Defining ourselves and Excluding others

I often find myself walking around the edges of groups rather than feeling I belong. I sometimes wonder whether that is arrogance - I am so committed to my individuality that I can't submit to being properly part of anything? Sometimes I think it is my rootlessness, because I have lived in lots of places I have no idea how to answer the question 'where do you come from?' Perhaps is it part of the age we live in, where certainty and belonging have evaporated...

When I felt called to being a priest I mused about this 'being on the edge' thing with my spiritual director and she replied that a priest is not the one in the middle, but the one that walks round the border, encouraging people in. The ones that are 'in' are generally supporting each other and don't need the priest. It seemed right at the time, now I feel that perhaps 'church' is evolving.. emerging, perhaps, and I don't think any of us know what the church looks like any more.

I sometimes suffer from envy towards those priests who seem to be all sparkly and certain and in the middle of things. I see myself as rather shabby and edgy. In all of this, though, I see Christ as the model I wish to follow, to base my life on. The objective truths of Christ matter less to me - what does it mean when we say he was divine, was the resurrection physical, were his actual words recorded....? What I love about Christ are the beautiful, transforming spiritual truths that seem to transform me too, when I let them..

Interesting that Christ too was edgy, he was rejected from the system, he didn't seem to conform. Richard Rohr says:

"Those at the edge of any system and those excluded from any system, ironically and invariably hold the secret for the conversion and wholeness of that very group. They always hold the feared, rejected, and denied parts of the group’s soul."

Of course we all understand this, when we no longer conform to the values of a group we find ourselves increasingly sidelined. What does that mean for churches? We have creeds that define our faith, what if someone doesn't believe in those creeds? Different groupings in the church embarrass each other. I'm embarrassed by Christians who campaign against gay inclusion in society and the church. I am sure I embarrass them, and lots of others! Richard Rohr continues:

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.

He says that Jesus sent the healed and the outcast back into the community from which they came, not only for the good of the person, but for the good of the community. It challenges me, for as much as I say I wish to include everyone, I am afraid of those who are anti-women and anti-gay. Does that make me homophobicphobic? What if my fears exclude others, other human beings.. other brothers and sisters in Christ? As much as I hold the secret to the wholeness of groups that exclude me, individuals that I exclude hold the secret to my wholeness and my conversion. I need to engage as fully as possible with them for my own sake and for the benefit of the church, uncomfortable as that might be.

It goes back to that poem:

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

Photo by malias