Second Class
Originally scheduled for February 14
(This story
is not apocryphal.)
She sat in
the back of the church. After all, the church couldn’t very well
keep her out of the building. She was a young mother, alone, and in
need of help. More than just physical help; she needed the advice of
good Christian women. After all, Jesus came to seek and save the
lost — and here was one of the lost. So in good Christian charity
the church could not deny her entrance.
But not quite
all the way into the church — after all, there are the circumstances
to consider. What about the example she would set for the young
girls in the church? What would her presence do for the “character
of our witness?” People expect the church to be a model of
righteousness. So it was best to keep her at the back of the church,
and out of the more prominent lady’s groups.
You might ask
why. The answer is quite simple: in a time when the church still
believed that divorce was generally a sin, she had divorced her
drunken, womanizing husband. There is much more to the story, but
there was the blatant bad example she had set.
Christ’s
method was somewhat different. You might remember the woman taken in
adultery. Jesus drove off her accusers — we’re not quite sure how —
and his parting remark was simply, “Neither do I condemn you. Go,
and sin no more.” Even today there are some of us who still think
that adultery is sinful. But it seems that Christ did indeed come to
seek and save the lost.
In fact — if
you will remember the story of Levi, also known as Matthew — you
will find one of the central accusations against Jesus of Nazareth.
He partied too hearty, too often, with all the wrong people. The
folks at the party received him very gladly; the religious
authorities were utterly scandalized. Worse yet, Matthew turned out
to be an apostle! So perhaps an unblemished life is not quite the
requirement for being a Christian that we might think.
This is
clearly seen in the Lord’s Supper. You recall that Christ washed the
feet of his disciples — a task usually assigned to the lowest
servant in the household. He made clear that the kingdom of God is
open even to the lowest, and its members should be open to the
lowest of service. Having done that, he invested what had been the
Passover meal with a new significance. He said, “this is my body;
this is my blood.” In so doing he made this a memorial feast for all
Christians.
But I might
point out something to you: I have never been in a church that use
more than one type of communion tray. Whether for the cup or the
bread, everyone uses the same set of trays. There is no thought that
we will have one type of tray for the first class Christian, and
another for the second class Christian. Why? Because in Christ’s
kingdom, there are no second-class citizens. His kingdom is open to
“whosoever will.” In the simple act of providing the same memorial
meal to all, we proclaim the equality of his kingdom. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female — and no
second-class either. We are one in Christ, for we are the church,
his body.
