Texts:
Amos 5:1-9
Psalm 142
Acts 21:27-29
27 When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd. They seized him, 28shouting, ‘Fellow-Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place; more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’ 29For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.
What happens when our distinctions between who is on the inside and who is on the outside begin to blur? What becomes of church when it starts to look less homogenous, becoming something other than what is immediately recognizable as "people like us"? Who are "people like us" anyway?
Many churches talk about wanting to grow, about wanting to welcome young people, about wanting to be welcoming, but these words ring empty when the people who enter the doors of the church seem more like a "them" than an "us". We encounter the "Other," and fear that we will be changed. This is precisely our call. Our call is to meet the "Other," and to allow ourselves to be present in the encounter, to react, to be uncomfortable, to heal, to seek, and to know. It is when we are honest with ourselves about the encounter that we can begin the real work of being church. It is not until we recognize that our encounters with Christ and with the Spirit are inherently Other, inherently uncomfortable, that we come to recognize how big God's purposes for the church are.
We fear the language of how we talk about church will change. It will. We fear the shape of our congregations and our sanctuaries will change. It will. We fear that our understanding of ourselves and our faith will change. It will.
Do not be dismayed, that God would continue trespassing the boundaries of sacred and profane. This God who trespasses into our lives, transgressing the boundaries between deservingness and reception, inviting us to the feast of all creation. Our God is entirely Other, teaching us to appreciate Godself through blurring the distinctions between Insider and Outsider, binding both together to form a beautifully broken whole.
Amos 5:1-9
Psalm 142
Acts 21:27-29
27 When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd. They seized him, 28shouting, ‘Fellow-Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place; more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.’ 29For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.
What happens when our distinctions between who is on the inside and who is on the outside begin to blur? What becomes of church when it starts to look less homogenous, becoming something other than what is immediately recognizable as "people like us"? Who are "people like us" anyway?
Many churches talk about wanting to grow, about wanting to welcome young people, about wanting to be welcoming, but these words ring empty when the people who enter the doors of the church seem more like a "them" than an "us". We encounter the "Other," and fear that we will be changed. This is precisely our call. Our call is to meet the "Other," and to allow ourselves to be present in the encounter, to react, to be uncomfortable, to heal, to seek, and to know. It is when we are honest with ourselves about the encounter that we can begin the real work of being church. It is not until we recognize that our encounters with Christ and with the Spirit are inherently Other, inherently uncomfortable, that we come to recognize how big God's purposes for the church are.
We fear the language of how we talk about church will change. It will. We fear the shape of our congregations and our sanctuaries will change. It will. We fear that our understanding of ourselves and our faith will change. It will.
Do not be dismayed, that God would continue trespassing the boundaries of sacred and profane. This God who trespasses into our lives, transgressing the boundaries between deservingness and reception, inviting us to the feast of all creation. Our God is entirely Other, teaching us to appreciate Godself through blurring the distinctions between Insider and Outsider, binding both together to form a beautifully broken whole.
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