She was talking to a pastor I knew. As a preface to this post, I just want to say...
1) This is a discussion on Christian love and does not address any other issues
2) Full stop
3) Lists should always come in 3's
First of all, what a state to be in where people have to ask if it's okay to go to church. I am saddened to no end to know that many people believe that church is the equivalent of a high school locker-room - brutish, unforgiving, hypercritical, and hypocritical.
To be honest, this post should be over with a reading of John 8:7 and Mark 2:17.
But we all know I'm going to keep typing because I have an incessant need to talk.
Anyway, so the pastor...
"I'm going to tell you what I tell all my members. When you come to church, you check everything at the door: your occupation, your sexuality, everything. We were all meant to be equal in God's eyes here. You leave all of that behind when you come here. So of course, bring her!"
Use whatever imagery you want: the foot of the cross, outside the door, at the door. I like to picture little cubbies in the foyer of our church like those shelves for backpacks at bookstores or for shoes at Chuck-E-Cheese. As each person enters the church they leave whatever they bring with them in those cubbies, and each person enters the sanctuary an equal, truly equal. An angel mans the front desk as some try to enter, hiding underneath their coats and hats pride in their job, judgments, even the position they hold in the church. The angel calls out to them says, "Ah ah ah. Everything."
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| These savages put one shoe in each slot. I don't care that no one else is using it. |
There was a post a few years back where I had just attended a church that made me feel so welcomed I had to blog about it (what the threshold is to blog about something, I have no idea). That was a nice thought train about what a vibrant, growing church looks like. The premise of it was, however, the death of churches. It went more the route of "what does the body of Christ" look like when exemplified in a church family. I thought about the death of church as a slow atrophy in the strength of the body until everything just fell apart. Now it's about to get medical, but bear with me. We know atrophy is not the only way a body can die. There's countless other ways: cancer, autoimmune disease, falling pianos.
This is a commentary on active death within a church. To go with the analogy, autoimmune diseases, when a body destroys itself from the inside out because the immune system deems certain parts of the body unfit to be part of the body. And so, by TH1-mediated cytotoxicity... THE MEDICINE STOPS NOW. I hope you get the idea, because we aren't going back to medical speak. One day though, we're gonna find an appropriate usage of the falling pianos analogy.
In this context, of course the subject of the night is judgment. There's been a lot of discussion in my church denomination about what people are fit and unfit to do within the church. I am not as well read-up on these issues, but suffice it to say that I'm disappointed with what as happened. I am typing this to discuss judgment when it carries over into a local church.
It's easy to say that church should be a "judgment-free zone" (why we didn't trademark that slogan before Planet Fitness, I have no idea). As all churches can attest to, this is never accomplished in practice. There are rules. There are traditions. There are preferences. Surely there's a line in the sand somewhere where judgment is allowed. But as much as I like white-and-black issues, this is definitely one of those gray area issues. Yes, churches should be without judgment. Full stop. This is why we go to church, for unhindered fellowship with God and others. But there is a threshold at which a church service may become unhinged due to a legitimate disturbance. This is definitely one of those case-by-case issues that's hard to talk about in the context of an entire denomination.
So we're going to take it down from talking about it on a church or denomination level. I like talking to lay people. Lay people can listen on a personal level. Lay people can take action. Personally, I think the average lay person's job in the church is to love. This goes back to the whole "body of Christ" concept from before of keeping the body functioning together, building connections. Something I've been hearing more and more lately is that it's our job to love, it's God's job to change. It's cliche by this point, but things are cliche for a reason.
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A mother and father had a son. He got involved with the wrong crowd growing up and was jumping from job to job. Unable to adequately provide for himself, he continued to live at home, seemingly going nowhere. Eventually, his parents had had it and kicked him out of the house. A few months later in the middle of the night, the son stumbled into the house drunk and passed out on the living room floor. Morning dawned. Mom was first down the stairs and seeing her son passed out on the floor, ran to him and knelt by him. He was out cold, but seemed to be fine. Dad wasn't far behind. At seeing his son returning, a feeling of disappointment welled up in him. This semblance of disappointment masked an inner turmoil of anger: anger that his son had not done any better than when he left, anger that he was still the disappointment of the family. He launched into a rant. "A disappointment! He can't do anything with himself! 'I'll get better when I want', huh? 'I'll get better when I want?' Where'd that get you? Get out of here! Stumble into a jail! Don't stumble into my house! You think you're-"
"NO!!" Mom screams.
Silence.
Mom is sitting with her son's head on her lap. She runs her fingers through locks of hair she once washed and combed. A peaceful expression rests on his face, as if he is still dreaming dreams of superheroes and dinosaurs.
"No," she says again, softer, and locks eyes with Dad.
"Be. Quiet." She turns back to the worn husk of a son she holds in her hands.
"This is the only time I get to hold my son."
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How do people have the desire, how do you have the desire, how do I have the desire (and I do say desire because we all know the ego boost we feel and crave with judgment) to believe that people walking into God's house are unfit to worship with us when we all wear the filthiest of rags. God is screaming at us from on high, "NO!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? My son, my daughter, has finally come home. They've been gone so long. I've missed them. I've hurt for them like you wouldn't know. And now that they're here, YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO TELL THEM THEY'RE NOT WELCOME." And as we stand speechless, unable to defend ourselves in the slightest, God looks at the empty pew before us. "This is the only time I get to hold them."
One of the churches I attend has the slogan "Love well." Many churches have mission statements and slogans that discuss ideology, philosophy, and other nebulous ideas. "A community in Christ... dedicated to hailing His soon coming... etc. etc." I love the concept of "Love Well." It's action. If the church is called to minister and serve, why don't we talk about it? It's like going to a soup kitchen and finding their slogan is "Wow the future is bright." If I was a nonbeliever, a church mission statement purely about the church's philosophy tells me 1) how I differ in belief from you and why I probably won't fit into your mold and 2) nothing about what goes on inside the building. Way before I could get to know what kind of God you worship, I'd see what kind of gods you worship, and if it's a worship of ego and self-love, then that's no church for me. Well, that was a tangent but that's how this blog works. I need to go to bed.
Those are my various thoughts for the night. I'd love to dialogue with people about it so please let me know what you think! I want to hear your perspectives!
Best Wishes!
~Richie