Church

I know more people who don't go to church than who do. I'm gay, my job is bartending in a place frequented by punks, skinheads, hipsters, artists and musicians, I write a blog so liberal it makes my gay, punk, skinhead, hipster,artist and musician friends shake their heads in disbelief some times. Let's just say I'm not around a lot of church going type people, except of course when I am at church. Interestingly enough a lot of the people mentioned above would call themselves, if forced to come up with some sort of label, "Christian". The quotation marks aren't there because I don't believe them, they are there because most of these people would want to qualify their use of the word "Christian".

You see these people are aware of the Jesus Christ in the Bible. You know, the one who spent a lot of time with prostitutes and adulturers and tax collectors. The Jesus Christ who looked at everyone as being equal, the Jesus Christ who said it was harder for a rich man to enter the gates of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The Jesus Christ who told us not to judge and to cast the first stone only if we were free of sin. The Jesus Christ who said that salvation was available to everyone and who told us to love one another. They would use the word "Christian" and then want to explain that the Jesus Christ referred to in their use of the word "Christian" is the Jesus Christ mentioned in the Bible and referred to above. They would want to make very clear that they are not "Christian" in the sense of what they see in churches today.

To many, myself included, Christian churches have become places where people go to place blame as much if not more than places they go to help others. Churches have become places where they talk about how those "other" people are going to hell. Churches are places where you go to be around people who are, more or less, just like yourself. Churches are places that are run like businesses, where they almost worship at the alter of capitalism as much as they worship God. Why do churches need to spend so much money on having their own gyms and coffee shops and giant screens massive sound systems. They will say it is so they can bring more people to Christ, I think they just bring more people to the gym and the coffee shop. I bet they could bring more people to Christ by handing out blankets and sandwiches, by offering a shoulder to cry on to a stranger who needs nothing more desperately, by working to make sure the poor in this country have places to live and food to eat and can get health care and an education. Why is it that, decades after the Civil Rights movement, Sunday morning still marks the most racially segregated time in our country? Why are so many churches going out of their way to help people on the other side of the world and not sharing some of that help with hungry, homeless, and sick persons in their own towns and cities? Why do so many preachers spend so much time spreading hate when Jesus told us to love?

When Jesus came to Earth he found a church that was worried more about laws and tradition than it was people. He found a church wrapped up in money and politics. He found a church that was spending too much time telling people why they didn't belong instead of telling them that everyone belonged. What did Jesus do when he found his church in this state? He turned over the tables of the money changers, he accused the Pharisees of hypocrisy and pretentiousness, he worked to take his Church back from those who had turned it into... well, into what the church has become today.

Jesus wasn't alone in his desire to change the church, his disciples, the Pharisee Nicodemus, the people of Capernaum. Today those who hope that the church can reflect the Christ we see in the Bible aren't alone either. There are countless groups and congregations working within and outside of the mainstream denominations of the Christian church to make it that place for all, the place offering help to those who need it, not just to those we want to give it to, that place that exists to share the gift Christ gave us, love, with everyone and by everyone, we mean everyone. Take the time and look around your community for the churches that represent the Christ in the Bible instead of just assuming they don't exist because they aren't what you see on TV every week. Many of these churches may seem to be hidden away just because of their small size, but if we search them out, if we don't turn them away when they come to us, if we work to change the churches we already are a part of into these churches their numbers will swell and the light will overcome the darkness.

I know this to be true because of my church. The people at the church I attend span the rainbow of skin colors, we are from all economic classes, we are well educated and high school drop outs, we live in nice homes, run down public housing, and in shelters or on the streets. We are teetotalers and drug addicts. We are gay and straight. We are, in other words, the people Christ came to Earth to give his life for. We are intentionally diverse and we struggle with that sometimes, but we are always glad for the struggle and to be allowed to be part of it. It isn't always easy, but it is always worth it.

Think that was just a bunch of nice talk? Here's what our worship guide/ church bulletin looked like this morning. We aren't the only church like this, go out and find one for yourself.