Insiders and Outsiders

A while back I heard a presentation by the Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Granston. Dr. Granston emigrated from Ghana in the mid-70's. At the time he was one of only two African American ELCA pastors with a doctorate in scriptural studies. And he’d been redeveloping urban congregations serving African American neighborhoods for over 20 years.

Following his presentation there was some time for questions and answers. I only remember two. The first questioner asked Pastor Granston why some church officials find his urban mission strategies and ministry practices to be so controversial. Pastor Granston responded with a Ghanaian proverb: The one, who's out front cutting the path to the goal, cannot himself see how crooked those following behind perceive the path to be.

The second question was my own. I commented that the most intense conversation among our members concerned my idea that our congregation ought to identify "standards for membership." I went on to say that of the several ID cards I carry in my wallet indicating I belong to such-and-such a group, most carry with them requirements of belonging. For example: my voter's registration expires if I don't vote in two consecutive elections; my library card is revoked if I don't return the books I borrow.

What would happen, I asked Pastor Granston, if we said, members of First Trinity will:
• attend worship regularly, i.e., 3 out of 4 Sundays
• participate in a process to identify their spiritual gifts and covenant to use one or more of these gifts – not in church work -but in the work of the church - out in the world
• take part in a congregational ministry
• covenant to growth giving in stewardship.

Pastor Granston said he thought I might be onto something by identifying the marks, or characteristics, of what a member of a discipling community might look like. But where, he asked, in my laundry list was: grace; where was the liberating Good News of the Gospel; where was Jesus; how was I not using the law as a club to achieve - Gospel?

What I took to be a new conversation in Baltimore had already taken place long ago at a house in Capernaum. We hear this in Mark 9:38-50. That's where Jesus was teaching the disciples when John came rushing in like Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling: Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us (v38).

It seems that as different as our world today might be from Jesus' world, the circumstances he exposes are familiar. Just like the disciples, we modern humans divide the world into insiders and outsiders. When people belong to a cause or an organization expect them to "put in their time" before they're accepted as members; and once we let them inside, we expect them to follow certain rules.

After all, membership means that individuals are committed to the goals of the group - not just seeking personal glory. For instance, people aren't allowed to teach, serve as law enforcement officers, or perform various other disciplines without first being trained by masters in their field. Likewise, in the church, some believe that longtime members of a parish are more trustworthy and faithful - especially if they have "done their time" on various church committees.

Conversely, when we see someone who doesn't fit our neat mold of a faithful Christian member - someone who does ministry in unfamiliar, unprecedented ways – we automatically view them with suspicion. Like the disciples we conclude, "They're not doing it our way. There must be something wrong with them." But, in this text, Jesus says to us, "Your way? I've got news for you. If they are doing it in my name, they are doing it my way, and I choose to call them allies and friends."

Now we see the problem: we've made discipleship about doing things "our way," when it is supposed to be about being like Jesus and being with Jesus. We've done this because personally we're not very fond of Jesus' Way. So we've tried to improve on the way Jesus does things.

Our worldly perceptions cause us to stumble over Jesus, the Outsider Messiah, who:
• eats with sinners
• challenges us to let adulteresses escape stoning
• asks Samaritan women to fetch him water
• heals people on the Sabbath.
Jesus seems to let people gain membership too easily, "Whoever is not against us is for us." His standards seem too loose, too flexible, and too generous.

In truth, we really are offended (scandalized) by the kind of Messiah whom Jesus genuinely is. Therefore we have a hard time doing deeds in his name with much integrity, because we don't really "believe in him" (v. 42).

To be scandalized by Christ (to stumble over his claim on us) is a double-edged sword. We forget where Jesus found us. Look, if the God of Jesus was such a straight and narrow kind of God, where would you be today? You think this church looks pretty empty? What would it be like if in order to belong here you could never have: hoarded your money; made a racist remark; told a lie; cheated on your taxes; lusted in your heart; used gossip to slay someone's reputation?

When we forget that it was, "while we were yet sinners" that this God came for us - not at us - when we forget that Jesus cut what must have looked like a pretty crooked path to come fetch us, then we choose the old familiar ways - to live, to be church, to do ministry – over serving in Jesus' name. And when we make that choice, the sword's second edge cuts us off. We exclude ourselves from Jesus' kingdom, where the hallmarks of belonging look like this:
• the world calls ya ugly names, but here you're sister - brother
• sinners get another chance here, not rocks thrown at their head
• first time visitors get a bigger welcome than the founders
• different gifts aren't just tolerated, they're celebrated.

Jesus seems to say, “If you insist on making your own way, then hell is what you deserve. If you insist on promoting your own self-interest instead of following me, then finally you will be the outsider -outside of my kingdom. But, fair warning: "It would be better to live life with only one eye, one foot, and one hand - lame and blind - than burn in hell," he says. At least if you are lame and blind you still have a chance at entering the kingdom.

In Jesus' day if people wanted a picture of what Hell was like they could look to a place called “Gehenna" – a garbage dump outside the walls of Jerusalem. If one wanted to know about humiliation and cruel death (something akin to drowning with a millstone around your neck) they could go to another place outside the city walls called "Golgotha." The walls of Jerusalem kept insiders (clean, righteous, and alive) in, and outsiders (unclean, unrighteous, dead) out.

We've become much more sophisticated, these days. The Gehenna’s we construct - the trash heaps where we discard people we call outsiders - look so much more sanitary. We call them:
• sentencing guidelines that impose longer jail terms on urban crack cocaine than on suburban powdered cocaine
• urban school systems where we arm guards with guns rather than arm teachers with resources.

We've become much more sophisticated these days at constructing Golgothas which deliver to whole hosts of outsiders a slow, tortuous death. They look so much more benign. We call them:
• welfare to work programs that lead to part-time jobs without benefits
• banking laws for a global economy which perpetuate red-lining and frustrate urban dwellers' climb into economic self-sufficiency.

Jesus told his followers three times in Mark 9 and 10 that he would soon be an outsider (suffering and dying at the hands of insiders); he also told them that he would conquer death. But telling them did no good. What saved them and what saves us -who are scandalized by
Jesus' Way - is that Jesus actually went to Gehenna for us and died the death we had coming to us. Jesus intervenes on our inevitable Golgotha-death, and turns it inside-out, giving us life in its place. Suddenly, preserving the world's status quo about insiders and outsiders is not half as important as living life in Christ. We need not fear being outside God's grasp – Gehenna cannot touch us now that we have been spirited into Christ's kingdom.

Kindled by life in Christ, we no longer have any reason to view "outsiders" with suspicion. On the contrary, we're encouraged to have salt and fire in ourselves and to practice peace with one another. But this peace-full lifestyle is not by any means passive - it's fiery and salty. And fire and salt change whatever they touch. We fiery/salty followers are encouraged to serve others with an act as simple as offering "a cup of water to drink" (v. 41); or we may choose something as daring as a rescue operation to Gehenna (call it preaching the Gospel to sinners), so that others who have "stumbled" may yet come out alive.

The only way we can reckon the pathway Jesus cuts toward the Kingdom goal as crooked is to stay back tending campfires and hoarding the salt. But up close, traveling along with the leader, trusting that the fire can be carried from where it was once lit to where it ought to shine in the darkest of corners; trusting that the salt preserves and nourishes us for the journey's long-haul, we'll not only see deeds of power routinely, we'll perform, each one - alone and together - deeds of power, regularly and gracefully!