Praying for the day when the mold breaks
Let’s face it. Sometimes we church-types get a bad rap, and we often deserve it.
We are seen as set in our ways, because we too often are. We resist change because we’ve learned from experience that there are many changes that have failed to be improvements on the tried-and-true. We recite creeds that are downright revolutionary, and then act in reactionary ways. We claim to be filled with the Spirit, but people call us the “frozen chosen.”
Sometimes we are more likely to be the priest who walks by the wounded guy at the roadside, rather than the Good Samaritan who takes the risk and asks, “How can I help?” We have too many opinions and not enough faith. And we don’t get upset enough about the terrible injustices of the world. We dispense judgment more readily than mercy.
Perhaps worst of all, we have an unbecoming tendency to divide the world into the good people and the bad people,
and we are terribly sloppy with our
line-drawing.
OK, maybe I’m being a little hard on my family and families like us, but it’s true that the church still has a long way to go to resemble the divine kingdom. But recently, while perusing a church publication (yes, an actual church publication), I ran across this refreshing entry:
“We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like ‘organized religion.’ We’ve been there, too.
“If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.
“We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you.”
I really like that. I pray each day that the church will live up to it — until even the “we” and “you” language dissolves away, too, and we all realize, “churched” and “unchurched,” that all of us are really you, too. Because what lots of people never come to realize is that, even for this church-type pastor of an organized church, a lot of the descriptions you see above describe me (I’ll leave it to you to figure out which ones).
You see, we’re all so much more alike than we let on.
