THE SALVATION OF INCLUSION [F, 12-1-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE SALVATION OF INCLUSION [F, 12-1-23]

 

You already know this, but I have to think this through for myself from time to time, and I do my thinking by writing. That’s the way I find out what I’m thinking. So…

…the theme of my life has been inclusion. I wanted to be included. If you want to be included, it makes no sense to leave anyone else out.

There are those who do, though. Like J.D. Vance, of Hillbilly Elegy. They fume at being left out. Claim it’s an injustice. Then, once they are in, they try to keep others out. I understand it psychologically, but not rationally.

I had a big extended family. My mother was one of 8 children, my father one of 7. Until I was 4, my immediate family often lived with my paternal grandparents, because it was Great Depression days. I learned that inclusion had the best chance in a wide circle.

If you try to get included in a small circle, and you are rejected, the hurt and shame are great. If you try for inclusion in a big circle, even if you are rejected in one place, you might be accepted somewhere else.

In our small nuclear family of four, I often felt excluded. Our parents spent so much energy trying to work out their relationship that they often had none left over for my older sister and me. [My younger siblings came almost ten years later.] Mary V was a great older sister, including me in her love and concern, but almost 5 years older, she often wanted time to herself or with other girls her age. I was often left on my own, roaming the streets of Indianapolis at age 8 and 9, looking for some place to belong. I liked to roam especially in the winter, when lights came on early, because I could look into the houses as I walked by on the sidewalk and see scenes of inclusion. In those houses, I could imagine that everyone was included. In my own house, I felt that was not true.

In my early years, until we moved to the farm near Oakland City when I was 10, I just wanted to be included. I didn’t want responsibility for including others, leadership of the circle. Likewise, I was afraid of exclusion, so I didn’t try hard for inclusion, for fear of rejection. I mostly looked on from the outside.

But Oakland City was a different world. I didn’t need my small family circle. Kids on the school bus and in my class thought it was not only acceptable but good to have a new kid. I had friends. My circle was widening. I saw new possibilities. I not only enjoyed inclusion, but I wanted to extend it to others. Big circles were best. I wanted to have a role in making the circle bigger.

I think that is why I was elected class president our first three years of high school, [and would have been for a fourth had I not thought I should relinquish the presidency to concentrate on editing the school newspaper, since I was planning a career in journalism.] I knew the names of everybody in the class, and I called them all by name. I made sure that each got a personal invitation whenever there was a class party or other event. I was everybody’s friend.

I think that is why I became a preacher. Yes, I traded my life for my sister’s, but that was the mechanism, not the impetus. In the real church, everyone is included. everyone in the world. That’s what I wanted.

Including people who are usually excluded, such as ethnic or gender minorities, people who are “different,” that has always been a goal for me. But I learned that anyone can feel excluded—the rich and powerful, the poor, the homeless, the everyday workers, the educated, the uneducated, the atheists, the Christians... I wanted to “go to the byways and highways and compel everyone to come inside.” [Luke 14:23]

It makes no sense to me that anyone should be excluded from the world created by a God who was willing to sacrifice the divine self, in Christ, for everyone. I think that inclusion is the definition of salvation.

John Robert McFarland