across
the communion table and says, “This table is open to all. It is Christ who invites us,” and acts like
she means it. Yesterday, a new member,
upon hearing about a hateful comment overheard in a café, replied with some exasperation
in his voice, “Well until I found this church I would have just condemned that
person to hell, but now I’ve learned to just move on over and make room for him
at the table!” We cracked up. It’s just so much fun!
And there you have it.
I joined this church because
you empower your pastor to proclaim each and every Sunday, “this table is open
to all. It is Christ who invites
us.”
Let’s put that to the test. Here goes. I am a liberal Democrat who will
soon happily vote to re-elect President Obama.
I am a straight woman who wholeheartedly supports marriage
equality. I have little use for the
Bible—I overdosed on it in my youth and it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I
most certainly do not believe Jesus’s mother was a virgin.
So, what did I just reveal
about myself? Nothing that really
matters!
Absolutely nothing that
really matters.
I joined this church because
I want to belong to a faith community that looks beneath the surface and sees Christ
in every human being regardless of their behavior, a church that affirms that
Christ leaves no one out, leaves no one behind.
I can’t pretend to understand
the width and breadth of God, but this much I know: God is our source. God breathes
me, and God breathes you, God is the ground of our being. I know this, not because the Bible tells me
so, but because my attempts, both feeble and heroic, to control Life failed. I could not keep my head above
water, so I sank, and Love lifted me, and has continued to do so time and time
again. I know that God is the ocean, and
I am a wave.
And yet, I have a dilemma; I
often forget what I know. I resist what
I know to be true. I fall back on the strategies and conniving of my fragile,
frightened ego-self, who believes treading water with all her might is her only
salvation.
This is where you come in.
I greatly benefit from
surrounding myself with people who lovingly and gently remind me of the Truth
of who we are, and Whose we are. I am
emboldened by people who have made the decision to look for the Divine nugget
of Love embedded in every person, above and beyond personality, opinions and positions.
I need people who love me enough who,
when they see me floundering, frightened, or confused, remind me to look within
and wait with confidence for Divine clarity.
I want to play with people who trust that God’s Love is Reality.
I confess that I had pretty
well concluded that church was not the best place to find folks like that. I thought my church days were behind me, for
this simple reason; I would never risk entrusting my very human and flawed self
into the care of a church that teaches and proclaims that some people are
pleasing to God while others are not. I
get short of breath when I hear anyone declare that some people are acceptable
to God, but other people first need to be cleaned up and straightened out
before they can sit at the table.
You had me the first time I
heard Charlotte affirm, “this table is open to all. It is Christ who invites us.”
Right now, as we sit in this
sanctuary, there is a guy buying a pack of cigarettes at the U Tote M, there’s a
slacker kid lying on the couch watching football, there’s a couple having
brunch at Bois D’Arc trying to pretend their marriage is still alive, there’s a
single mom pushing a cart at Save-A-Lot worried about feeding her children. In a few minutes we will leave this place and
go out and walk among them, and we will recognize each one as one of us because
we know the truth of who they are and Whose they are. Requiring nothing of them,
we will acknowledge them as family. We will do this because it is just so much
fun to make room at God’s table!
Amen
