Inclusion

Inclusion

Philippians 2:1-4

One of my favorite jobs that I had was at a camp in Wisconsin.  I worked there for two summers, first as a counselor and then, the second season, as the program director for the camp.  The camp was owned by a Lutheran church in Milwaukee.  The camp focused on bringing inner city kids—often gang members—out away from the city.  The hope was to just give them a chance to be kids for a little while.  

I don’t think that I ever had more fun doing anything. The setting was beautiful.  The other staff members were really talented and committed to the work.  The campers, themselves, were from a world that I couldn’t even imagine but when they came, they were so ready to play.  Through a lot of people’s hard work, this world was created that was all about making the most of the day and creating as many amazing memories as possible in the process.

My favorite memory of the camp was a tradition that was called, “The Great Orange Event.”  At face value, the challenge for each team was to transport and orange from one end of the camp to another.  However, the real purpose of this event was to create a relay race that gave every camper a chance to shine.  So, you would take notes from the moment the campers arrived on each camper’s skills.  There was that one kid who was clearly “head and shoulders” above all the other kids when it came to running.  This meant that he or she was going to need to be challenged to do something other than run because they always shined at that.  Maybe you notice that their good at trivia, too.  So, that week’s event is going to have a station in the race where trivia questions have to be answered in order to advance.  

There was also the kid who liked to run but wasn’t necessarily fast.  Who are the other kids who like to run but aren’t fast?  What if they raced each other?  Some parts of the relay were just silly:  blindfolded canoeing; eating an entire onion; you get the idea.  One week, we had two good chess players.  That week, one of the stations in the relay was running up to a chess board and finding check mate in two moves.

Just organizing and plotting out the “Great Orange Event” each week required paying close attention to each camper.  The build up for the race would happen all week, led, especially, by those who were returning campers and loved it.  These kids were excited and the laughter and the excitement would build as each challenged was introduced.  Whatever the challenge was, people would encourage the person taking on that challenge: “Dude, you’ve totally got this!” By race time, everyone was all in!

Here’s the thing about the Great Orange Event:  it was always neck and neck—every time.  Part of that was just really good planning, if I do say so myself. Part of it was just the cumulative effect of having so many different tasks going on.  The last event was always the blindfolded canoeing.  And, inevitably, those canoes would end up zigging and zagging back and forth across the lake while every camper in camp went bananas on the beach.

I wish you could have been there.  I wish I was there now.  More than seeing it happen, I wish I could feel how it felt again.  It felt so good to see a moment in life when everyone really felt like they were included, like they belonged, like they had contributed.  And, mind you, these were kids for whom that feeling was not a regular part of their lives.  I remember as we were all basking in the afterglow of one particularly “Great Orange Event,” one of the girls offered to braid my hair in cornrows. (Yes, I did have some hair then!). It was one of those brief moments when life just felt like it was the way it was supposed to be.  There was room enough for everyone and everyone was glad.

If you say, “inclusion” to me, that’s what I think about—everyone was included.  It was so many moments on work sites when a work group just “clicked.”  It was at the dance at Wonderland Camp when the campers—wheelchairs and all—were dancing with our kids and even Dr. Bob Sorensen and the right Reverend Tracy Hindman would hit the dance floor for “Y.M.C.A.” It’s all sorts of memorable moments here—large and small—where the time expanded and deepened, and every person experiencing it felt connected to everyone else who was there.  (Just remember being in the sanctuary on Christmas Eve, raising our candles high as we sang, “Silent Night.”)

It’s shocking to me that we are living in a time in which the mere mention of “inclusion” is taboo.  It’s enough to get people fired.  It’s enough to get funding cut off.  The only thing that may be more taboo than the word “inclusion” is it’s counterpoint—the word “exclusion.” References to experiences of exclusion are being purged from history books and websites and libraries.  Seemingly, the implication is that if we don’t remember it or talk about it then maybe we can just put it all behind us, right?

Despite such efforts, exclusion is real.  I remember when I was a boy.  My family hosted a young man who came out from Chicago for a week.  He happened to be black.  Dubuque, Iowa happened to be about as white as a town could be.  (In my recollection, we had one black family and two Jewish families.)  This boy’s name was Rufus.  He and I pretty much hit it off.

The truth is that I had grown up early on in Saint Louis.  My parents had made sure that I knew people who came from all sorts of backgrounds.  We also spent a fair amount of time around protests.  So, Rufus was not my first black friend. 

What I was totally unprepared for was the community’s reaction.  Rufus and I went to the community pool.  We did what everyone did—threw our stuff in a locker, ignored the sign that urged us to shower before we went in the pool, walked too fast across the deck, and jumped in.  It felt great!  Rufus thought the pool was amazing.  In a minute, though, I started noticing that the pool was clearing out around us.  People didn’t want to be near us.  Some of those people were really good friends.  Then, someone asked me in a painfully loud voice, “Why did you bring that “n-word”here?

I felt so ashamed and so uncomfortable.  I don’t think that I ever felt the same way about that pool or those friends or even my hometown.  How could people hate like that?  It had nothing to do with Rufus.  The message was simply that black people don’t belong here.  Rufus was actually unfazed by the whole thing which is sad in its own right.  What I never imagined was what he expected and had experienced a thousand times.  He just wanted to enjoy the pool.  I just wanted to get as far away as possible.

Those kids were racist and their racism was systemic.  They had been carefully taught to hate.  I truly believe that they had no sense that what they were doing was wrong because people who loved them had taught them to do this.  I wonder, as he grew up, how many times did Rufus get followed around a store like a suspect?  How many times did power locks on car doors click down when he crossed in a crosswalk?  How many times did some “hero” choose some random moment to try to put him in his place?

All any of us would have to do is talk to someone—anyone—who is not white and male and Christian and ask them about being excluded.  Ask your daughters about the men who have mistreated them.  Ask your Jewish friend about the self-righteous Christian who judged them.  Ask the people of color you know—any color—about the price that they’ve paid in their lives for looking “different.”  I know right now it’s a popular thing for white, Christian men to talk about being victims of reverse prejudice.  As a white, Christian man, I can tell you that I have no idea what they are talking about—none.

So, whether we want to talk about the joy of inclusion or the shame and horror and reality of exclusion, there is plenty to talk about, especially when people are telling us that we shouldn’t talk about such things at all.  Not unlike an argument that I made last week about neglected children, I am so sad when I think about all the people—women, minorities, people of other religions—who, because they have been excluded, have never had the opportunity to contribute what they might have contributed. That is our loss as a society.  It is our shame that we allowed that to happen.

So, the ways that people have been excluded have cost us and cost them.  People didn’t get to contribute what they might have contributed.  People didn’t get to succeed who should have had the chance to succeed.  Just as horrifyingly, though, is that those people have often been excluded in Christ’s name.  Women have had to fight to be leaders in the church, much less pastors.  The church has been used to enforce slavery and racism and just about every other “ism” imaginable.  Now, God-fearing people are telling us that the “enemy” is diversity and equity and inclusion.

As I heard a black pastor preach the other day, the truth is that Jesus Christ was the “founder” of D.E.I.  When asked what was most important, he answered that we should love God and love our neighbor.  When asked who our neighbor was, his answer was basically, “Everyone!” He was all about inclusion.  He was also all about challenging exclusion in all of its forms.

The earliest church was the same way.  There were men and women, slaves and free people, Greeks and Jews—people who never would have associated with one another under any other circumstances.  They moved in together.  They shared everything with one another.  Women were as likely to be leaders as men.  And the bar was set where what people wanted to do was help each other.  Sadly, all of this changed when the church became an official part of the Roman Empire and the question was no longer, “How will we survive, but rather, “Who’s in and who’s out?”

Our text puts the matter so simply.  Basically, if any of this stuff about Christ and the Spirt, about caring and compassion, has meant anything to you, let that shape you.  Let it turn you into the kind of friend that you’d want to have, the kind of person who is looking to get along, the kind of person who shows up to love one another.  Stop trying to get ahead.  Stop asking, “What’s in it for me?”  Forget about yourself long enough to get lost in caring about someone else.

If someone challenges you about diversity and equity and inclusion, let them know, “Wow, that’s actually the core of what I stand for.”  When they ask who taught you that, look them in the eye and tell them, “Jesus of Nazareth, along with a host of other caring people.”  And when they tell you that’s not what Jesus taught them, just ask them to show you where exactly they saw Jesus teaching us to hate.