© Igor Terekhov | Dreamstime.com
I often share the bus with a man who (I believe) is autistic. Unfortunately for those of us who must ride with him, he is a truly unpleasant person. He yells, he hurls racist insults, he fusses at people if they are sitting in “his seat”, and if he gets really upset he tends to throw things .
Public transportation is like that. It exists to take people where they need to be, but it doesn’t guarantee that they are going to enjoy the trip. Because it is open to all (and it is very difficult to get someone banned from public transportation, particularly in a large city such as Chicago), not all the people who use the transit system are the sorts of folks that we would normally want to associate with. Some riders are rude, insane, smelly, dirty, aggressive, inconsiderate, overly-talkative, loud, drunk, high . . . “the list,” as folks say, “could go on and on.”
I suppose the city could “clean house” and set really strict rules that would eliminate the troublemakers. Then those of us who are sensitive to strong odors would never again get sick from someone who reeks of perfume or who fails to bathe three days in a row. People of color could avoid racist insults. Studious types could bury their nose in a book, undisturbed by riders loudly chatting into cell phones, drunkenly singing, or begging for spare change. Nobody would have to shrink in fear when a mentally ill person acts out aggressively, nor would they have to dodge a talkative seatmate.
But then again, if all these rules were enforced, precious few people would be able to take the bus. In fact, many of the people least likely to be able to own a car (or even drive one) would no longer have access to mass transit. They’d have to walk everywhere in the cold/heat/rain/snow, and if they couldn’t get somewhere on foot, they’d be stuck.
Because of this, everyone accepts that public buses are not safe spaces. For anyone. If you take the bus, you are going to be insulted. You are going to be offended. You are going to be sickened by bad smells. You are going to have to see and hear things that you would rather not see and hear. You won’t always be able to get your work done. You won’t even always be able to get a seat.
(But you will get to where you need to go. So will everyone else on the bus.)
Churches, like buses, are not safe spaces. We can try and make them such: We can worry about offending others (outsiders or insiders) and institute processes to avoid this. We can try to accommodate “everyone” who walks through our doors (until we find out that we have managed to dis-accommodate someone else in the process). We can seek to protect ourselves and others from behavior that is sinful and wrong and hurtful and bewildering.
(And, of course, we will fail.)
Why? Well, like the public bus, the church (and indeed, the Kingdom of God) is open to everyone (though not all will choose to enter). Not just the great and the good, either. In fact, many of those who enter the church are there because they had run out of options. The church may be a less pleasant place for their presence, but do we really want to leave them out in the cold?
(In fact, we ourselves are likely part of the problem: Do we want to be left out in the cold too?)
Instead of processes to reduce friction, offense, and displeasure, perhaps we need to take a different approach: Perhaps we need to give up on the idea of church as a safe space, a shelter, a haven. Instead, maybe we need to learn to accept the discomfort and unpleasantness as part of what it is to be human and what it is to be church. Instead of blunting edges and rounding corners, perhaps we can investigate different ways of being present with people as they experience (and cause?) offense, discomfort, and pain, rather than fruitlessly trying to rid the church of its human, sinful elements.
(After all, we are all just trying to get to the same place. Aren’t we?)
