“Affirmatively Welcoming”
Matthew 10:1, 5a, 7-14, 40-42
Luke 15:1-2
I remember very clearly getting some sharp pushback when, early on in my time here at First Church, I described the gospel of Jesus Christ as “countercultural.”
A longtime church member pulled me aside and, as if giving me valuable insider information, told me she didn’t think a term like “countercultural” would play well in our highly educated, fiscally conservative, socially progressive, middle-aged-and-older, well-behaved congregation.
A term like “countercultural” makes us think of hippies and wild protests in the streets, she said—or something to that effect.
I blinked hard, bit my tongue, and mumbled something like “I see.” And ever since then I’ve worked hard to use unoffensive, non-alienating synonyms for countercultural—words like up-ending, threatening, alternative, speaking truth to power, and, when I’m feeling particularly brave: faithful.
But there’s a problem with all these descriptions of the gospel, which is that they can be interpreted, understood, and applied in very relative ways.
One person, for example—say, a Christian web designer in Colorado who has not yet started a wedding business—might believe she is being faithfully countercultural by making a federal case of her opposition to same-sex marriage. Others might believe they are being “fair” in challenging 50 years of race-conscious college admissions policies. Others, despite the mention of debt forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer, might oppose the forgiveness of student loans.
So this morning I want to be very clear about what I see as some of the objectively central and non-negotiable elements of Jesus’ countercultural gospel:
First, and perhaps most fundamental, is that the unconditional love of God is welcoming. Which is to say: It is for everyone.
Now I recently heard someone describe being welcoming as our church’s superpower, and as much as I love that, I also feel we need to be clear—and humble—about what a truly radical, extravagant, Jesus kind of welcome looks like.
We take pride in being one of the first Open and Affirming congregations in the United Church of Christ (going all the way back to 1987) , for example, and we work hard to welcome all manner of people and every individual into our building and our church. So central is welcoming to who we are and our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus that in 2017 we invited someone we didn’t know to take sanctuary in our building.
All that is well and good, but we still have a lot to learn about the difference between being welcoming and being inclusive, between tolerating diversity and centering and empowering people who have been marginalized and oppressed.
This is why we speak not of being non-racist but of committing ourselves to anti-racism. This is why a truly open and affirming ministry doesn’t stop at simply allowing gay, transgender, and queer folks to be part of our church but rather challenges us to celebrate and affirm the identity of all people and to let the beauty and blessedness of who they are change who we are.
To welcome and include others as Jesus did is not simply a matter of opening our doors to all and receiving all people in love, but also actively seeking the lost and the left out. It’s not only about offering everyone a seat at our table, but making sure we all understand that it is God’s table, and that Jesus would seat the poorest, most disrespected person at the head of it. It’s about going out into the streets and sharing with our neighbors the abundance of life we have discovered in the Holy One.
Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to do the work of healing, loving, and including. Jesus didn’t just tell stories about God’s welcoming of the lost and marginalized; he spent time with the left out and left behind, he scandalized the proper religious folks by loving and including the people they had cast out. Jesus didn’t support the cultural biases, the religious judgment, or the economic oppression of his supporters, but rather challenged them to love as God does—without condition and with a deep concern for the sick, the suffering, the outcast, the poor, and the oppressed.
Beyond that, Jesus presumed that the outcast-seeking and -welcoming ethos of his followers would make them un-welcome in many places. Not to worry, he told his disciples. Just carry on, and trust that all those who do welcome you and the gospel are also welcoming me and God and are well on their way to rewarding, abundant life.
A second element of Jesus’ countercultural good news is that it is not what we would call “fair.” It is not merit-based. You might even say that Jesus lives out an affirmative-action kind of love, going out of his way to find the lost, heal the sick, bring in the outsider, and lift up the lowly.
This approach wasn’t particularly popular in his time, either, but he was very clear about it. Time and again he said he came not for the well, but the sick; not for those who already had all they needed, but for the poor; not for the powerful, but for the oppressed; not for the saints, but for the sinners.
God’s love is not about so-called fairness, and Jesus tells us ours shouldn’t be either. The kind of love and ministry Jesus calls us to is not only countercultural, but also unpopular and sometimes uncomfortable.
A third way the gospel of Jesus is countercultural is that it is not about us.
The blessings and grace of the gospel reflect not the worthiness of the recipient but the extravagant goodness of the giver. And not only the goodness of the Great Giver but also God’s commitment to justice, healing, and liberation. It intentionally seeks to redress past and current wrongdoing that have created past and current suffering and injustice. It tells us to love our neighbors, and it explains that everyone—especially those who disagree with, disapprove of, or just don’t like—is our neighbor.
The true gospel of Jesus never seeks permission or legal authority to exclude or discriminate against certain kinds of people—because it is not about us; it is about God’s extravagant, all-inclusive love. Exclusion and judgment are the opposite of the Jesus way.
It is a sad day for this country and a dangerous day for the church when the freedom to exclude and deny service on the basis of religious intolerance is deemed more valuable than the rights of an oppressed and threatened minority of people. But we in the church must be intentional about rooting our more inclusive love and practices in the love of God.
There is a meme going around on the social that says, “At the end of the day, I’d rather be excluded for who I include than included for who I exclude.”
It is a beautiful, pithy expression of the gospel; my only concern is with Christians who post it and fail to put it in the context of the gospel. I would rather be excluded for who I include—not because of my politics but because of my faith, not because I’m cool, but because I follow Jesus, not because I’m open-minded but because the Spirit is transforming me from a self-centered person to a Love-grounded person. Whenever Jesus was criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners, he did not praise himself, but used the criticism to explain the radically inclusive nature of God’s love.
Beloveds, on the cusp of another holiday celebrating our nation’s independence, let us celebrate our dependence on the healing and transforming love of God. At a time when our country is deeply divided, let us remember that Jesus calls us to love our enemies.
Now and always may following Jesus fill us with so much love that we are able to put down our privilege and our prejudices, step aside, and allow those previously un-welcomed to speak their truth, demand justice and respect, and, if they so choose, welcome us to the new world they are creating.
