This morning’s Sunday school was pretty awesome on a lot of different levels. The lesson was titled “Try to Fit Everyone in a Hoop” and it kicked off with Matthew. Matthew was clearly disliked because Matthew was a tax collector. But despite this, Jesus was a good friend to Matthew. Jesus welcomed and included people who were unwelcome with others.
If you haven’t picked up on this yet, this lesson is about inclusion. Which is quite interesting, because my wife would categorize me as an exclusionist Christian. I once had a performance review where my boss said I excluded low performers. And I affirmed that observation. As a professional, I exclude low performers. And I invest in high performers. Is that wrong? Secondly, was Jesus any different? Although you may feel like the Sunday school lesson is going to be another Human Resource presentation on diversity, I woke up to something really important. Let’s play a game.
In today’s lesson, we had about 20 children. About 5 were girls, and 15 were boys. I had a single hula h
As soon as I announced this, the class feverish rushed to the hula hoop. There was pushing and shoving. People were falling over themselves to get inside the hula hoop, which couldn’t correspond any more strongly to the lifeboat scenario I wrote about last week. People got angry, and then there was a realization that the entire class was not able to fit inside the hula hoop. After this realization, I asked the class, “Maybe just the boys should be in the hula loop, and the girls can do something else.” The boys loved this, and about 5 girls rolled their eyes at me (including my wife). And the irony is that the girls allowed themselves to be removed to the hula hoop. The boys pushed themselves into the hula hoop
Which is the first realization. Throughout life, we walk through circles upon circles of friends. And you’ll find circles of Christian friends who think they are heaven bound. This doesn’t mean they actually are heaven bound, or that you’re not. But I found it ironic that a group of boys stood triumphantly comfortable that they were heaven bound. And the girls left the confrontation. Which makes me wonder how many of us are heaven bound but we’ve walked away from the Christian dialog because it’s so heavily dominated by the self-righteous.
At this point, my wife interceded and said we couldn’t segregate based upon sex. Fine. So the class rushes back into the hula hoop. The children form some kind of jelly-fish looking ring where they interlock arms in an outward leaning circle, but it doesn’t hold. They have about 1 or 2 people too many. If this isn’t a more wonderful version of the lifeboat, I don’t know what is. I was going to assign them jobs and let them decide who was the least worthy. And right at that moment, a girl Madison lays down with her feet in the hula hoop. She’s tired of this stupid game. And some of the other students yell, “You can’t do that. It doesn’t count.” Which brings me to my second realization.
Throughout life, for some reason or another, people start telling you what you can and can’t do to inherit the kingdom of God. And the weird thing is that I never gave them any directions. Someone decided that “feet only” doesn’t count. And then the class started attacking Madison for laying down. When I announced that Madison’s feet only approach is perfectly fine, a peace settled over the class. They began laying down 1 by 1 with their feet inside the hula hoop. There was no more pushing, shoving, yelling, or harassing. There was a single recognition that this is all we needed to do.
In life, we operate with the lifeboat mentality. Heaven is thought of as a scarce resource, which makes no sense when you consider that God created existence as we know it. And in that mindset, we form circles of friends. And in our circles, we exclude others. And sometimes we become too comfortable thinking we are heaven bound – I’m far too guilty of this having circles upon circles of Christian friends. We make up rules. We ignore other rules. We tell others that they aren’t worthy due to odd things such as sexual orientation, past sins, or political perspectives. And lastly, there is a sense of surrender. Madison laid down because God is bigger than a bunch of children fighting to be inside a hula hoop.
My Dad has a wonderful sermon that touches upon Mark 2:17.
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:17 (NIV)
For some reason, that verse makes me emotional. Because I don’t identify as righteous. I identify as a sinner. And throughout my entire life, I’ve struggled with sin.
Jesus, the son of God, spent his time with the sick. He did not spend time with the religiously righteous, the powerful politicians, or people of great wealth. He spent time with the sick, who needed him.