Pity the Bouncers

Pity the Bouncers--October 25, 2018

[Jesus said:] "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them." [Matthew 23:13]

We are the ones, it turns out, who are so hung up on being gatekeepers.  We are the ones obsessed with keeping control over who's "in" and who's "out."  We are--not Jesus.

Jesus, it would seem, shakes his head in disbelief and disappointment that we spend so much energy and fuss trying to keep people from getting into the divine party without our prior approval, when Jesus would just as well have everybody come to join him at the celebration.  The more, the merrier, after all, in Jesus' book.

But we--that is to say, we who spend time in the community called "Church"--we are constantly tempted, as were the Respectable Religious Crowd of Jesus' day, to appoint ourselves the bouncers of heaven, standing at the door by the velvet rope and making our own judgments about who is "worthy" to come in... and who we deem un-worthy.

There's a sad and pathetic irony to being a self-appointed bouncer, too--while you are so busy making sure the riff-raff don't sneak into the party, you miss out on all the fun yourself, standing out in the cold and guarding the line.  At least if you have been hired by the club owner to be the bouncer you know you'll get paid to do that job; but if you decide to stand outside on your own, without the authorization of the management, just to make your own decrees about who should be allowed in, and who should be kept out, you're just plain wasting your time.  You don't get to say who's allowed in and who's not if you're a self-appointed bouncer; you have no authority to make that call.  But all the while, you're missing out yourself on the music and the drinks and the laughter.  What a terrible, terrible waste of a night.

In a way, this is what Jesus' lament and warning to the Respectable Religious Crowd is saying:  "Pity the bouncers, and doubly pity the self-appointed bouncers!  They stand outside the door by the velvet rope trying to keep out people they don't think are acceptable, and meanwhile, they themselves are missing out on the party, but they don't really have the power to keep anybody out." The actual authority to open the doors to the people waiting to get in falls to true Host of the Party, who, it turns out, is Jesus.  And of course, Jesus has made a policy out of inviting all sorts of people to follow him whom the Respectable Religious Crowd would not have deemed "worthy" of entrance to the party.  The Pharisees and scribes are regularly scandalized by Jesus' near-constant attendance at the homes of "tax collectors and sinners," and his way of reaching out to those deemed unacceptable. 

Jesus' is doubly upset at the Pharisees and scribes, then, not only because they have declared themselves (wrongly) to have the authority to keep people out of God's Reign, but also because they also teach other people to do the same thing!  And on this point, Jesus doesn't just pity the Pharisees and scribes, he is fiercely upset at them.  Not only are they being damn fools missing out on the party themselves in order to stand outside at the door scowling and the crowds waiting to get in, but they are actively teaching their own disciples to practice a sort of religion that does more of the same gate-keeping.  

And honestly, Jesus just doesn't have time for religion that is primarily focused on "keeping the riff-raff out."  He has to go and undo all the bad work those hypocrites (us) are doing, before getting back to his own work of finding the people who have been turned aside and telling them, "This love, this belonging, this party is for you, too--come with me!"  And frankly, it just makes Jesus' job harder if a bunch of Respectable Religious People take it upon themselves to tell folks they aren't good enough, when Jesus' whole project is to find the people who have been told they are not good enough, unacceptable, damaged goods, broken, or irredeemable, and to bring them into the party, too.

Now, the impossibly, amazingly good news in all of this is that even when we Respectable Religious Hypocrites complicate Jesus' work, he doesn't give up on doing it, and he keeps on running after the people who have been turned away at the door and telling them that there's room for them, too.  In fact, he even keeps telling the self-appointed bouncers, too, that they would be welcome inside at the party as well--if only they would just quit the tough-guy routines and come inside.  And when we slide into the role of self-appointed gatekeepers for the Kingdom, too, Jesus keeps on telling us, "You're missing the point!  You're missing the party!  Come inside out from the cold--it was never really your job to tell other people they weren't allowed in!  Let me work the doors tonight--after all, I am the gate for the sheep."

The challenge for us today, then, is to listen to Jesus on this one, and to give up our self-appointed gatekeeper jobs, in favor of going into the actual party that is currently going on.  Could we let go of our damnably arrogant need for control to keep the "riff-raff" out, and instead leave the gatekeeping and bouncer-work to Jesus, who is perfectly capable of handling the door on his own?  And once we admit we never had the authority to close the door on someone else in the first place, could we see that Jesus is still holding the door open for you, and for me, so that we can quit pouting and scowling like the prodigal's older brother, and instead go into the party?

That is a difficult challenge, especially if we have picked up the bad habit and faulty theology somewhere along the way of thinking that it is our job to keep "unworthy" people out of God's sight and away from God's party.  And honestly, church folk are often notoriously bad at letting go of the gatekeeper role that was never rightfully ours in the first place.  But let's give it a try on this day and leave the velvet rope behind.

Being the unauthorized bouncer was always a pretty pathetic job, anyhow.

Lord Jesus, help us get over our arrogant wish to be in control of who is "in" and who is "out" at your party.  And instead, allow us to leave the outer darkness and step into the warmth and joy of your unending celebration.