Tuesday 12 June 2007

Last Friday I noted that we were going to look at five points Walter Brueggemann suggests we need to consider as we look to the future of the church. Here is #2:

The church's place is in exile with other displaced persons, practicing the gathering that is the work of the gathering God. But that poses the urgent question: Who can be gathered? This most astonishing Isaiah 56 names two most objectionable classes of folk to be gathered in that ancient society:
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
"The Lord will surely separate me from his people";
and do not let the eunuch say,
"I am just a dry tree."
Foreigners and eunuchs! People most unlike "us"! My thesis is that the church's work is the gathering of the others, not the ones that belong obviously to our social tribe or class or race.

There appears to be no limits to that "gathering." Usually we gather our own. Usually we make sure that everyone in our family or our group is safe and on board before we take off to do our own thing. And yet, the gathering is to have no limits. We are invited to gather everyone home. That may mean that we are given the opportunity to turn any place into a home - a home that will be home to more people than I can imagine. Gathering takes in the scattered and the excluded and the ones who have been included forever.
In our church building, we have a "gathering" space. I still call it the narthex. During our last building project, this kind of space was probably the item highest on the list of things we needed to do with our building. A space to gather...to simply gather. That meant a place to meet and greet and a place to spend some time talking. To our amazement, it works quite well. Sometimes, it is difficult to bring people into worship because of all the "gathering" going on. But then again, what is often the case is that few people actually extend themselves out to the "others" who come to worship. That can mean visitors or even members who are not very outgoing. There are those who come in and are left in a corner or standing alone without being engaged as people who also belong to this place.
It is always a wonderful sight to see people who are not labeled as "greeters" take the lead to make sure that the stranger is made known among us. That gift of hospitality becomes such a community treasure because those who question their ability to be there are assured of their place within the community without qualification.

Connection: It doesn't take much time or energy to step out of our circle of self-concern and engage those who are not connected or seem to be outside of any other circle. Sometimes it is that important connection that takes place as we pass by one another along the way. From that moment, new moments to connect will present themselves to us.

When you gather in your people, O God, we don't often see the expansiveness of your reach. Rather, we only see how long our own arms are. Lift up our eyes so that we can see those outside of our reach and then we can move out of our reach to those you are already inviting into our gathering of saints. Amen.