No Outcasts

That is how I concluded my last blog as a member of the Diocesan Steering Team going from “Do our coffee hours define us?” to “How do we reach out to others so that Christ’s message of love and inclusion brings them from outside church walls...inside?”

Since that posting, there have been many reminders to me that a lot of people have the same questions in their hearts. Kelly, in her “orientation” blog 6/10/13 asks how can the church reach out to those who need God’s love? What is God calling us to do to join with people where they are? Greg Rhodes blog 6/13/13 “Values, Norms & Habits” asks “Will there be a place for me? Is my church going to leave me?”

Saturday, 6/15/13, Forward Day by Day daily meditations from Luke 20:1-8 “then Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” It speaks to authority being a tricky thing and using the servant ministry of Deacons the power to mobilize others to service or hoard the privilege of leadership. Jesus surrounded Himself with simple folks, not the religious leaders of His time! He healed sinners and love to ALL! Authority is one of the hardest things to give away. When it is about control, it can often end in death. When it is about invitation it leads toward life.

Greg Rhodes sent to the OCW Steering Team a copy of a daily meditation from Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest. It speaks directly to our work, “The Sin of Exclusion.” Copied below is the text that is included.

Those at the edge of any system and those excluded from any system ironic and invariably hold the secret for the conversion and wholeness of that very group. They always hold the feared, rejected, and denied parts the group’s soul. You see, therefore, why the church was meant to be that group that constantly went to the edges to the “least of the brothers and sisters,” and even to the enemy. Jesus was not just a theological genius, but he was also a psychological genius. When any church defines itself by exclusion of anybody, it is always wrong. It is avoiding the only vocation, which is to be the Christ. The only groups that Jesus seriously critiques are those who include themselves and exclude others from the always-given grace of God.

Only as the People of God receive the stranger, the sinner, and the immigrant, those who don’t play our game our way, do we discover not only the hidden, feared, and hated parts of our own souls, but the fullness of Jesus himself. We need them for our own conversion.

The Church is always converted when the outcasts are re-invited back in the temple. You see this in Jesus’ commonly sending marginalized people that He has healed back into the village, back to their family, or back to the temple to “sho themselves to the priests.” It is not just for their re-inclusion and acceptance, but actually for the group itself to be renewed.

“If you’d like to subscribe to Richard Rohr’s daily medications, you can use this link:

https://cac.ord/sign-up. Please not that Outside Church Walls is not affiliated with Richard Rohr or the Center for Action and Contemplation.”

Again I end: “No Outcasts”

Chuck