Thicker than water

There is something about the family of faith that makes it challenging to live in. I think I know what it is, it's the family part. I have been to enough family gatherings; reunions, weddings, funerals and so on, that I believe I can say without hesitation, the only reason some of those people get in is because they are related. You do too know what I mean. The family forces a smile and everyone talks politely and the entire trip home in every vehicle is about weird Uncle Buck or Aunt Phyllis.

My own family is no exception. I had a great uncle named Logan who was the source of all kinds of discussion through out all the generations. We kiddos found him very funny and would practice walking like he did, debating whether he was still breathing, betting on the exact time he would move. My parents generation and older took offense at his laziness and expectation of being served. Rumor has it my grandfather threw a folk at him once for expecting my grandmother to get up and get him something for the billionth time. I don't know whether this is true but it is told even today and still brings chuckles. Logan's history was equally delightful for my cousins and me. He married once and wouldn't leave home. At some point his wife did and he decided not to repeat that mistake. I wonder if she did too.

But I digress. The point isn't that families have characters like Logan, the point is that we tolerate and even find some affection for the Logan's in life because after all we are related. They are a part of us because we are connected through blood. It gives us identity, it gives us a history and a sense of belonging. Even if you look at your family in horror, and what adolescent hasn't done that and prayed that they were either switched at birth or stolen by gypsies, it says something about who your people are. While this isn't always a good connection, in fact if all of us look far enough back we are bound to find a ancestor or two or ten that make us shake our heads, it's a mark we carry and learn to deal with in life.

This is no different for the Church universal. We are also connected by blood, Jesus' blood shed for all. This makes us all one enormous family, belonging because we are related. We like to exclude various branches of the family - they are too liberal, too conservative, too fundamental, too flaky, too serious, too high church, too low church, too touchy feeling, too traditional and on and on and on. I don't know that we have open feuding on going, unless its denomination verses nondenomination, but we do have our own little family branches we tend to honor more than the whole. Like a huge family reunion where each family can see each other and will perhaps wave but they all sit separately and tell their youngest members," Stay away from the Bertie Jones family. They aren't really family, they aren't our kind of people."

I just went to see Michael W Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman in concert. I don't have a clue how many people were there but lots. Like as far as the eye could see lots. I had great seats. I never have great seats but I had a friend who took care of me and I had great seats. The concert was amazing and at some point we were standing and worshipping. Michael W Smith was playing something everyone knew and everyone was singing and I turned around and saw the auditorium filled, the first balcony filled, the second balcony filled. Everyone on their feet, everyone singing, many with their hands raised, their eyes closed. The music was incredible but the connection with my brothers and sisters in the family of faith was so powerful it brought tears to my eyes. I haven't got a clue what members of the family were there. I don't know what family branch they sprang from. I don't know theologically that we agree at all on the issues we debate with such enthusiasm. I just know this, for a moment in time the focus was the connection, that we are related by the blood. We were all made heirs the same we, and all of us belong.

I know we can't live here. In fact, before I got home I got a funny text message from a young man I worship with regularly who said, "hey do you mind sitting down? We are in peanut heaven and you are blocking the stage!" We have other contacts that aren't so funny and God's grace is essential in keeping us from killing each other. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we could spend just a little more time worshipping together in the presence of God, focusing on the things that unite us instead of the issues that divide us? It's the blood you know, and it's thicker than water.