To The Unoffendable Church

"If you can be offended you will be offended." The very phrase urks you doesn't it? I know it does me. It's a phrase of my Fathers and I have, in full disclosure, put it in the same bucket as "Happy Up" (his too) which, honesty, is a phrase that makes me far angrier than it does exude any form of happiness. Thus for a good portion of 20 some odd years I have tried to repress both. Which makes me think, realize and confess that if it strikes a chord in me maybe its because its touching a place of irritation in my own heart. It pushes my buttons. If something that you say or do has the power, even the authority, in my life to 'push my buttons' what made it a soft spots in the first place? What in my life made a button that can be pushed and prodded and send me over the edge falling head first into pain and woundedness - Offense? I by no means want to belittle the hurts and very real wounds of your past, so don't hear that in what I say. I merely want to unearth them, yours and mine. I see your hurts, I see your wounds,  and I know my own. It's what makes us the same, not different. But beyond that it does not make up who we are. YOUR OFFENSES DON'T MAKE UP WHO YOU ARE. YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE.

I look around me on this day, and in this age and I see a hurting people, my friends and total strangers, my family and even enemies. Whether it be in the Country, in the workplace, in the land, the politics or the church there is a hurting people before us. In the seat beside us and in the mirror. THE PEOPLE ARE HURTING. And we have been here before, and frankly we will be here again. We look to blame, to comfort or to change. We look outward and we look inward. We seek an answer, looking at the past, hoping for a future. Here and now we live and we do so in Passionate Fear, Powerful in our Powerlessness. We are looking to change our world and yet are uncertain of where to begin, or how to begin, or who should begin. We aren't really sure if we should be building a wall or tearing one down. It leaves us at a line, uncertain if we stand at the start or the finish, first or last. For the record, I think you are a WORLD CHANGER, capable of great feats and all things. I think you, yes you, stand on the precipice of change, of equality and peace and all that you have ever hoped for. I think you were born for this time and this place and this reason. You are the answer the world is looking for. And I say this too in the mirror, the one that reflects back at me in your eyes.

This week, I've thought a lot about discipline and family, and well the church. Now, when it comes to parenting, there are some for and some against, for a plethora of solid reasons. With that in mind, I'll explain how my parents disciplined and why it puts me in the for category. (If you were in church on Sunday in our tiny corner of Bellingham, you heard this spiel once already, and thus why it has been on my mind). My parents viewed discipline as a three part process that I will boil down to one. Discipline is being broken not to correction and not just to repentance, though thats part, but in the end, really, being broken to love. It means protecting our humanity more than protecting our need to be right. It's humbling and it can hurt and the world needs a lot more of it. I need a lot more of it. I think of a small child reaching for fire and the panic that goes through a parent in that moment, and the need to express to that child the dangers in playing with fire without letting them get burned. Teaching a child, NO. We have all been told, no or can't a time or two, whether right or wrong, and it's left an impression, a scar maybe, even created a button. We often view discipline through the eyes of, let's call them, the victims. But what of the discipliner? I probably wouldn't have thought of this as a child, but as an adult looking at how my parents disciplined, I see that it hurt them far more than it ever hurt me. You see they never disciplined out of anger, not even out of the need to be right, they disciplined when it was needed to preserve my humanness, they corrected in love. They broke themselves, their hearts, their pride, for love of ME. I knew they loved me, and not once, even when being corrected did I doubt that love. They told me, they showed me, they cared and I get that not everyone had that, but abuse is a different talk for a different blog. So know when I speak of discipline, I speak of being broken in love, both discipliner and disciplined. And that's what I want to talk about, the discipline being broken in love of the church GOD. I am not of the camp, that the Lord gives and takes away, but I do believe that in His goodness, He corrects. And I know from experience that correction can feel like being hurt, being offended. But what if I were unoffendable? What if I knew without a shadow of doubt that all that HE does is done in love and for my good? Could I be offended then? Am I possibly offendable because I don't know that? Because I don't see love or God or good in those around me? Do I even look for it? Or do I look to be hurt? Notice the internal dialogue here, these are questions I can only ask of myself, and I am choosing to do so here. I admit I have been greatly offended, by ones I have loved, by the very GOD I love, and yes by the Church.

Do you remember the game as a kid, where you fold your hands, first fingers down then fingers up always sticking out your pointer fingers and say something along the lines, "here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors and where are all the people?" Well if I uncover the steeple and what's inside? It's me, I am the people, I am the Church. SO CHURCH RISE UP. ME, RISE UP. BE THE UNOFFENDABLE CHURCH. I want that more in my life, to See Christ in those around me, to see Christ in you and in me - the Church. And in that place to be unoffendable because I see God in Us - and may that be the hope of the world. I've heard and said a lot this year about coming to the table. Well here is the table, and it's a table of choosing not of being chosen. I sit with my friend and my foe and I'm choosing to stay at the table. To look disagreement in the eyes and stay even when it's not easy. Maybe tolerance looks nothing like tearing down a wall, but rather like staying at a table. Slap my cheek and I will give you the other. Easier said then done, I understand. This isn't a condemnation of what you've done, or where you've been, or where you choose to stand - left or right, his or hers or theirs. It's an invitation to the table. I am not the family you were born with, you have to choose to sit here and stay here and BE THE CHURCH you want to see. When hurt rises, the easiest thing in the world would be to stand and walk away, but I'm staying at the table and I am asking you to stay here with me. Look inside yourself and see the Church, see your place at the table and that you were created to change this world by being in it. I was created to love you, of this i'm certain, and we will agree and we will disagree. But I am committed to the table, to this life with you - the church. Thank you for being who you are, and who you have been and who you will be to me - you the unoffendable church.