Wednesday, March 28, 2018

The Mandate of Inclusion


I have often heard people use the Bible to justify “putting out” a sinner from the church community. In Matthew, Jesus taught a form of conflict resolution: Confront the person, confront the person with a witness, confront the person in the presence of the church, kick the person out. In 1 Corinthians, Paul urges the church to turn their back on a sinning member.
But in today’s reading, 2 Corinthians, Paul has a different message: “Most of you opposed him, and that was punishment enough. Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement. So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him.” It’s pretty clear that Paul is following up on the case he mentioned in 1 Corinthians.
We like kicking people out. The us v. them mentality is ubiquitous and deeply satisfying. We like bringing people into our club and we like pushing them out. We like joining and then leaving. I have heard far too many stories of churches kicking people out for their sins.
And this isn’t a hobby just found in the American Evangelical and Fundamentalist groups. Early church history is a long list of excommunications and double anathemas. Part of the spread of Christianity is due to the exiling of “heretical” priests. They went into the wilderness and spread the gospel.
I personally believe that the church needs to transcend this divisive mentality. As we prepare to celebrate Maundy Thursday, it would be good to meditate on the actual words Jesus spoke. Maundy comes from the same root word as “mandate.” Jesus gave us a mandate: to serve one another. To wash each other’s feet; in other words, to do lowly and humiliating service to everyone in our community. Jesus taught us very clearly that it is in abiding in Him that we will be identified. Not by who we exclude. But by our willingness to extend our loving service to every single person.

As always, I’m not bragging here. I write these words as a reminder as much to myself as to anyone else. Today I will strive to abide in God’s love, and I will fail. But God will always open Her arms back to me.