The Inclusiveness of the Gospel: Part I

Do you remember when you were a kid? One of the most difficult times was when you were on the playground, and you were going to play a game, and so you decided to choose up teams. Do you remember?

There were always two people, two captains who were supposed to choose their teams. And the toughest place in the world was to stand there, praying, “Oh, please don’t make me last. Let me not be the person they don’t want.”

Heartbroken
The gospel is for people like that. Do you remember when Jesus tells the story of the good shepherd? He leaves the 99 to go find the one. And he takes the one and says, “You all should be including this one, too.”

He also tells a story about a banquet where some people are included and others are not, making it a point to say no one should be left out.

Yes. The gospel is for people who know what it’s like to be left alone, standing over and looking at the group and wishing they could be included, too. Because Jesus completely and utterly sees you there—not just the evil in those who leave you out, but you there, alone.

When you’re excluded, God sees everything going on in your heart. He sees your fears. He sees your almost-rejection of yourself. If you’ve ever been excluded, you know the reasons for that. There’s a kind of inner heartbreak you live with day in and day out, because you’re not getting picked, and you’re trying to find a way in.

On the other hand, when you live in a culture, or especially a church, where there is one group, and then there are people over there who aren’t a part of the group, you feel that heartbreak even if you’re one of the ones being picked because you know that here, status matters. You can’t be honest with this group about where you’re struggling, where you need prayer. So you have superficial conversations: “Oh, how are you?” “Oh, I’m great, I’m good.” Because, you see, if you divulged what was going on in your heart, you might not get picked the next time that group decided to assemble.

Hiding
And if you’re in a group like that, there’s always a certain inner expectation to put your best foot forward. You want people to like you. And you will, in fact, do whatever this group thinks is important so that you can stay included.

Office politics feed on this kind of divisiveness. And again, there’s no place more vicious than the elementary school playground, where we learned those survival skills in the first place. Yes, we figure out at a very early age what keeps you in and what keeps you out. And none of us wants to be left out, do we?

And so in essence, you become an actor. You become the person this group wants you to be. And you keep hidden, if at all possible, all parts of your behavior or thinking that doesn’t fit in with this group’s norms.

And when a church is like that, it’s guilty of what many people outside the church like to say: “Oh, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites.” And that kind of inner hypocrisy has everything to do with the need to stay in this group and the fear of rejection.

And so even though we say “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you, no secrets are hid,” there’s a part of you that says, “Oh, I hope nobody finds me out” even as that prayer is being offered.

A Better Way
But Jesus longs for there to be a group of people—his people—who don’t operate with this kind of dynamic. And depending on the community, what constitutes what’s in or not can change from place to place. It can center around economics, race, education, culture, or something else. We now live in a culture that is fast becoming filled with groups that only define themselves by the circle they’re in. It’s not just a question of locale. And everything is spoken in extremes, to the point to where we pick and choose the political commentators we watch on television or listen to on the radio, or perhaps even our friends, only if they espouse the things we already believe.

In the recent presidential election, for example, the attitude went something like this: “If you don’t believe the way I do, that means you’re for that candidate over there. And how can you be for that candidate and call yourself a Christian?”

There’s something profoundly sick about that. And especially when it infects the local church. Because the picture of the body of Christ in the book of Revelation is every tribe, tongue, people, language, and nation. That’s about as inclusive as you can get. And particularly given the culture in which we live, where there are such deep and profound divisions, one of the most important parts of our witness to the wider culture is that we choose by the mercy of God, to be a people who believe that before the cross of Jesus Christ, we are all alike. And we are all profoundly in need of the mercy and the forgiveness of God.

That’s what we have in common. That’s the only way the gospel makes sense.

When have you felt excluded? Share this blog and your comments on Twitter and include my username, @revgregbrewer.

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on August 28, 2016, at The Church of St. Luke and St. Peter, St. Cloud, Florida.)

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.