The Cost of Inclusiveness
SCRIPTURE TEXT: Luke 4:21-30
Rev. Monte Marshall
There’s a cost to inclusiveness. When the lines are drawn, the boundaries set, the walls built that define and separate insiders from outsiders, and the included from the excluded, there’s a cost to be paid by those who erase the lines, break the boundaries, and tear down the walls.
When we move from exclusiveness to inclusiveness, there’s a price to be paid because change is required. The words of author and artist, Jan Richardson, were written about love, but they also apply to inclusiveness. Inclusiveness “is always risky, because we cannot enter into it without being changed. Altered. Transformed.” Inclusiveness enlarges the heart “as we make room for people and stories and experiences we never imagined holding.” Inclusiveness also deepens the heart “as we move beyond the surface layers of our assumptions, prejudices, and habits in order to truly see and receive what—and who—is before us.”1
Jack Pearpoint and Marsha Forest have also written about inclusiveness and change. “It has been instructive,” they write, “to be a participant in hundreds of emotional meetings about ‘inclusion’, when it is crystal clear after a few minutes that inclusion is only nominally the topic. The real topic (seldom stated) is Fear of Change...I am Afraid! This is the key phrase underneath most of kvetching and whining.”2
In this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus experiences the cost of inclusiveness. At the beginning of Luke’s story, Jesus is in his hometown of Nazareth, attending a synagogue service on the Sabbath. Jesus has already been teaching in synagogues in the region of Galilee and with impressive results. The word about him has spread and Luke says that everyone “praised him.”
In his hometown synagogue, Jesus stands up to read the scripture lesson. He’s given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and he begins to read a modified version of an Isaiah text:
“God’s Spirit is on me;
the Holy One has chosen me
to preach the Message of good news to the poor,
sent me to announce pardon to prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set the burdened and battered free
to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’”
When Jesus sits down to teach, the people can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Their eyes are fixed on him. His sermon is short and to the point: “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.”
Well, the people love it! Everyone is amazed at his gracious words. They all speak well of him. “Isn’t this Joseph’s boy?” they say.
But there’s a problem. The Nazareth congregants view themselves as privileged insiders. They’re God’s chosen people and they’re hometown folks who expect special favors from the hometown boy. As one commentator notes, “In terms of middle-eastern mores of the first century, a person had an obligation first to [the] family, and then to [the] hometown.”3 Since Jesus is proclaiming that God’s year to act is now, the Nazareth crowd wants their piece of the action. As insiders, they have it coming to them.
But Jesus knows his audience. He knows what they’re thinking: He quotes a proverb: “Doctor, cure yourself”—and by extension your kinfolks, and your neighbors. The hometown insiders are thinking: “Do for us what you did in Capernaum. We’re your people! We’re your kind of people! We’re God’s people. You owe it to us!”
But Jesus—unlike most every other pastor I know, myself included—isn’t content with accolades and with meeting the social expectations of others, so he intentionally stirs up trouble. Jesus says to the congregation, “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” He proves his point by referencing two Bible stories that erase the lines, break the boundaries and tear down the walls. He tells them two Bible stories about inclusiveness that the folks in Nazareth don’t want to hear.
First of all, Jesus tells a story about the prophet Elijah. In a time of severe famine, God sent Elijah to help an outsider—a non-Jewish widow from Zarepthath in Sidon—and not the insiders—the widows of Israel.
Next, Jesus tells a story from the time of the prophet Elisha. Even though there were many lepers in Israel, it was Naaman—the Syrian commander—the non-Jewish outsider and an enemy—who was cleansed of leprosy.
With these two Bible stories, it’s clear: Jesus—God’s prophet—this one anointed by the Holy Spirit—is not going to be bound by “in-group loyalties.” His mission is about inclusiveness! Dr. Alyce McKenzie puts it this way: “Nobody else had the guts to tell them what Jesus told them and us: ‘You won’t be able to claim God’s blessings for your life unless you claim them for other people’s lives at the same time. ‘”4
But there’s a cost to inclusiveness. In Luke’s story, the folks in the synagogue at Nazareth have drawn lines, set boundaries, and built walls to separate themselves from outsiders—and they could surely cite scripture and verse to justify their perspective.
And they must have heard in the two Bible stories referenced by Jesus, a call to change because fear kicks-in and they’re enraged by his message. They’re so enraged that they run him out of town, and even try to kill him by hurling him off a cliff. But Jesus slips through their fingers only to face a cross a little farther down the line.
There’s a cost to inclusiveness. Luke’s story acknowledges it and in my 63 years of life, I’ve experienced it. I was born in 1952. When the Supreme Court of the United States took a stand for racial inclusiveness in 1954 by declaring that schools were to be racially integrated in America as a matter of constitutional right, mobs of hate-filled, change-resistant whites in Little Rock, Arkansas, vented their fear by hurling vile, racist epithets at African-American students attempting to attend a high school previously reserved for whites-only. Federalized National Guard troops were called in to protect these African-American children from harm.
So there is a cost to inclusiveness, but the price was paid by the prophets of racial inclusiveness. The price was paid as they faced insults, fire hoses, arrests, beatings, cross-burnings, shootings, lynchings, bombings, killings and more. The cost was high, but the price was paid and is still being paid.
On May 4, 1956, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the General Conference of The Methodist Church took a belated stand for inclusiveness by approving for the first time, full clergy rights for women. Maud Jensen was the first woman to be granted full clergy rights as a result of this decision.5
Bear in mind, however, that women had gained the right to vote in America in 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment to the constitution. Unfortunately, it seems that the church sometimes moves more slowly toward inclusiveness than the larger society.
But as it turned out, the General Conference’s action in 1956 did not put an end to clergy women having to pay a price for inclusiveness. A woman named Grace Huck was pursuing ordination in 1956 when the General Conference acted. After that ground breaking decision, she was accepted into probationary status as a step toward ordination. She was ordained an elder in 1958.
But people still reacted angrily, afraid of change. Grace Huck “recalls the resistance to her ministry by a male member of her church in one of her early appointments. She was quoted as saying that when the district superintendent told the congregation he was appointing a woman minister, one man shouted, ‘there will be no skirts in this pulpit while I’m alive’”6—and I suspect that this man could quote scripture and verse to justify his position.
Through the years, I’ve heard countless stories from my female colleagues among the clergy, of the various indignities they have had to endure, and in some cases, still endure, from those who would, if it was up to them, exclude them from ordained ministry. I, for one, can’t begin to imagine how painful it must be for a female pastor, when someone refuses to take communion from you simply because of your gender. There’s a cost to inclusiveness, but thank God, the cost has been paid and is still being paid.
Rev. Jimmy Creech was appointed the senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska, in July of 1996. In September, 1997, Rev Creech took a stand for inclusiveness when he celebrated a covenant ceremony for two women, Mary and Martha. Pastor Creech writes: “I had prayed God’s blessing upon Mary and Martha’s union on Sunday, and on Monday all hell broke loose within The United Methodist Church.”
A person who had formerly worshipped at First Church, sent this angry message born of fear: “How dare you place your own selfish, sinful, personal beliefs above the welfare of the church! This is not the act of a minister, but merely that of a troublemaker. The Devil can be real proud to have you in his camp. YOU need to resign immediately before the church is entirely split. YOU ARE ONE SICK SOUL! RESIGN! RESIGN! RESIGN! so that we can return to the fundamental teachings of Jesus and God.” I’m certain that this person could cite scripture and verse to justify his position.
Well, charges were brought against Pastor Creech for his role in blessing the covenant between Mary and Martha. He was charged with violating the Order and Discipline of The United Methodist Church, but was acquitted during a church trial.
Later, new charges were brought against Pastor Creech for presiding at the holy union of two men. In this case, the jury in the church trial found him guilty and withdrew his credentials of ordination. In other words, he was defrocked.7 So there’s a cost to inclusiveness, but thank God, the cost has been paid and is still being paid by so many, but most of all, by LGBTQ persons who still have to live day-in and day-out with the consequences of hateful exclusion.
Let me say it again: There’s a cost to inclusiveness. When the lines are drawn, the boundaries set, the walls built that define and separate insiders from outsiders, and the included from the excluded, there’s a cost to be paid by those who erase the lines, break the boundaries, and tear down the walls. There’s a price to be paid because change is required. Luke’s gospel acknowledges it, and in my 63 years of life, I’ve experienced it.
And Jesus paid the price for being a prophet for inclusiveness. So this is the question for you and me and the church: In this day and age with all of the fearful and angry talk about building walls, excluding strangers, and treating our neighbors as outsiders, what price are we willing to pay as the followers of Jesus to be prophets of inclusiveness? May God help us! Amen.