Where Differences Go To Die

On Sunday morning when you go to church you are likely to be surrounded by people who are not like you.  They are not your age or gender or race.  They’re not from the same part of the country.  They talk funny.  They don’t eat grits.  Or do.  They don’t live like you live.  They’re obsessively clean or carelessly messy.  They’re always late.  Or early.  They shop at Saks.  Or The Salvation Army thrift store.  They drive a status symbol, the kind with a coveted badge on the hood.  Or they ride the bus.  Or walk.

They don’t think like you think.  They don’t share your values and the way they order their priorities is beyond baffling.  Your eschatology and theirs is separated by millenia.  They let their kids do things that yours never even considered.  Or they are so uptight the room shrinks when they walk in.

They don’t worship right.  When the singing starts, the only difference between them and a referee signaling touchdowns at a football game is a stripped shirt.  Or they grip the songbook so tightly the binding buckles.  They don’t dress for worship in a way that honors God.  Or it looks like they chose this morning’s outfit like they were headed for a job interview with a Wall Street brokerage firm.

And, God help them, they watch Fox News.  Or subscribe to Mother Jones and think Rachel Maddow is the most reliable journalist on planet Earth (which, they are certain, is less than a decade away from spontaneously combusting due to anthropogenic climate change).

The truth is, they’re just weird.  But they are here.  And so are you.  Both of you have come to the same place at the same time for the same reason.  You and they have come to bend your knees before the one who is not like either of you — or anyone else for that matter — and acknowledge that he is Lord of lords, King of kings, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.  You have both come to honor Jesus as the sinless Son of God, dying Savior, and rising Lord.

Both of you have come to this place to pinch off a tiny piece of flavorless bread and to swallow a thimble-full of tart grape juice. And you both call it a feast.  In your better moments, you know and they know that neither of you have a right to be here.  Because for all the things that mark off our differences and disagreements, the one thing that we all most certainly have in common is guilt.  In that way, we are all the same.  There is no difference.  There is no one who is righteous.  All have sinned and undershot the glory of God.  The only difference is which sin tripped up which sinner.

So really, we all have two things in common.  We’re all sinners.  And we’re all here to remember and reconnect with the one who came to deal with our sin.  And the more we bend our knees and grow in our knowledge of Jesus, the less all those other differences matter. Because the cross of Jesus is where differences go to die.