Exclusive-Inclusive

(Ruth 1:1-19a; Psalm 113; 2 Timothy 2:2-15; Luke 17:11-19)

Two themes of redemption, two ideas of the plan of salvation came out of the land of the Chaldeans with Abraham and his family. One was exclusive. One was inclusive. One emphasized the idea of being "chosen from". The other emphasized the idea of being "chosen for". And it is the exclusive, "chosen from" theme that has actually been the most dominant.

From this view Abraham is called out of his homeland because he could not follow God there. It was a land too filled with other gods. So he wandered. And after him, Isaac wandered. And after him, Jacob wandered because there was not yet a place where they could be alone in their exclusive worship of "their" God.

Joseph’s going to Egypt was never a settling down in Egypt. At first it was a refuge and then it evolved into a slavery. In this exclusive view any integration, any compromise, any necessary tolerance is seen as a kind of slavery..

Moses brought the people out again, and, purified in the wilderness of all foreign contamination, they entered the Promised Land with the mission to slay all who stood in their way – at least according to the Book of Joshua that carries on the exclusivist theme. The first use of the word holocaust refers to the required killing of all people in one Canaanite town and the destruction of all their property…the burning of it all.

The family of Abraham became a great nation – fulfilling the sense of the promise of this theme, although it was hard to stay that way what with exiles and conquests and dispersions and all. Exclusion reached its nationalistic height after the return from exile in Babylon when Ezra and Nehemiah had all foreign wives expelled from Israel to keep the country pure the prophetic expression of separate and unequal (religio-ethnic cleansing from another point of view.) When the nation could no longer violently enforce its will, exclusion was carried out by means of the law. Circumcision, the dietary laws, the Sabbath all put a circle, a hedge, around the chosen people.

And some in the early Christian church adopted this theme of exclusion (ecclesia means being "called from"). The Church in Jerusalem that fought against Paul’s mission and trailed around after him to set the wayward right. And in many ways the Church that developed after them remained exclusive – only with a broader boundary, a creedal boundary, an authoritarian boundary. Whether Orthodox or Roman Catholic, or Geneva Reform, puritanism of one sort or another has been a major theme in Christian religion. Chosen from, chosen out of, saved from the world, saved from hell. Not of those who are "left behind". They tell you what to think, they tell you how to live, they tell you how to vote.

There is, however, another way…another way of seeing things. There has been another theme, a subtext since the beginning. God said to Abraham "Go out from your country and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation; and I will bless you and make your name great."…"And"…"And … you will be a blessing…in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." Abraham here is not just chosen from, he is chosen for. The purpose of Abraham’s call is not to serve himself or even serve God, but to serve the whole world, to bring a blessing to everyone – to include, not to exclude.

The prophets may have sounded the exclusivist note when they feared assimilation, but they also insisted that inclusion of the chosen was not an elitist issue, it was a calling, a calling of love, a calling to all.

The writer of the Book of Ruth saw that. This story was not written at the time of Ruth and Naomi. It was written much later, in the time of Wisdom. This story is told as a direct assault on the exclusivist nationalist mentality found in Ezra and Nehemiah.

Where Ezra and Nehemiah called for the expulsion of foreign wives, the Book of Ruth reminds everyone that it was the foreign wife who was an ancestor of David, who showed the greatest faith and fealty of any woman in the tradition. "Where you go I will go, where you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God."

And it was this very mission of inclusion that was at the center of the ministry of Jesus. And it was this very mission of inclusion that the elitist exclusivist Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and Essenes found so threatening in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus broke the Sabbath law. He broke down the hedge of exclusivity. He associated with sinners and traitors and foreigners. "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." "A light to enlighten the nations," to bring that blessing of Abram to the world, to the whole world – whether they know it or not. Hidden within the creeds and crusades of Christian puritan exclusiveness is this Good News.

It is what moved Saint Paul and all other missionaries who, rather than imposing their way on others, found in the way of others an echo of this truth and pointed it out … called it out, baptized it, confirmed it, communed with it, and were transformed by it.

One of the reasons I am an Episcopalian is because of the openness of this church to diverse expressions of that which is essentially inexpressible. That’s has been part of our teaching since the days of Queen Elizabeth I. We don’t draw boundaries. We break through them. That’s why we moved ahead with women’s ordination. It’s why we’ve moved ahead with accepting gay clergy and gay relationships. We look for ways to include, not to exclude. I’ve been criticized for offering communion to those who aren’t baptized, (or at least those who I don’t know if they are baptized or not.) But I would much rather be judged for including someone I should have excluded than for excluding someone I should have included. We’re even willing to include those who would rather exclude – we tolerate the intolerant. That’s important. It keeps us humble. (They might be right.) And it models integrity. We shouldn’t just voice what everyone else is saying. We need to think about and really believe what we say. God can work out the differences.

And this is a spiritual issue as well as an historical one and a theological one These two themes aren’t just "back then", or "out there". They play out in our own minds, play out in our own hearts, play out in our own lives.

From the time we begin to make conscious decisions we develop a kind of "chosen" life, an outward pattern a personal style, habits and beliefs that give us our identity. But for every choice there’s a road not taken, a minority report that doesn’t go away, but gets hidden in a way, goes into a kind of inner sanctum. It’s the outward persona, the ego-self, the life of the will, morality, and responsibility that marks the "chosen from" life. But it is the other part, the rejected part, the hidden part, the foreign part, the inner part, that needs to be included if we are to fulfill our "chosen for" calling.

The attempt to banish from our lives, to separate from our identities all those parts we find unacceptable, leaves us presenting to God only those aspects of our lives and parts of our selves where God is not needed. "Our less presentable parts," St. Paul said, "we need to endow with greater honor." In and at our points of weakness is where we find our spiritual strength.

But that’s not the end of it. Conversion’s not the end of it. Healings is not the end of it. Transformation of our weakness into strength is not the end of it. And here I turn from the lesson to the Gospel. Only one of the ten healed lepers in our Gospel reading returned, it says.

It is all too common that when we get through a hard time in life, when we get over a problem, when we get out of a fix, when we get past the consequences of our mistakes, we forget all about it. And if we do that, a kind of scar tissue forms. We become harder instead of softer…more closed instead of more open. You see that when a formerly oppressed group is liberated and then becomes the oppressor. You see it when a formerly judged and excluded group becomes extremely judgmental once they are accepted.

It may be good to forgive and forget. But it is never good, or healthy, or holy to be forgiven and forget.

We need to remember. We need to remember not only to be grateful for our healing but to offer it to others. We need to remember where we were, remember where we came from. Include it all in life and reach out to make it whole. Reach out daily to bring in the stranger, the foreigner….within and without. Include the excluded.

If we can do that, our faith can heal the world.

Thanks be to God!