What an astounding time we
live in. The Supreme Court of the United
States made a ruling saying in effect that since segregation is largely an item
of history and isn’t in our society anymore, therefore it is not necessary for
a school in the south to worry so much about the problem. Almost in response to this, we have had two
instances of extreme bigotry surface with Cliven Bundy refusing to pay the
government for grazing his cattle on public land and making incidental comments
about African American people that offended even some of his supporters; and
Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers National Basketball team
making racist comments and being banned from basketball for life by the
NBA. Their actions almost seem to be
done in support of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the case that was
before the court. Mr. Bundy even went so
far as to quote Dr. Martin Luther King in his racist remarks. I am sure that this series of circumstances
will be cited by historians for many years as another example of the strange
turn in American society that has happened in our time.
Racism is certainly alive and well in our culture. Instead of hiding it as has been the unstated
custom, we now feel free to say these things out loud that had previously been
only lodged in our hearts. We had
friends visit recently whose daughter is the mother of a bi-racial child. They told us some of the things that have
been said to their daughter by well meaning people, and we were astounded. “Well, he is a very light color and could
pass for white,” one person said to them.
She was having a great problem feeling included in any church that she
visited, and isn’t that a powerful indictment of our religious people.
I would think that if there is any place where inclusion
ought to be the first thing on the agenda, it would be our churches. Jesus told us to love one another the way
that God loves us. Loving one another is
a primary reason to include in our fellowship everyone who comes along.
I was at the funeral of one of the bishops of my diocese
many years ago. We had heard the sermon
and the eulogies to this leader and the time came for all of us to receive the
body and blood of our Lord. The family
was located in the first pew and went up as a group to receive. About this time, a strange person walked down
the center aisle of the church and sat down in one of the pews that the family
had just vacated. Quickly, the well
dressed ushers pounced on him and told him that he couldn’t sit there. He left that pew and went across the aisle to
one of the pews that had just been vacated by the clergy who had gone up to
receive the sacrament. Again, the ushers
moved him out. He came back down the
aisle and found a place in the vacant pew that existed between the last row of
clergy and the first row of lay people.
After everyone had received communion, two clergy came down the center
aisle to give the sacrament to a woman in the row immediately behind the man. Again the ushers moved him out and he
wandered slowly toward the back of the church.
Somebody in our row asked “Who is that guy!” The reply came quickly from
someone else: “It is the Lord!” And so it was.
If Jesus had shown up at that funeral that is exactly the way he would
have come to us, as one of the lowest of the low. When we finally exited the church in
procession, I saw the man crowded into one of the rear pews, still worshiping,
still with us.
If I had ever needed a concrete lesson about inclusion that
was it. I’ve never forgotten that humble
man wandering the aisle of that cathedral. Thank God for him. He taught me a lot.
In this post-Easter time, it is helpful to look around us
to see the presence of the living Christ. Maybe among the homeless or the forgotten is where
we ought to look; or among those in prison or shoved aside by our society for other
reasons. That is what Jesus told his disciples
to do, and it needs to be our mission also.
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