Imagine yourself
sitting in church on a Sunday evening at 5:00. Beside you sits an aging drag
queen; on the other side is a woman who appears to be a prostitute. You
discreetly cover your nose a little to block the smell of the man sitting in
the pew in front of you, a man who appears to be homeless and not taken a bath
in years. You’re visiting the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver,
Colorado, a quirky Lutheran church plant that’s only five years old. You look
up and notice that the pastor is a tough looking woman covered in tattoos. Her
language is remarkably crude and a little blunt for a pastor and you remember
hearing that she’s a woman with a past: a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.
To the side are several small children playing by themselves and making rather
a lot of noise; their parents are nowhere in sight. You shift a little in your
seat, trying not to appear too uncomfortable.
You stand to chant a cappella with the rest of the congregation and then sit down as pastor Nadia moves to the front to preach. She turns to Luke 16 and tells you a parable about a manager who’s accused of wasting his master’s resources. You’re pretty sure you’ve heard this one before; the parable is about a wicked and dishonest manager who is fired for being irresponsible or stealing, you’re not sure which. Oh, but hold on a second: Nadia’s telling the story a bit differently. The manager, she tells the congregation, is getting himself in trouble because he’s being too kind and generous with the debtors. He doesn’t really care how much they owe the master because he knows they can never repay it.
The master in the story ends up firing the manager because rumours are going around that the manager isn’t very reliable. The manager loses everything. But on his way out the door, he ends up reconciling the master and the debtors by reducing the debts. The manager knew that the debtors could never pay all that they owed on their own; they needed him to reduce it even though it ended up getting him fired. Perhaps the manager was just dishonest enough, just enough like the common people who owed his master money, that he could actually understand them.
As you sit listening to the story, it occurs to you that the manager she’s describing is an awful lot like Nadia herself. People say she’s too much like the people she serves; too many tattoos, too much compromise, too much time spent singing with her parishioners in the local bar. They say that Nadia condones sin by welcoming people like addicts, con artists, and transgender people into her worship service. The manager suffered for being unjust, and Nadia has also suffered from people in the church that think she should clean up her act a bit and run a cleaner, purer kind of church.
And
then it occurs to you: this is exactly what Jesus was like. Jesus hung around
with homeless deserve to be welcomed at all.
He drove the religious leaders were going crazy because he hung out in bars and
was a bit too vulgar and got tattoos. Well, ok, he didn’t have tattoos. But he
hung around with people on the edges of society and he did break a lot of
rules. Without sinning, of course, he became like the people he wanted to
welcome, making a lot of sacrifices in the process. I imagine that some days it
was a lot of fun; but other days it was downright exhausting. Sometimes he
probably just wanted to go hang out in the temple with the other rabbis and
talk theology. But that’s not what he came for. He came to welcome those who
the rest of the church didn’t have time or space for: the foster kids, the
transgender teenagers, and the refugees. He wasn’t fired for it, the way the
shrewd manager was, though; he was killed instead. It was a pretty hefty price
he paid to reconcile the debtors with the master.
guys and prostitutes and drag queens. He welcomed people that didn’t
Nadia looks out at the congregation and for a second she catches your eye. The parable of the shrewd manager, she tells you, is ultimately one of radical, undeserved grace. It is about learning to speak the people’s language so that you can make space for them. After the parable finishes in Luke 16, Jesus points out that “the children of this age are more wise in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” If we want to welcome the stranger into this place, she tells the congregation, we need to learn to speak their language. Sure, they might not be clean, respectable people deserving of this time and space; but then again, neither are we!
I’ve been reading the story of House for All Sinners and Saints this week in Pastrix, Nadia’s new book. And as I read the parable of the shrewd manager at the same time, I thought about the ways in which we, here on the corner of Osborne and Broadway, have learned to speak the language of the people Christ welcomes: inviting a Sudanese congregation and mission church to share this space; opening our doors to Agape Table, hosting events that bring together people of different backgrounds to share their gifts and learn from one another, like the Feel the Heat concert coming up next month. And then I also wondered how we might find new ways to speak their language of our neighbours. How can we make space for them? Who are the poor debtors in our neighbourhood who don’t deserve to be welcomed by Jesus but who are welcomed anyway, just for being God’s precious creation?
And I realized that you’ve already begun exploring that question by beginning conversations about reaching out to new Canadians, to youth, and to children in West Broadway. Dietrich is excited to talk about starting a children’s music camp. Yanna is interested in how we can develop a children’s liturgy. Cynthia is committed to caring for students. Edmund is talking about having dialogues with other faith groups in the neighbourhood. What I’ve been doing over the last few weeks is getting to know this neighbourhood as well as I can in order to discern what God is calling us to in this time and place. What’s already here? What’s missing? What would a Saturday children’s church look like for the people of West Broadway?
In two weeks, I’m planning to give you a report about what I’ve been discovering and I’ll invite you into a conversation about how God might be calling us to speak the language of our neighbourhood and offer welcome to whoever the “debtors” might be that God brings to our doorstep. How can we facilitate hospitality and reconciliation to them as Jesus does?
In our reading from Timothy today we were reminded that no matter what our particular gifts and callings might be, we are all called to the ministry of prayer. So I invite you to join me in prayer over the next couple weeks as we discern how God is calling us to create new space for people in our neighbourhood. It might be a difficult journey and it will always involve sacrifice, but Jesus welcomes everyone to come in, cancel their debts, and join him at his table. It’s a pretty preposterous idea that makes a lot of people unhappy, but it’s also the most beautiful, the joyful, and the most life-giving thing in the world.
You stand to chant a cappella with the rest of the congregation and then sit down as pastor Nadia moves to the front to preach. She turns to Luke 16 and tells you a parable about a manager who’s accused of wasting his master’s resources. You’re pretty sure you’ve heard this one before; the parable is about a wicked and dishonest manager who is fired for being irresponsible or stealing, you’re not sure which. Oh, but hold on a second: Nadia’s telling the story a bit differently. The manager, she tells the congregation, is getting himself in trouble because he’s being too kind and generous with the debtors. He doesn’t really care how much they owe the master because he knows they can never repay it.
The master in the story ends up firing the manager because rumours are going around that the manager isn’t very reliable. The manager loses everything. But on his way out the door, he ends up reconciling the master and the debtors by reducing the debts. The manager knew that the debtors could never pay all that they owed on their own; they needed him to reduce it even though it ended up getting him fired. Perhaps the manager was just dishonest enough, just enough like the common people who owed his master money, that he could actually understand them.
As you sit listening to the story, it occurs to you that the manager she’s describing is an awful lot like Nadia herself. People say she’s too much like the people she serves; too many tattoos, too much compromise, too much time spent singing with her parishioners in the local bar. They say that Nadia condones sin by welcoming people like addicts, con artists, and transgender people into her worship service. The manager suffered for being unjust, and Nadia has also suffered from people in the church that think she should clean up her act a bit and run a cleaner, purer kind of church.
And
then it occurs to you: this is exactly what Jesus was like. Jesus hung around
with homeless deserve to be welcomed at all.
He drove the religious leaders were going crazy because he hung out in bars and
was a bit too vulgar and got tattoos. Well, ok, he didn’t have tattoos. But he
hung around with people on the edges of society and he did break a lot of
rules. Without sinning, of course, he became like the people he wanted to
welcome, making a lot of sacrifices in the process. I imagine that some days it
was a lot of fun; but other days it was downright exhausting. Sometimes he
probably just wanted to go hang out in the temple with the other rabbis and
talk theology. But that’s not what he came for. He came to welcome those who
the rest of the church didn’t have time or space for: the foster kids, the
transgender teenagers, and the refugees. He wasn’t fired for it, the way the
shrewd manager was, though; he was killed instead. It was a pretty hefty price
he paid to reconcile the debtors with the master.guys and prostitutes and drag queens. He welcomed people that didn’t
Nadia looks out at the congregation and for a second she catches your eye. The parable of the shrewd manager, she tells you, is ultimately one of radical, undeserved grace. It is about learning to speak the people’s language so that you can make space for them. After the parable finishes in Luke 16, Jesus points out that “the children of this age are more wise in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” If we want to welcome the stranger into this place, she tells the congregation, we need to learn to speak their language. Sure, they might not be clean, respectable people deserving of this time and space; but then again, neither are we!
I’ve been reading the story of House for All Sinners and Saints this week in Pastrix, Nadia’s new book. And as I read the parable of the shrewd manager at the same time, I thought about the ways in which we, here on the corner of Osborne and Broadway, have learned to speak the language of the people Christ welcomes: inviting a Sudanese congregation and mission church to share this space; opening our doors to Agape Table, hosting events that bring together people of different backgrounds to share their gifts and learn from one another, like the Feel the Heat concert coming up next month. And then I also wondered how we might find new ways to speak their language of our neighbours. How can we make space for them? Who are the poor debtors in our neighbourhood who don’t deserve to be welcomed by Jesus but who are welcomed anyway, just for being God’s precious creation?
And I realized that you’ve already begun exploring that question by beginning conversations about reaching out to new Canadians, to youth, and to children in West Broadway. Dietrich is excited to talk about starting a children’s music camp. Yanna is interested in how we can develop a children’s liturgy. Cynthia is committed to caring for students. Edmund is talking about having dialogues with other faith groups in the neighbourhood. What I’ve been doing over the last few weeks is getting to know this neighbourhood as well as I can in order to discern what God is calling us to in this time and place. What’s already here? What’s missing? What would a Saturday children’s church look like for the people of West Broadway?
In two weeks, I’m planning to give you a report about what I’ve been discovering and I’ll invite you into a conversation about how God might be calling us to speak the language of our neighbourhood and offer welcome to whoever the “debtors” might be that God brings to our doorstep. How can we facilitate hospitality and reconciliation to them as Jesus does?
In our reading from Timothy today we were reminded that no matter what our particular gifts and callings might be, we are all called to the ministry of prayer. So I invite you to join me in prayer over the next couple weeks as we discern how God is calling us to create new space for people in our neighbourhood. It might be a difficult journey and it will always involve sacrifice, but Jesus welcomes everyone to come in, cancel their debts, and join him at his table. It’s a pretty preposterous idea that makes a lot of people unhappy, but it’s also the most beautiful, the joyful, and the most life-giving thing in the world.
