Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Monsignor James Beattie, of St. Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church, in Bethesda, told me this week about a priest who was approached by a parishioner wanting him to do a funeral for his dog. "No," the priest said, "We don't bury dogs, or any animals or pets." "Well, I'm sorry to hear that," the man said. "I was planning to show my gratitude by giving the church a thousand dollars." "Well now, wait a minute," said the priest. "You didn't tell me it was a catholic dog."

From the earliest days we've had to be careful about "doing" for those who had money and not "doing" for those who hadn't. Here is James, writing to an early Christian church, warning them (way back in the first century!) about showing favoritism to the rich. "For if a person with gold rings and fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes in," he writes, "and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, 'Have a seat here, please,' while to the one who is poor you say, 'Stand there,' or 'Sit on the floor….' Is that compatible with your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ?" John Wesley, with his wonderful English, put the question like this, "Does not the presumption lie rather in favor of the poor man?" Didn't Jesus say that the poor were blessed and would inherit the earth? Have you not dishonored the poor, James asks, these very special citizens of the Kingdom of God?

The overarching concern of James' letter is that Christians should not be "worldly," that they should not think as the world thinks nor act as the world acts. But that, of course, is easy to say and hard to do. For Christians are people of the world, and the church exists in the world. But that's the point. James is saying, if, therefore, we are not constantly vigilant, the values and practices of the world will creep into our lives and into the church. And the message of Christ, so contrary to the world, will be lost.

Lord knows our world, while it is not discriminating (often cannot tell the difference between bad and good, between trash and treasure), does, nevertheless, discriminate (honors some and dishonors others) for reasons, which in the family of Christ, carry no weight. In fact, as soon as we step outside the church, we find ourselves in a world of class, and caste, snobbishness and favoritism. "Out there," people rank each other in a thousand ways. By the clothes they wear, or by the cars they drive, or by the seats they sit in at the ballpark -- by their accents or their grammar, by titles, or wealth, or fame, by race, by gender, by bloodlines. In all of these ways, and many more, we make our distinctions. In some societies it's more subtle than in others, but it exists everywhere. I was having lunch one day with a bright young man from Lloyds of London, and I happened to mention in the conversation that my father had been a rug cleaner. He gave me a quizzical look, and said, "I know you Americans don't realize it, but in England the son of a rug cleaner could never become an insurance broker. It's never said; it's just understood." In many ways, and at all levels, the world discriminates. But not the church, not when the church is true to the teachings of Jesus who told his disciples, "In the world men lord it over one another, but it shall not be so with you." How do we measure up to that challenge at Oak Chapel?

Let us consider first what we do for "the poor" (meaning those who are disadvantaged in this world by any condition) -- for the poor who are far away, "the distant poor," those we don't have to rub elbows with, or smell, or be bored by, or be afraid of. (This is important work, not to be sneered at.) When you put a dollar in the offering plate on Sunday morning, you help support hospitals in India, schools in Africa, orphanages in South America and a thousand other projects helping the world's poor. Through our own World Missions Committee and through World Vision, we have, this year, adopted an Ethiopian child. We partially support Bill Lovelace, a United Methodist missionary in Ukraine. Next month, working with Dr. Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse program, we'll be sending shoe boxes full of Christmas gifts to needy children around the world. And we're going to ask your help with that.

What do we do for the poor who are closer at hand? Our Local Missions Committee (with your help) provides food to those who need it, diapers for young parents who can't afford them, transportation for those who need a ride in an emergency, free counseling, some financial assistance when the resources are there. We're getting ready to begin a program that will provide school supplies for children who don't have any. We're talking seriously about a prison ministry. Our school provides thousands of dollars worth of partial scholarships for families who need the assistance. And when this new building is complete, we're going to do more -- lots more. It's o.k. to stop for a moment and be proud of our accomplishments.

But we haven't yet talked about the hard thing. James didn't fault his readers for not tending to the needs of the far-away poor. He faulted them for how badly they treated the poor (the downtrodden, the disadvantaged) in their own Church family. How they deferred to the rich. For this we need to reach out not with our pocketbooks but with our hearts, which is infinitely more difficult. This is where our differences with the world are most pronounced. For we have structured our world (where we live, and where we go to school, and where we work, and where we play) -- we have structured our world in such a way that we need not get near people who we consider beneath us. (And, I am sorry to say, churches are often structured that way.) We jokingly say that Methodists are Baptists who can read, or Episcopalians are Methodists with money. But jokes like that betray the fact that there is a class element in the way denominations have come to be, and are. If it's a matter of personal preference, fine. But, if the truth is that some Christians would not feel comfortable in some churches, because of their financial circumstances, or their education, or their color or whatever, that's not fine. That is, as James pointed out, inconsistent with the teachings of Christ.

I have lived through a revolution in race relations. Many of you have too. My parents, who were not monsters, told me, at least in the beginning of the revolution, that black people were perfectly happy with their own schools, their own churches, their own restaurants and restrooms and water fountains. It never seemed to dawn on them, at least not in those early days, that the black schools were dilapidated and were using the books that white schools were finished with, or that black restaurants and restrooms were few and far between. Much less did they think the more subtle thought that separation itself implied inequality. We went through an enormous struggle and broke down most of the legal walls of segregation. It's better today, not right, but better. We still need to progress in social relations, in genuine friendship and true love. So white and black children who go to the same school won't keep eating at separate lunch tables -- so people of different races, who live next to each other, or work together, will come to know each other's joys and sorrows. The church, and perhaps only the church, can assist in this. Here we are beyond the realm where laws and the courts can make a difference. Here it is the heart that needs reform. That's what Jesus is good at.

What gives the church an advantage in getting people together is, first, her central belief that, in God's eyes, all are equal. And only the eyes of God matter. Not that we are equal in our rights, but that we are equally sinful and equally forgiven. And, second, that God is in the poor man. "In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren," Jesus said, "ye have done it unto me." "Does not the presumption lie rather in favor of the poor man?" Those same beliefs (that all are equal in sin and grace, and that God is especially present in the downtrodden) help mend all tears in the human fabric. They help heal divisions between rich and poor, young and old, men and women, husband and wife, parent and child. Those beliefs, translated into action (as beliefs must always be) bring healing where all other strategies bring discord.

Some churches are very successful by the numbers, but when you attend you see that almost everyone is white and upper middle-class. That will never be so here. Oak Chapel is blessed with a surrounding community that includes all kinds of people. Our dual challenge will be to accept everyone with love and respect and to keep focused on mission, so that we will be so busy helping those in need that we won't have time to brood about the things that make us different from each other.