|
“Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open
Doors.” That’s what we say distinguishes us as United
Methodists. We declare that we are a church defined by
openness—open to different people, different ideas,
different ways of worship and relating to God. Our slogan
announces that United Methodists will love abundantly, think
freely, and welcome indiscriminately. We are the people with
open hearts, open minds and open doors.
So where did we come up with
this catchy little slogan? Is it simply the concept of
creative marketing types? Is it just some clever
wordsmithing in order to attract the untold masses? Or is it
just another cute, clichéd gimmick we have created to appear
“cool” to the community? Where did we get our motto, “Open
Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors”? I believe we got it from
the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And if you’re going
to fashion a motto for your church, there is probably no
better place to start.
Just look at this story from the
ninth chapter of Matthew. Here we see Jesus calling another
of his disciples. It is these people who will help him build
God’s Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” And on this
particular day, we see that Jesus has called a man named
Matthew to join him in this new movement. This wouldn’t have
been a big deal except for one thing. Matthew was a tax
collector. Tax collectors were hated and despised in Jesus’
day. Matthew was supposed to be one of them, but he was
working for the enemy.
To the Jews in Jesus’ time, the
tax collector was synonymous with being a thief. But here’s
the difference—we’re not talking about being a common crook
or bank robber. Tax collectors were corporate criminals. The
tax collectors were the original white collar criminals. The
tax collectors skimmed off the top. They overtaxed the Jews
and underpaid the Romans. They were the richest people in
town. They had the best houses. They had the best clothes.
They drove the best donkeys. They threw the best parties.
They could flaunt their stuff, but everybody knew they
didn’t come by it honestly. Most people hoped that one day
they would get caught and get what was coming to
them—prison, humiliation, poverty. And so here we see Jesus
inviting into the inner ring of his leadership team one of
“them,” one of the despised and ridiculed of their
community.
And who does this upset? It
upsets the church folk. It upsets the Pharisees. Remember
who the Pharisees represent in the story. They represent the
religious people. They were the well- behaved, church-going
folks. They were the ones who prayed so eloquently at the
prayer meetings. They were the ones who were always giving
money to beggars (and you knew they did this because they
always made a point of telling you). The Pharisees were the
ones who followed all the rules, memorized all the
scriptures, paid all of their tithes and consequently looked
down on those who weren’t as “religious” as they were.
Whenever there is a story that involves the Pharisees, those
of us who are “religious folks” would do well to pay
attention, because the message might be directed precisely
at us.
The Pharisees can’t believe that
Jesus would actually hang out with the likes of Matthew. He
wasn’t the kind of guy church-going folks associated with.
Just imagine if Matthew ever dared to show his face at
weekly worship. As soon as he’d walk in, the nice,
well-behaved religious folks would start to whisper, “What’s
he doing here? What nerve to just waltz into this church
like he owns the place. Who does he think he’s kidding? He
shouldn’t be here. He should be in prison, that’s where he
should be.” And you can bet that as soon as church was over,
the Pharisees would be on the phone activating their “prayer
chains.” “Girl, you’ll never believe who was in church this
morning. It was that tax collector, Matthew. He was here
with that wife of his…and those kids. And guess what? They
sat right up front, sat right in the Johnsons’ spot.
Girlfriend, I know. When Mrs. Johnson saw them
sitting in her spot, I thought she would keel over.
Well, I just thought you should know…so you can pray for
them, of course.”
But here’s the real crazy part.
Jesus doesn’t just talk with this “low life” corporate
thief, he eats with him. That’s right, he breaks bread with
him. And it would have been bad enough if he just broke
bread with Matthew, but the religious folks saw Jesus dining
with a whole table full of tax collectors and other
“sinners.”
Table fellowship, who one ate
with, was a big deal in the religious landscape of Jesus’
time. The Pharisees (the ones who may be a whole lot more
like us nice church-going folk than we’d care to admit)
believed that one should only eat with other Pharisees
(other nice church-going folk). They believed it was
spiritually dangerous to eat with people who didn’t behave
like they behaved or believe like they believed. So when
Jesus, the one who claims to be bringing in God’s Kingdom,
eats with corporate criminals, poor folks, the sick, the
disabled, prostitutes, non-believers and other “sinners,” it
is downright scandalous. “How dare he do such a thing! Look
at him sitting there all nice and cozy with them. And
he looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
Even a cursory study of the life
of Jesus makes it pretty clear that Jesus ate with those you
weren’t supposed to eat with, touched those you weren’t
supposed to touch, forgave those you weren’t supposed to
forgive, and invited into God’s Kingdom those who weren’t
supposed to be on the guest list. Jesus’ ministry is defined
by its openness, a fact that makes some of us nice
church-going folks a little uncomfortable at times. It
appears that Jesus is the original author of “Open Hearts.
Open Minds. Open Doors.”
When the nice church-going folks
get all up in his face about who he is eating with (well
actually, they don’t talk to him…they talk about
him), he says, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, it’s
the sick. Go and learn this…” Then he quotes scripture to
them. I love it when Jesus quotes scripture. Unlike so many
of us who quote scripture in order to justify excluding
people from God’s Kingdom (“Leviticus 18:22 makes it
clear that homosexuals aren’t allowed in God’s Kingdom,”
“Corinthians 13:32-35 clearly states that if women want to
come to church, they need to be quiet,” “II Thessalonians
1:8-9 makes it pretty clear that all nonbelievers are going
straight to hell”), when Jesus quotes scriptures, it is
always to remind us that God’s Kingdom is bigger and more
inclusive than we could imagine. He tells the Pharisees to
go back and reread the prophets. The prophets are always
warning us that our vision of God is too small and that God
desires mercy and compassion far more than religious piety
and empty ritual.
Jesus flips the whole notion of
membership in the community of faith on its head. You see,
for the Pharisees, you couldn’t belong to the community
until you behaved in the right way and believed the right
things. The order for inclusion in God’s Kingdom was behave,
believe, belong. Jesus turns this paradigm inside out by
essentially saying a person could belong to the community of
faith before they believed the “right” things or behaved in
the “right” manner. Jesus built the Kingdom movement by
first inviting people to belong. Once they belonged, they
would come to believe. And once they believed, their
behaviors would change. Jesus made it plain that when it
comes to the Kingdom of God, all are welcome.
Think how different the Gospels
would read if Jesus said people had to behave the “right”
way or believe the “right” things before they could belong
to God’s Kingdom. If Jesus operated on a “behave right,
believe right and then you can belong” model of church, then
the woman caught in adultery would have been stoned to
death, the Samaritan woman at the well would have been
ignored, Zacheaus would still be sitting in the tree,
Matthew would still be ripping off the rich and poor alike,
the prostitute who poured oil on his feet would still be
turning tricks, and the thief on the cross would be dead. By
the virtue of their lifestyles and stations in society, all
of these persons should have been written off from inclusion
in the community of faith. But these are the very people
Jesus welcomes with open arms.
So let’s make it plain. All are
welcome. All are welcome. And all means all. It
doesn’t mean some. It doesn’t mean most. It
means all. All are welcome. If we are serious about
following Jesus, then we will be a people with open hearts,
open minds and open doors. All are welcome. Black, white and
brown. Rich and poor. Male and female. Single or married.
Divorced or separated. Liberal or conservative. Republican
or Democrat. Gay or straight. Ex-cons and choir boys. Saints
and sinners. Devout and backsliders. Redneck and refined.
All means all. All are welcome in this place. And
when the Matthews of our world suddenly walk through our
open door—the folks who are whispered about in our
neighborhoods, the folks who’ve made mistakes, whose
marriages are struggling, whose kids are in trouble, whose
lives are a mess— when these folks walk through our doors,
we won’t be surprised. Because we know this is where they
are supposed to be. We know they are here because Jesus
invited them to be here.
But here’s the catch. The ones
who need to be reminded that God’s community is open and
inclusive are seldom the Matthews of the world, the “tax
collectors” and other “sinners.” They get it. No, the ones
who need to be reminded time and time again of the openness
of God’s Kingdom are the Pharisees, the nice church-going
folks like us.
I am reminded of a time when
that became all too clear to me. While Bridget and I lived
in Detroit, we became connected to the local Catholic Worker
house. For those who have never heard of Catholic Worker
houses, they are communities of people who live together in
intentional Christian community, committing themselves to
simple living and service to the poor and marginalized who
live in their neighborhood. There are 185 Catholic Worker
houses in the United States and Canada. Detroit’s Worker
house is located just one block north of old Tiger Stadium.
The small community there runs a soup kitchen every morning
out of old St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on the corner of
Michigan and Trumbull, as well as opening their house as a
place of hospitality to homeless women and their children.
Every Sunday night, this
community, along with its guests and other folks from the
neighborhood, gathered for evening worship and communion.
Bridget and I often attended these gatherings. This service
was powerful in its simplicity. We would all gather in the
living room. The songs were sung a capella. The priest who
said the mass always used sandwich bread for the communion
bread, reminding us that Jesus often comes to us in the
simplicity of everyday living. They used a common communion
cup, meaning that communion wine was in a single cup that
was passed from person to person, each taking a sip of the
sacramental drink—a powerful symbol of Christian unity.
I remember this one Sunday
evening in particular. This evening, we were joined by
several neighborhood folks. One of the people stood out. He
was dirty. He probably hadn’t showered in weeks. His clothes
were filthy. His hair was matted. His odor was strong. He
was a bit obnoxious. He appeared to be drunk. The moment of
panic for me came when I realized that he would get the
communion cup before me. Maybe they wouldn’t pass it to him.
It was a hygiene concern, after all. Even if they passed it
to him, he wouldn’t drink from it, would he? But sure
enough, the cup was passed to this man. And sure enough, he
raised that cup to his lips. He didn’t just sip the wine
like all the rest of us nice church-going folks. He put his
whole dirty face right in that cup and took two big gulps of
the blood of Christ. When he finished, drops of the wine
dripped from his beard and he let out a satisfied sigh.
Then it dawned on me. He’s the
one who got it. He knew he was welcome at the table. He knew
he was welcome because he knew whose table it was and he
knew who had issued the invitation. The pressure wasn’t on
him. He knew what Kingdom he belonged to, and he surely
didn’t need my permission to receive the body and blood of
his Lord and Savior. The real question was, did I know what
Kingdom I belonged to and did I know how big that Kingdom
really was? As I drank from that common cup that night, I
realized that I was feasting in the very Kingdom of God, for
I was privileged enough to be dining with “tax collectors
and sinners.”
This is World Communion Sunday.
On this night, we come to participate in one of the greatest
miracles Jesus ever performed. You see, Jesus changed the
table forever. In his world where the table was used to
segregate and divide, Jesus ate with tax collectors and
sinners, saying that all are welcome in God’s Kingdom. And
so as we gather around this table tonight, ever mindful that
the world we live in also seeks to divide us one from the
other—dividing us along the lines of race, gender, wealth,
religion, age, sexual orientation, disability status and
countless other categories—we become one with each other and
united with Christians all over the world in the family of
God. So when you come to this table tonight, be warned. All
are welcome. And that means even the Pharisees—we’re
welcome, too.
|
