When In Doubt…Include

Part of the big news around the world last week was the choosing of a new pope. I know many people who were following the news and checking out the smokestack to see what was happening!

As the conclave was starting, my wife, Lynne, noted that it still remains ONLY men who choose a leader from among them and that the voice, experience, perspective and embodiment of God in women, trans and non-binary people is not even allowed into the room. While this is “normal” for the Catholic Church, it is important not to normalize it. We need to keep talking about and addressing sexism and patriarchy because they remain such a powerful source of harm in the church and the world.

But the conclave did choose, and Bishop Robert Prevost was elected by the College of Cardinals as the Church’s next leader. He took the name Leo XIV (following Leo XIII who was a great reformer of the church). He is the first pope coming from the United States and seems to want to follow in the trajectory of Pope Francis. I know that I and many around the world wish him well as he steps into a very important role at a very important time in history – a time filled with controversy and challenge.

In our first reading today, the church’s first leader, Peter, also finds himself in a time filled with challenge and controversy. Acts 11 tells the story of the controversy related to circumcision in the early church. While this may not represent much to us these days, it was a very contentious issue back then. Peter had been associating with the uncircumcised in Jerusalem (treating them as equals), and he was confronted about it. The controversy centered on two main points: first, should (uncircumcised) Gentiles convert to Judaism first before becoming part of this new group of followers of Jesus and, second, was salvation even meant for Gentiles.

These were weighty issues for the early church and caused some serious fractures and polarization.

Peter has a vision and comes down on the side of inclusion, and this becomes an important moment in church history. It’s also an important precedent for us to consider related to the many contentious issues that we face today. And it seems to be at the heart of God.

When in doubt, include. And even if not in doubt, include!

My friend Michael recently gave me a book called Cherished Belonging by Fr. Greg Boyle (who wrote Tattoos on the Heart). It is a wonderful book that uses many stores from Boyle’s Homeboy Industries to talk about a compassionate, loving God who is ever-trying to create belonging and inclusion. In the book, Boyle references the ideas of Meister Eckhart, a 14th century German theologian and mystic, who had very progressive ideas about God given the time in which he lived.

Eckhart referred to God as the “Wild One” who was always surprising people with an expansiveness and inclusion. Boyle says that, “The Church in his day (and perhaps currently) wanted to tame this wild God because the puny and distant version served their purpose…”

Sadly this is the case for so many of us.

A wild, undomesticated God who includes people and builds longer tables instead of building higher walls can be scary and unpredictable. So we (personally and collectively) often opt for a different version of God who protects that status quo that WE support and rely upon. We get into binary notions of who belongs and who doesn’t. Who is right and who is not. Who is worthwhile and who is not. What is mine and what is yours.

But the God we follow always wants to take us on an unexpected journey, and that will require us to live lightly and hold on loosely to all the things we cling to. And it seems that this wild God has little use for all of our binary notions!

Our gospel from John 10 seems to drive the point home for me. In it Jesus is speaking of the “Good Shepherd” and uses the image of sheep to make his point.

In Jesus’ time, sheep were kept in large, makeshift pens which had a small gate, and multiple groups of sheep would be kept together in one pen. A “gatekeeper” was in charge of the gate and would open it at a shepherd’s request. The shepherd would then “call” their sheep to follow. 

So Jesus says, “The gatekeeper opens [the gate], and the sheep hear [the shepherd’s voice]…the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.”

I love this image of Jesus calling us out of our pens of confinement! He is ever saying to us, “There’s a bigger pasture out here that I want you to experience…but you’re going to have to leave the safety of the pen behind.” And he is always out there ahead of us. He has the vision. He sees what is possible, and he keeps offering that invitation.

Jose Arellano, who is one of the homie vice presidents of Homeboy Industries, says that the work of inclusion, compassion and transformation is “beautiful work, but it’s not always pretty.”

Opting for inclusion, belonging and compassion IS beautiful work and comes with its own set of challenges. And yet this seems to be what God keeps opting for – the messiness of inclusion and belonging versus the tidiness and predictability of exclusion.

For decades, Spiritus has tried to live into this vision of incusion, and if you have been around for a while, you know that it’s not always been pretty. Inclusion can be a painful growth process that stretches us and forces us to confront some things that maybe we’d prefer not to confront. It requires a lot from us.

Exclusion, however, requires very little from us. We don’t need to stretch ourselves when we exclude. Maybe that’s why it’s so prevalent, and we’re seeing a resurgence of it all around us. We aren’t even allowed to say the word in some circles these days!

Which means we must double down on our commitments towards inclusion. Of course, not everyone is going to respond to that voice, but as followers of Jesus and his wild God, that’s the voice we’re trying to follow. And, as difficult as it is, we are even called to include the people who don’t want inclusion.

As we move through our week, may we keep looking for opportunities to include and try to keep hearing the voice of the “Wild One” who has gone before us and is calling us into a bigger and bigger vision of connection and belonging for ourselves and the world.