Being an optimist is hazardous duty these days.
I’ve been a pastor in the local church for the better part of two decades.
For most of that time I’ve believed that the table was big enough for everyone; that the Church could be a place where disparate souls could gather together and find enough commonality to transcend their differences.
I always thought that real diversity, even theological diversity in the Church, wasn’t only aspirational but also possible.
I’ve always believed that when Jesus was truly present in the hearts of people, that this would be enough to bridge the other divides within them; of race and gender and sexuality and politics.
I’m not so sure I believe that any more.
Lately I’m looking at my Christian brothers and sisters, at the bigger Body of Christ and this is what I see:
The far extremes of the Religious Right and the Left have grown frighteningly similar; each expending great energy vilifying the other. The former broker in fear of the other’s perceived immorality, the latter in anger at the other’s apparent intolerance.
Those with privilege so often resist change, desperate to keep power that does not belong to them.
Those who’ve been marginalized clamor for justice but rarely seem able to celebrate those days it makes a welcome appearance.
Each side spends little time listening or seeking compromise, and much of the time identifying deal breakers; looking for justification to shut down conversation, walk away, and write the other off.
The loud, angry fringes of our faith have become so conditioned to the fight, that they’ve nearly lost the ability to communicate unless it is with war rhetoric and battle postures.
They forgo real, messy, costly relationship in favor of lazy shouts from a distance, too easily sacrificing any compassion on the altar of their activism.
I see a whole lot of venom and very little Grace, a great deal of name calling and not much forgiveness, a boatload of condemnation and not many mea culpas.
In short, we who call ourselves Christians are slowly becoming all-or-nothing religious extremists who take Jesus’ name in vain; using him only to further our cause, win our arguments, or justify our positions.
Most of us have little interest in allowing him to alter our hearts when it comes to making peace with those we consider our adversaries.
We don’t really want to emulate Jesus, as much as we want to name-drop him in arguments.
We want him to sanction our words and our responses and our politics, even when they bear little resemblance to him.
We want carte blanche to be as mean-spirited and rude and arrogant and unforgiving as we like—and to still call it faithfulness.
We seek to deem ourselves rightly religious with little to no alteration in our agendas and preferences.
We demand that others love us as we desire to be loved, and we really don’t give much of a damn about what we’re supposed to be offering them, whether they love us or not.
I am weary and worried these days.
I really want Jesus to be big enough.
I want the table to be big enough.
I still seek a Church that is not the least, but the most diverse place on the planet.
I still dream that the life of Christ can be fully incarnated in the people who bear his name.
I want this faith to produce something more redemptive than side choosing and silo building and finger-pointing.
I want it to generate hope and yield goodness and produce mercy in ways that defy description and explanation and denying.
I am holding out hope for true communion.
But it’s really not up to me alone.
It’s in the hands of you who claim faith in Jesus, from wherever you find yourself standing and however you align yourself and whatever you see your personal calling as a Christian to be.
I wonder if you believe the table really is big enough; for you, for those you love, for those you find difficult to love, for those who have little love for you.
Because ultimately if you do, you have a decision to make.
You’re either going to be a builder—or you’re not.
You’re either going to deny yourself and take up the cross of costly sacrifice and keep seeking to come humbly, or you’re going to defiantly barricade yourself within your rightness and your righteousness and wait for the check to come.
You’re either going to try to live as a selfless servant or look to die a spiteful martyr.
I still do believe in the bigger table, but it’s more difficult than ever to keep that faith.
I keep waiting for Jesus to show up in the people who bear his name, and renovate their hearts enough so that they run out of excuses not to love other people.
The only way the table of the Church is ever truly going to be big enough, is if we who comprise it all make more room within us.
Are we willing?
