Lovingly Stuck

Lovingly Stuck--July 3, 2017

“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:4-6)

I can’t get Gerry Rafferty’s voice out of my head singing the refrain of the Stealers Wheel song:

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right—here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”

Maybe that doesn’t sound like a very complimentary way of describing the community of God’s people, the community we usually call “church.”  But if Paul is right that we belong to the body of people who share one faith, one baptism, and one God who is named Father of us all, well then, part of being a Christian means being… stuck with each other.

That might sound like complaining—I do not mean it to be so.  I mean, rather, that if Paul is right (and I think we ought to take that as a default assumption here), then we can’t “opt out” of belonging in this body of believers.  We can’t decide to stay home and phone it in or just watch from a distance.  And we can’t just adopt a “I’m taking my toys and going home” attitude and go off looking to do this faith thing on our own.  To be a Christian is not only to be in a relationship with God through Jesus—it is to be drawn into a relationship with everybody else claimed by God through Jesus, too. We can’t separate ourselves from the rest and say, “I don’t need you—I’ve got Jesus, and he’s all I am interested in. The rest of you can just go home.”  We are stuck in the body… with each other.

But that’s really a good thing.  In fact, it’s a grace thing.  And it's a Spirit thing.

It’s a grace thing because it means that God doesn’t give the option of us voting someone off the island—or of someone else voting ME off the island—and out of the body, just because we don’t get along.  Grace means that I belong, and I belong alongside everybody else who belongs, in spite of my rough edges, or careless words, or my failures.  And there’s no second-class-citizen status, or leper-colony-on-the-outskirts-of-the-church where I can be banished because I don’t fit in.  To belong in it means to belong fully, completely, and wholly.  There is no “bronze level” for newbies and then a “silver” and “gold” and “platinum” level for the better connected Christians.  There is one body.  There is one faith.  There is one baptism that washes us and claims us all.  There is one Spirit who gathers us all together in one great sweeping motion like children in a mother's arms. So even when I’m the joker or the clown, I have a permanent place at the table. We are all blessedly “stuck” in the middle with each other… because Christ himself is committed to sticking it out with each and all of us. 

We live in the age of the paid-membership—where you can belong in a community, but only for so long, and only if you pay your dues to stay in the club.  We are taught, then, to think that all relationships are temporary, and that all belonging is conditional.  But Jesus brings us into something new: a love that won’t let us go.  He says to us, “You are mine, and I will not leave you or vote you out or get tired of you.  I will see this through with you.  I will stick it out with you.”  He says it to you—but he also says it all of us, not just some imaginary “diamond-level” Christians who have racked up enough God-points. 

The edge to all of this is that it means there are going to be other members of the body that you don’t particularly like but still are bound to in love... because the Spirit says they belong.

The grace to all of this is that it means that even if nobody else in the body thinks you are worth keeping around, even on the days you feel like just dead weight, Jesus says you belong, and he is the only one who gets a say.  Claimed in the waters of baptism, you and I are part of the one body.  His one body.

Looks like Jesus has chosen to be “stuck”—lovingly stuck—in the middle with you.

Lord Jesus, enable us to believe that we belong, and enable us to love all those whom you insist belong alongside of us, too.