All Are Welcome But…

Four words from a six year old.

It was not what she said, or even that she said it.

It was how the adults responded when she did.

If one didn’t know better, it would have appeared as if the response had been choreographed and practiced.

An initial, collective smile at how cute was the moment, that slowly dissipated as a sad, collective realization emerged.

Being a new church, we were meeting in a middle school auditorium, and so each Sunday was an all-hands-on-deck effort to set-up the chairs, instruments, welcome tables, and all the other various sacramental accouterments necessary for a small, growing congregation. And, as is the case for such new churches, when the final prayer is said and the charge to “Go in peace” given, the packing up of the church for a week of storage begins in earnest.

On this particular Sunday, we had celebrated communion, so there were some additional items that needed attention. In the midst of this slightly chaotic buzz of activity, the sound volunteer had forgotten to turn off the PA system and thus, a convergence occurred that provided opportunity.

As the adults were swarming about the gym in frenzied activity, a child’s voice rose above the din, offering the invitation to communion that we as a faith community had just celebrated.

“This is God’s table,” the child innocently invoked, and we all smiled satisfactorily at one another, acknowledging the cuteness of the moment in the midst of the din.

Then it happened!

“This is God’s table and…,” a slight pause as she thought through the next lines of the liturgy.

“All are welcome but…,” and another, this time longer pause ensued.

Four words from a six year old.

Four words now hung in the air and the buzz of the auditorium notably quieted, as if inviting the young girl to finish the sentence and answer the question.

All are welcome, but who?

Who is not welcome?

Then, just as quickly as the seemingly choreographed pause occurred, so did the collective realization that this question should not be asked and even if it is, we shouldn’t obviously care so much about the answer!

Four words from a six year old that carried the incisiveness of innocence, laying bare the sad truth that our spiritual immaturity was a veneer, nothing more than a thin, decorative overlay to hide the course, unfinished reality underneath.

Mercifully, the young girl became distracted, set down the microphone, and ran off to her next adventure, not realizing the awkward, but painfully real moment left behind in her wake.

Then, in sporadic fits and starts, the buzz began to return, but never did reach the frenzied level it had attained earlier.

Over the course of my tenure as a Bible teacher at a small college in Canada, I had the privilege of becoming friends with a young Rabbi of the local synagogue. Eli and I met at a city gathering of faith-based leaders and, being around the same age, relatively new to our respective positions, and both of us with a penchant for sarcasm — let’s just say the friendship was inevitable.

As our friendship grew we’d regularly meet for lunch to catch-up on life and wrestle through the questions and issues of the day. If someone Eli knew happened to stop by our table, he would introduce me as his “Christian friend who doesn’t realize he’s Jewish.” In turn I’d introduce Eli as my fraternal twin brother and Rabbi (I just liked messing with the heads of my evangelical friends).

In truth, I benefited greatly from Eli’s deep faith, love of God, and keen insight into the human condition. Even more, Eli helped me better understand scripture, often commenting on a new testament passage that I was studying, teaching about, or preaching on. Those were my favorite moments because Eli would listen to me muse, then teasingly ask “Do you want to hear how a Jew would understand that passage?” Then he’d shrug, smile, and add, “I mean, if they felt it was worth understanding?”

I can’t even remember the exact passage on which I was reflecting the day when Eli broke from our playful interfaith liturgy and, with a hint of uncharacteristic exasperation, asked “Why are you Christians so obsessed with whose in and whose out? It makes me wonder how certain you are of the certainty of your faith.”

I was a little taken aback by the passion behind the question, and so, since I gave no immediate response, we simply stared at one another for an awkward moment — letting the silence hang between us.

“I’m sorry,” Eli continued, “But we say we have the freedom to ask one another anything and I’m asking. Why are you Christian evangelicals, so obsessed with figuring out who is in and out of heaven?”

I remained quiet, sensing the significance of the moment and that Eli had more that needed to be said.

“I mean, it really isn’t your job to figure it out, is it?” he asked. “In fact, it feels to me that it is more about being insecure; that if you can reassure yourself that someone is going to hell, then you can feel better about your chances of going to heaven.”

The earnestness of the question hung in the air between us along with the uncomfortable stirring of my gut that was telling me that my friend was on to something — something simultaneously uncomfortable and true.

“I’m sorry.” Eli sheepishly offered, then went on to give a simple, but profound explanation for his passionate question and insight.

“What concerns me, Todd,” Eli continued with pained gentleness, “Is that if people are deemed ‘out’ by another person, or group of people, the manner in which those ‘out’ people are thought of and treated — well, it hasn’t gone well for us historically when that happens.”

It was then, in the raw safety of this friendship, that the reality of an historical Christian heritage in which I did not personally participate, but which I now shoulder and embody, came painfully into clear focus for me. Shockingly, I’m embarrassed to confess that I also impulsively felt myself wanting to deflect the conversation with a “but-what-about” or “slippery-slope” example. I had the urge to “god-splain” to Eli how his perception was wrong, or simply and emphatically deny it, but I couldn’t. When truth is so glaringly present, any such efforts only serve to reveal more the naked, unvarnished truth.

The truth is this: somewhere along the line, we the Church have become more concerned with keeping “wrong people” out versus becoming better, more Jesus-like people ourselves; more concerned with nursing and protecting a debilitating belief that somehow God ordains this exclusion even while upholding a theology that declares God so loved the world — the whole world — in such a way that it required a sacrifice so unimaginable to make it right, that its accomplishment could only be achieved by divinity itself.

I don’t know about you, but it’s time to stop denying that we are sick and admit that, in the throws of this denial, we have become destructive in our betrayal of the faith in Jesus we profess to so treasure.

It must stop!

For the sake of our faith and humanity, it has to stop!

*This is the second of what will eventually be three related posts the next 6-8 weeks.

The first post was on February 28, 2021 entitled “The Fourth Group”