Jesus and the Excluded--February 13, 2023

Jesus and the Excluded--February 13, 2023

For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says, 'I belong to Paul,' and another, 'I belong to Apollos,' are you not merely human?" [1 Corinthians 3:3-4]

It is deeply immature--and at the same time disappointingly common--how frequently we human beings only know how to define ourselves in terms of who doesn't belong in our little group. We fracture so easily along different fault lines--family, tribes, and clans; language groups and ethnicities; political ideologies and party affiliations; and denominational or theological sub-groups. And quite often, we define those group identities in the negative--who we aren't, or who we don't want even to be associated with.

Spend any time at all in the institutional church and you'll see it with terrible speed and clarity. There was a time, for example (and for some it hasn't changed), when Lutherans would tell you their Lutheran-ness basically meant, "Well, we're NOT Catholic!" Not a positive statement of what DOES matter about the Lutheran way of being Christian, but only a negative--a line making it clear who DOESN'T belong. And to be perfectly honest, Lutherans today are just as likely to do the same now, but against other Lutheran groups. You'll hear things like, "Oh, we're Lutheran--but not THAT kind of Lutheran, don't worry!" and then you'll hear some straw-man criticism of whatever Lutheran group you don't like. "THOSE Lutherans over there are too liberal," or "THAT group of Lutherans isn't welcoming at all," or "THESE Lutherans won't let you take communion if you come there," or "YOU can't be a REAL Lutheran if you don't also have some German or Scandinavian heritage in your family tree."

It's not just my tradition, of course--although Lutherans have been playing this "us-versus-them" game for five hundred years, so we're quite good at it. An awful lot of Christian groups, denominations, and labels owe their existence to one group deciding they didn't want to associate with THOSE people anymore, and then starting their own little club. The Southern Baptist Convention as a denomination was formed when white Baptists in the American South wanted to preserve the institution of slavery in their states and would not hold fellowship with those who insisted on abolition. The African Methodist Church (AME) was formed because white Methodists wouldn't let Black Methodists sit with the rest of the congregation, and so they were forced to start their own congregation where their dignity could be upheld. In the 20th century, you had denominations split over whether it was permissible to consider the scientific data about evolution, whether it was permissible to use the study tools of biblical criticism when reading and interpreting the Scriptures, as well as whether women were allowed to serve as pastors and leaders. We are still splitting and fracturing today, with new issues threatening to fragment Christian groups even further--whether it's about the question of inclusion of gay or lesbian Christians, the political leanings of a denomination, how churches responded to the COVID pandemic, or what style of music will be offered in their worship. And so much of it, regardless of what the presenting issue is, ends up becoming an "us" versus" them sort of thing. So many times, one group leaves (or is forced out) because one group doesn't want to be associated with the other anymore... or even doesn't want to be associated with people who can tolerate being around "those people," however they are defining it at the moment.

One group breaks away from another and then basically defines themselves in terms of who or what they are NOT, and to read Paul here, it sounds like we've all been doing it since the beginning. These words from what we call First Corinthians, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, remind us that genuine love doesn't do that kind of thing.  And when we find religious-sounding ways to brag about who can't belong or who we are proud to leave out, we reveal just how far off the mark from Christ's kind of love we really are. 

Now, to be clear, it's not that Paul doesn't care about theological precision or that there are no boundaries at all for what constitutes Christian community. But Paul is really disappointed when we let our core identity be rooted in a prideful, boastful sort of division--when we draw lines of "us" and "them" and define "our" group solely in the negative terms of who we are NOT, or who CAN'T come to our club house. In the first century at First Church of Corinth, they were drawing lines based on which pastor they aligned with: "I'm a Paul-kind of Christian," or "I'm Team Apollos," or what-have-you. We're still doing the same twenty centuries later, but we've just made the names or rationales sound more sophisticated. "We can't be in fellowship with people who are like THAT," you'll hear. Or "If you're going to include THOSE people, or if you're going to include people who are willing to include THOSE people in their own congregations, well I'm going to take my offering check elsewhere." We all insist that OUR splitting is for good acceptable reasons, but so often they all just sound like the old "HE-MAN Woman Haters Club" from the Little Rascals--a group only defined by who can't come.

Of course, in the old comedy bits of Spanky, Alfalfa, and the rest of the "Our Gang" kids, it was meant to be ridiculous. We were supposed to understand that defining your group solely in terms of who doesn't belong is childish, immature, and embarrassingly foolish. The tragedy is that we don't seem to have learned to see how immature--or to use Paul's language, "fleshly"--that kind of thinking is. If you keep trimming away all the people you see as "them," before long there's nobody left to belong to your "us."  And it is the nature of genuine love to add more people into the embrace, not to repel.

I know these are days when it is so terribly easy to be polarized, or to talk about getting along in only naive and empty kinds of ways. I don't think Paul wants to gloss over disagreements or pretend it's easy for us to find ways to get along. But I also think Paul would warn us very strongly about the dangerous road we have already set ourselves on once we accept the terms of defining "my" group in terms of who doesn't fit in.  If we think we're being pious when we proudly refuse to associate with THOSE PEOPLE, Jesus would like to have a word. Jesus, after all, has a way of going and standing on the other side of the line any time we draw lines between "us" and "them." Jesus' love is never too proud to stand with the excluded. Or maybe, to Paul's point, Jesus has a way of showing us that "they" are a part of "us," too, whether we realize it, acknowledge it, or like it. It's Jesus claim that makes us belong, not whether anybody else says so.

Maybe today's a day to do some honest reflection on how each of us understands our identity--what is it that makes you you, or us us? What positive traits, commitments, or traditions do we hold onto, and why? How can we honor and hold onto the things that are good in our traditions, congregations, and communities, without becoming boastful about them--or envious about someone else's? And how can we move beyond the immature thinking that defines in terms of division and creates an identity based on who doesn't belong? Those are questions worth thinking about, and then maybe today is a day to reach across the lines we had accepted for too long as permanent.

Lord Jesus, ground us in your love, your way, and the identity we find in you.