Gathering up the
Pieces; Inviting the Outcast
This sermon follows the Cards Meditation/Exercise used at the Board of Directors Meeting.
See also alternative
guided meditation.
How did
it feel to contemplate the many different roles and attributes of you? How did it feel to have to write those pieces
of yourselves on to cards? How did it
feel to place those cards in this space, to locate it either close to the altar
or to realize that its something you leave at the back of the room, or even
outside the sanctuary?
I’m lucky; I’ve had some time to think
about this, and I’d like to share three of my cards with you.
My first card is rather obvious; it’s
the fact that I am a Christian. I
believe in Jesus Christ, in his teachings and in the resurrection. My life has been transformed by the Holy
Spirit. And I bring that right up to the
front, at the altar.
My second card is one that I’m a little
more hesitant to bring all the way forward; I leave it in the
congregation. I am a young adult. By that, I mean, I go to church for
myself. I don’t go because I have
children of my own, or because my parents tell me to. “Young” in our society has the connotation
of “inexperienced,” “immature,” “you
don’t know everything yet.” So I
hesitate to bring it forward, thinking that my experiences aren’t valid enough
for the church yet.
My third card is one that I have a very
hard time bringing to church—especially because I am young and “I don’t know
everything yet.” I am a skeptic. I have a critical mind. I question everything. I doubt.
In this way, I’m a lot like most other
young adults. We’re skeptics. We are especially skeptical of “authority.”
I heard an interesting story about a
30-year old man who’d been Christian for quite some time. But he’d never read the Bible. He admitted this to his pastor. She smiled and said: “You’ve been such a
great Christian for so long! You’ve
served on all our committees; you’ve been a deacon, an usher… but you gotta
read at least the Gospels!” So this man
took a weekend, sat down prayerfully and read the Gospels. The next Sunday he ran up to the pastor and
said to her in a panic, “Either we’re not Christian, or these are not the
Gospels!”
The history of Christianity is filled
with hypocrisy, oppression, maintaining the status quo. And young adults see this! We see the errors of the church and often we
see the church pluggin’ along like nothing bad ever happened. We refuse to disengage our minds when we are
trying to engage our hearts and our spirits.
This is just one of the common cards
that Young Adults hold. We have a lot of
cards that are unique to our generation.
The Internet. MTV. Older generations have a lot of cards unique
to their time. Record players and World
Wars. And we have a lot of cards
together. Hopeful. Fearful.
Church could be a place where would bring all our cards together. A place where could work to integrate our
personal lives and our community.
But church is not yet this place.
So what is church? What does the average church look like to a
young adult?
First it’s a place you have to wake up
for. Second, it’s a place you have to
dress up for. It’s stiff and rigid. We hear buzzwords like “salvation,” “sin,”
and “grace.” These words are often left
undefined. And when we figure out what
they mean—through a revelation from God or by looking them up—we find that they
don’t always resonate in our lives. You
can’t talk about sex. Or drugs. Or politics.
You have to be “normal.” You have
to fit in, and be like everyone else, dress like everyone else, think like
everyone else…
I know exactly what that’s like. For a long time I thought I couldn’t bring in
a fourth card. I am gay. I thought I wasn’t supposed to be gay… not
because being gay was bad, necessarily, but because being different was
bad. I thought that my being gay wasn’t
relevant to my life of faith. And so I
left my experience—my coming out, my learning to love myself and learning to
let others love me—I left all of that behind.
And my relationship with God suffered.
Being normal? Conforming?
That’s so not what being Christian is about. Name one place where Jesus mentions being
normal! Being Christian is about
extending an invitation to those people at the fray. It’s about reaching out to the people who
aren’t here and welcoming people as they are.
Narrator (preacher):
Someone once gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner
the Host sent the servant to say to those who had been invited
Servant: “Come!
For everything is now ready.”
Narrator
(preacher): But they all alike began to
make excuses. The first said:
Excuse #1: “I have bought a piece of land, and I must go
out and see it; please accept my regrets.”
Narrator (preacher): Another said,
Excuse #2: “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am
going to try them out; please accept my regrets.”
Narrator
(preacher): Another said,
Excuse #3: “I have just been married, and therefore I
cannot come.”
Narrator (preacher): So the servant returned and reported this to
his/her master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to the
servant,
Host:
“Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the
poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.”
Narrator (preacher): And the servant said,
Servant: “What you ordered has been done, and there is
still room."
Narrator
(preacher): Then the host said to the
servant,
Host:
“Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my
house may be filled.”
We are all invited to the feast, to the
table, to Christ’s table. This is what
we do on the first of every month we celebrate Communion. This is very important to me. There at the table, in front of my community
and in front of my God, I know that I am welcome for who I am—for all of who I
am.
Is this what is turning young adults
away? Is it a radical welcome that is
turning people off?
No.
They are turned off because this unbendable welcome is the exact thing
we have yet to realize.
We are scared. We’re scared to invite the people who aren’t
in our churches. Because if we invite
others… then we have to gather up all our own pieces and bring them forward. If we invite others, then we have to invite
ourselves. For me to invite a friend to
come to church with me, I have to bring my “Christian,” my “Young Adult,” my
“Skeptic,” and my “Gay.” Am I ready to
do that? Can I do that?
A Harvard undergrad said to me: “The biggest resistance to being Christian is
being afraid to change.” We resist
change. We are scared. I’m scared of who I will be if I invite all
my pieces. We’re scared what this church
will change into if we all bring our various pieces.
And welcoming is not enough. It’s not enough to say: “oh we’d love it if
more people of type X were here.” The
host in the Parable of the Feasts didn’t set a table and then wait for people
to come. He invited them in. Jesus didn’t set a table and then wait for
people to come. He went out into the
streets, sat with the outcasts and invited them in personally.
When we invite the outcasts, when we
walk beyond our walls and invite someone from the outside in, in that moment we
are inviting ourselves. You bring your
Friday night; I’ll bring my Sunday afternoons.
You bring your all of your cards and your experiences, and I will bring
mine.
We can do this. We can do this together. We can integrate ourselves; we can bring all
our cards. We can reassemble the Body of
Christ in our own personal lives, and in our communities.
Practice this. Gather up your cards and bring them all to
the altar. Let’s bless all of our parts
and pieces and bring all of ourselves to God.
Thanks be to God!