No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service (Inclusion and Exclusion in the Church).

No shoes, no shirt, no service. We are used to seeing such signs on business doors, we are used to the idea that some people should be excluded from some places. When I joined Air Cadets I had to get my hair cut and agree to wear a uniform. The uniform was a sign of who was in and who was out. There was an expectation of uniformity among those who belonged. While one rarely sees a “no shoes, no shirt, no service” sign on a church door, do we have an expectation of uniformity among those who belong in the Christian Church?

We might have expectations of uniformity with regard to behaviour. For example, in days gone by everyone knew that Baptists don’t dance. We might have expectations of uniformity with regard to belief, with such beliefs being drawn up into a statement of faith. If you don’t act and believe just like we do, you don’t belong. But is that the way it should be?

Here is a Scripture that will help challenge our tendency toward uniformity and exclusion:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.
Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?”
When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Matthew 9:9-13 (NLT)

There are a few things for us to notice here.

Jesus welcomed all who were sinners but who showed up to meet him.

Jesus called a tax collector, Matthew, to become his disciple and then he hung out with and ate dinner with Matthew’s tax collecting friends. Tax collectors collected taxes from Jews for the Romans and were known to give in to the temptation to exploit the situation. They were therefore despised as sinners, as greedy people. In those times eating with someone was taken as a sign of showing acceptance of, and solidarity with them. The religious leaders were not impressed with the Jesus’ lackadaisical approach in considering with whom he was willing to associate:

For John didn’t spend his time eating and drinking, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’ But wisdom is shown to be right by its results.”

Matthew 11:18-19 (NLT)

Jesus welcomed all who thought differently but who showed up to meet him.

We can get caught up in the perceived sinfulness of the tax collectors as compared with the perceived righteousness of the Pharisees. But the difference goes beyond sinful versus righteous behaviour. The tax collectors thought differently than the Pharisees, they had a different perspective.

Pharisees saw Rome as the enemy and expected God to cast the Romans out of the land when he came to bring the Kingdom. Therefore Rome was not to be served in any way, including collecting taxes for them, In fact doing so would displease God and cause him not to act. Tax collectors, on the other hand, saw Rome as a fact of life, so why not make the best of it, and hope, as we all do today, that at least some of the taxes collected would benefit the people. They could point to the prophecy where Jeremiah told the Jewish exiles to settle in and pray for the peace of a far worse enemy from that day, Babylon (Jeremiah 29:7). So collecting taxes is what God would want us to do! That is a big difference in perspective.

When tax collectors and Pharisees were together, it was like Republicans and Democrats getting together in America today complete with a mixing of theology and politics, plus a desire to exclude one another. Pharisees and tax collectors would not welcome or eat with one another. Jesus welcomed and ate with tax collectors. Jesus also welcomed and ate with Pharisees.

Jesus invites us to his table.

We might get the impression that with Jesus anything goes. But that is not the case:

But what do you think about this? A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go,’ but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go,’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go.
“Which of the two obeyed his father?”
They replied, “The first.”
Then Jesus explained his meaning: “I tell you the truth, corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom of God before you do. For John the Baptist came and showed you the right way to live, but you didn’t believe him, while tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even when you saw this happening, you refused to believe him and repent of your sins.

Matthew 21:28-32 (NLT)

It is not anything goes, nor is it strict adherence to standards of uniformity. It is an invitation to life in the Kingdom of God. It is an invitation to take our place at the table with Jesus.

At Calvary our aim is not to make everyone look the same, think the same, and behave the same, but to help people walk with Jesus in faith, hope, and love. There’s a big difference between demanding uniformity to religious traditions and inviting people to walk with Jesus.

With a focus on inclusion and exclusion we are thinking about hospitality which is the next topic of our series “What Kind of Church.” In this series we have been considering the cultural statements of Open Table Communities and today’s is:

A Culture of Hospitality
We nurture a culture of openness to everyone, including those who are different from us. This is accomplished through opening up our lives and homes to others. We choose to live in the tensions that come with inclusion rather than the barriers created by exclusion.

Open Table Communities

Now is the Time to Push for Passion About God. But is it Time to Be Pushy? (Thinking Through Ezra and Ruth)

Great to be getting back to normal, right? We are back into the swing of things in our post-pandemic world! Except that we are not. Whether in society or in church, it feels like we are taking faltering steps back to normal. When the pandemic hit, everything changed as if someone flicked a switch. As one of our leaders has said, it now feels like someone is playing with a dimmer.

We are living though an experience that God’s people of the Old Testament times could relate to. When the exiles returned to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon they must have been glad to get back to normal. Except that it was anything but getting back to normal. Everything was in ruins including the temple and the very important city walls. In returning, God’s people were not stepping back into normal, they were stepping into a new normal, a new not-as-good normal.

A time for greater excitement.

Enter Ezra who prays a prayer that challenged the people of his day, and is a challenge for us in ours. Let’s break it down into two parts:

I prayed,
“O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors until now, we have been steeped in sin. That is why we and our kings and our priests have been at the mercy of the pagan kings of the land. We have been killed, captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today.

Ezra 9:6-7 (NLT)

Here Ezra recognised that they were in a mess because they were messy people who had created a mess. They had lacked enthusiasm for God, breaking their covenant with God, and hence they experienced exile and the reality of a city and people in ruins. Confession is the moment we reorient our perspective around God’s perspective. Ezra did that and called for that.

Perhaps it is time we did that too?

Ezra’s prayer continues:

But now we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the LORD our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant. He has given us security in this holy place. Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery. For we were slaves, but in his unfailing love our God did not abandon us in our slavery. Instead, he caused the kings of Persia to treat us favorably. He revived us so we could rebuild the Temple of our God and repair its ruins. He has given us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

Ezra 9:8-9 (NLT)

Here Ezra recognised that God is indeed good, and that God has granted the opportunity to build toward a better future. Yes, technically the Persians were in charge, so things were less than ideal, yet ultimately, God was in charge, so this was a time of opportunity, a time to reach for a better ideal.

It may feel to us today like a pandemic is in charge and everything is still in a mess, but ultimately God is in charge, there are great opportunities for a better future.

While we have only looked at a portion of Ezra’s prayer, we could summarise it this way: it was time to get excited about God. Today we can say, it is time to get excited about God! These strange days are an opportunity to stop seeking the same old, and instead to reorient our lives around God.

So how do we express that greater excitement?  

If we were to read all of Ezra’s prayer, and indeed the rest of the book known by his name, we would see how that excitement ended up being expressed. Here is one part to give us a taste:

While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly. Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.”

Ezra 10:1-4 (NIV emphasis added)

In case you missed it, Shekaniah was proposing that the best way to express excitement about God, was by doubling down on the purity of the people, and the best way to do that was by sending all the foreign wives away along with any children borne by them. Ezra agreed and indeed this is what happened.

Imagine that you were there as a man who had a foreign wife, say a Moabite, and you have been commanded to divorce her and send her and the children you had together away. How does that strike you? Might you be wondering if this is really how excitement for God is to be demonstrated? While only four, at least four men expressed their doubts. Can I confess that had I been there, I would have been a fifth?

Back to placing ourselves in the story: As you walk home you hear someone reading the book of Ruth. You hear about how Ruth, a Moabite woman, had married a Hebrew man living in Moab. Her mother-in-law, Naomi, having lost her husband and two sons, including Ruth’s husband, decided to go back to Israel. She encouraged her two daughter-in-laws to stay behind in Moab. Ruth refused to stay and instead said,

Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Ruth 1:16 (NIV)

Naomi and Ruth returned to Israel. Eventually Ruth met Boaz who was her potential “kinsman-redeemer.” While we might imagine that this is a romantic love story, the focus of the book of Ruth is not the romance, but the fact that Boaz, in marrying Ruth, does in fact become her “redeemer,” with the consequence that Ruth becomes fully welcomed as a member of God’s people, Israel. The story ends by revealing the identity of Ruth’s great-grandchild, David. Yes, that David! The great king from Israel’s glory days.

So you begin to wonder, am I being asked to send my Moabite wife and our children away, yet there is Moabite blood in David, and therefore in all the kings of Judah?!

So, you think, how about instead of racing toward divorce and exclusion, the foreign wives are given the opportunity to say as Ruth did, “Your people will be my people and your God my God”? Could they not be given the opportunity to learn about God’s covenant and covenant people, to choose be included in that people? Instead it seems they were simply herded up and shipped off.

Many Bible scholars believe that though the story of Ruth was set in the days of the judges, the book of Ruth itself was committed to writing at the return from exile to challenge the powers that be. In a push for purity, people were pushed aside. The book of Ruth pushed back on this. In the book of Ruth God’s people were not defined by national purity, but by covenant love. Would not a nurture in covenant love, something Ruth expressed for Naomi, and Boaz expressed for Ruth, have been the better way?

So how does this help us express our excitement for God in our day? 

When we read only Ezra we may think there is a clear cut instruction to always push for purity no matter what the consequences may be in the lives of others. Many people bear scars, not from following Jesus, but from attending and participating in churches. We do well to remember that the book of Ezra relates history to us, and just because someone does something and it gets recorded in the Bible, that does not make it the best thing to do, the “Biblical” thing to do.

When we read Ezra and Ruth together, we realise they do not give us a clear cut “this is the way you express excitement for God, walk ye in it” kind of instruction. Rather, they cause us to reflect on what it should and should not look like to express our excitement for God. The Bible pushes us to seek wisdom and discernment. The Bible calls us to lay aside simplistic answers, to experience depth.

The foreign wives in Ezra’s day were not even given a chance. There is no record of an invitation. How many are never really given a chance in our day? Are people in our society really hearing an invitation to know the love of Jesus? Or are they only hearing us push for purity? Have we become so focused on the purity of the church, of building and rebuilding walls, of defining who’s in and who’s out, of shouting each other down, that any invitation is drowned out, that the one invited already feels pushed away anyway?

The fact that Ruth was a foreigner did not disqualify her from the possibility that Boaz could be her kinsman-redeemer and that she could become part of the people of God and an ancestor of Jesus. There is nothing about the people beyond the walls we have erected in the name of purity that disqualifies them from the possibility that Jesus can be their redeemer. Do they know that? Do we know that?

Yes, Ruth said to Naomi “your people will be my people and your God my God.” I suspect that Ruth saw something beautiful about the people and God she was committing to based on her experience of Naomi’s family. I don’t think the foreign wives of Ezra’s day saw much that was beautiful when they were herded up and shipped off. Are we expressing excitement for God as beautiful people in beautiful ways? Or is it getting ugly?

There is a tension here between Ezra and Ruth that is hard to resolve. Perhaps we should avoid easy answers, but learn instead to lean into the tension, learning to seek wisdom and the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

In conclusion.

As we head into a new normal, let’s not get back to how things were, but rather move forward into a better future, where there is greater excitement about God, where there is an honest search for wisdom, discernment, and Holy Spirit guidance on how our excitement for God is best expressed.