What does one do with exclusivity? I mean how do you handle it? Unfortunately the playground memory of be excluded from a game or activity does not oft fade nor the familiar feeling that follows when you become an adult. Once slighted in that same old familiar fashion it is not hard to feel flat out left out. Its amazing how that reaction, that sinking feeling must be so instinctively attached to the childhood experience. Moreover, its amazing that you can still feel those feelings even as a secure, grownup adult. So again I pose the question: how do you deal? Do you march right up to the individual (when I say march I mean email, or if you're really brave and only slightly less old fashion call) and tell them, "you said this and that, and it hurt my feelings?" No, I don't think that really flies, or even if it does I think it is not the gracious way to go about things because it feels very much like keeping score and while there is nothing wrong with be open about what exactly it was that hurt, I have to agree with my wife when she says that stick the exact words and phrases back in the person's face would just be a little more harsh and unforgiving. So again, what do you do? What do you do if the person or body or entity that seems exclusive is a church?
Ahha! So its true that churches can be just as exclusive as any group, often times offering up qualifiers of what even allows a person to join the church let alone one of their fellowship groups, small groups or what have you. Should not churches be limitlessly permeable? Shouldn't they be accessible for the masses regardless of where people are coming from? Hmmm... Is that heresy I speak of, blasphemy perhaps? Not atall! I should hope that people having admitted that they are interested in a church body or a church group, gathering, fellowship that this implies something about the very fact that they should not and cannot be turned away! They, whoever these unassuming people are and from a variety of backgrounds perhaps believers, non-believers, people who have been hurt by the church or never hurt, are already in a vulnerable place as new comers, as people who are hoping, just hoping for some welcome sign or some iota of hospitality. And I get that now, I get why gracious hospitality is such a necessary motif for scripture and for our practice in the daily life of reaching out to human beings. Reaching out. The art of reaching out, for it is with our call that we reach out and grab those "people" if and when they do approach with all apprehension and misgiving. It should not be a question, the question that I have posed should not exist, we should have to do without it. Because for a person to feel not accepted let alone rejected should not and cannot be an option if we are to be the living, breathing, hospitable bride. And in our brideship we can only hope to mirror Christ in that relationship. In that regard I will leave you with the very apt words of Bonhoeffer:
It is not Christ who has to justify himself before the world by acknowledging the values of justice, truth, and freedom. Instead, it is these values that find themselves in need of justification, and their justification is Jesus Christ alone. It is not a 'Christian culture' that still has to make the name of Jesus Christ acceptable to the world; instead, the crucified Christ has become the refuge, justification , protection, and claim for these higher values and their defenders who have been made to suffer. It is with the Christ, persecuted and suffering together with his church-community, that justice, truth, humanity and freedom seek refuge. It is the Christ who is unable to find shelter in the world, the Christ of the manger and the cross who is cast out of the world, who is the shelter to whom one flees for protection; only thus is the full breadth of Christ's power revealed. The cross of Christ makes both sayings true: 'whoever is not for me is against me' and 'whoever is not against us is for us.'
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