In a conversation with a foster care worker recently, the subject came up about resistance we’ve seen through the years from church folks to fostering at-risk kids.
I had given an example from our past where a deacon had actively fought against us adopting a troubled boy. The kid had known an awful life, with more trauma in his 7 years than most of us see in a full lifetime. He had good reasons to be angry, and that angry sometimes caused him to scream, push, or make a scene in public. But between those incidents, he exhibited a very nurturing heart that truly cared about others. He was a great kid, but he was dealing with the trauma that had been thrust upon him.
But the deacon who met with me one afternoon had only seen the bad side of him, when he pitched while playing in the church gym. One thing about kids with trauma, they don’t worry about embarrassing you in church or the aisle at the grocery store. Whenever it happens, you just have to deal with it. When the deacon learned of our plans to adopt, he asked me for a meeting. I was unprepared for what he said.
“You must not adopt that boy, if you care about your family!” That sentence got my attention, but then it got worse. “If you do adopt him, when he gets older he’s going to rape your daughters and kill you in your sleep!”
Seriously, I’m not exaggerating. He’d managed to get all this from watching one little altercation in a church gym, where no one was hurt and the worst that happened was a few “unchurchy” words being yelled. I was fairly proud of myself that I didn’t respond to this man with anger. How I managed to not kick him out of my office is beyond me.
What I came to understand was that there’s a specific image some folks expect from their pastoral staff. They should have perfect little families, with clean cut kids who made great grades and letter on the football team or cheerlead – kids that can be shown off to the community. Church is a matter of pride for people like that deacon, and messy foster kids weren’t something he could brag about around town.
While these folks would acknowledge fostering is needed, they just don’t want to interact with it. While it’s ok to give money or have a bakesale that helps at risk families, it’s not ok to bring those kids into your home or church and try to help them. When I told the foster care worker this, they just stared incredulously at me. Finally they asked, “Why would church people have a problem with you adopting that child?”
The answer is a bit uncomfortable. But since “uncomfortable” is what this story’s about, I might as well explain it…
I’ve realized over the years there are two ways people respond to needs they see around them – there’s the “safe way”, and there’s the “uncomfortable way”.
The “safe way” keeps those needs and their accompanying problems at an arms-length distance, while the “uncomfortable way” meets the needs personally and pulls the problems toward you. With the safe way, you never get your hands dirty. But the “uncomfortable way” almost always changes something in your own life. Some of the mess of broken lives eventually gets on your shoes.
The problem is, the uncomfortable way is the one that actually changes lives. The safe way rarely does.
Some church folks love the safe way because it looks caring without demanding any real sacrifice on their part. It is the ultimate “symbolic gesture” – the monthly contribution, the occasional food drive, the community “fun run”. The important part is that you “look” like you care.
But the “uncomfortable way” doesn’t make you look so great in public, and that was what my deacon was really worried about. The uncomfortable way has police coming to your door when a kid gets out of control. It brings troubled calls from the local school principal. It can also include inappropriate outbursts (and colorful expletives) during church events. All of these things working together rarely make you look good to people with nice, neat and tidy families.
…at least, that’s the way their families look on the outside. They’ve worked hard to “keep appearances up”, and they’d really appreciate it if you would too.
But if you look at Jesus, He never resorted to symbolic gestures. In fact, He seemed determined to step right into the grime with troubled people.
It was Jesus who went out of His way to actually touch the lepers, not just heal them from afar. That human touch that meant so much to the lepers probably made others worried about getting too close.
Jesus was the one who stooped down and spit in the dirt to make mud He put on the eyes of the blind man.
Jesus reached out to lift up the little girl and raise her from the dead, breaking their religious laws against touching a dead body.
Caring for people had Jesus walking into tombs and graveyards, confronting demonic and tormented people. Worse than that, He did much of this on the Sabbath. Not great optics if your goal is to look religious.
If Jesus lived that way, tell me…why don’t we? Why is our brand of “Christianity” so often in contrast to what He lived?
That takes me back to the question the foster care worker asked me when I told her about the reaction to our foster son. She asked, “Why would church people have trouble with you adopting a child? I thought helping people was what they were supposed to be doing?”
I didn’t really have a good answer for that. Because she was right to be confused.
Too often when we look at today’s churches when compared to Jesus, we’re tempted to sing that little song from Sesame Street:
“One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong…”
I’ve witnessed way too much “casual Christianity” where people are determined to live the least intrusive version of Christianity possibly. That’s the one that writes the checks and wears the t-shirt for the cause, but would never think of letting that cause disrupt their life, their church, or change their family dynamic.
That brand of Christianity never calls for a sacrifice. It never hits home or causes you to do without. It never demands that you change or be inconvenienced in any way.
It never makes you “uncomfortable”.
But if someone ventures into the “uncomfortable version” that Jesus lived, the comfortable Christians will always push back. They know if too many people start living the uncomfortable way, it will expose the diluted, pretend version they perform just for show.
Real Christianity, the kind Jesus modeled for us, will always afflict the comfortable, while in turn comforting the afflicted. That’s the way it is supposed to work. The foster care worker I spoke with knew that, though sadly the church deacon didn’t.
Any other kind of Christianity that leaves us comfortable and unruffled is probably something else entirely. It may look good, but it looks nothing like Jesus.
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