John Muir once asked: “Why are Christians so reluctant to let animals into their stingy heaven?”
Indeed, why? Especially since St. Paul tells us in the Epistle to the Romans that all creation (mineral, plant, animal) is groaning to be set free from its bondage to decay to enter eternal life with us. How? How will minerals, plants,, and animals go to heaven? That’s beyond our present imagination, just as we cannot imagine how we will enter heaven: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard. Nor has it entered the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him.” Eternal life is beyond our present imagination.
What John Muir asks concerning animals might be asked in a wider sense: are we too stingy about who gets to go to heaven?
What I mean by “stingy” here is how we are so often obsessed with purity, boundaries, dogma, and religious practice that we exclude millions from our church doors, our church programs, our sacramental programs, our Eucharistic tables, and from our notion of who will be going to heaven. This is true across denominational lines. As Christians, we all tend to create a stingy heaven.
However, I can appreciate the instinct behind this. Following Jesus must mean something concrete. Christian discipleship makes real demands and churches need to have real boundaries in terms of dogma, sacraments, membership, and practice. There is a legitimacy in creating a dividing line between who is in and who is out. The instinct behind this is healthy.
But its practice is often not healthy. We often make heaven stingy. Metaphorically, we are too often like that group in the Gospel who is blocking the paralytic from coming to Jesus, so that he can only get to Jesus by entering through a hole in the roof.
Our instinct may be right, but our practice is often wrong. We, those of us who are invested deeply in our churches, need to be strong enough in our own faith and practice to be anchors of a spirituality and ethos that welcomes in and dines with those who are not invested. How so? Here’s an analogy.
Imagine a family of ten, now all adults. Five of the children are deeply invested in the family. They come home regularly for visits, have meals together every weekend, check in with each other regularly, have regular rituals and celebrations to ensure that they stay connected, and make it their family business to see that their parents are always okay. They might aptly be called “practicing” members of the family.
Now, imagine that five of the children have drifted from the family. They no longer cultivate any regular meaningful connection with the family, are dissociated from its everyday life and ethos, aren’t particularly concerned with how their parents are doing, but still want to have some connection to the family to occasionally share an occasion, a celebration, or meal with them. They might aptly be described as “non-practicing” members of the family.
This poses the question: Do the “practicing members” of the family refuse them entry into their gatherings, believing that allowing them to come jeopardizes the family’s beliefs, values, and ethos? Or do they allow them to come, but only on condition that they first make a series of practical commitments to regularize contact with the family?
My guess is that in most healthy families the “practicing” members would happily welcome the “non-practicing” members to a family event, gathering, or meal, grateful they are there, graciously accepting them without initially asking for any practical promises or commitments. Nor would they feel threatened by them joining the celebration and taking a seat at the table, fearful that the family’s ethos might somehow be compromised.
As “practicing” members of the family they would have a steady confidence that their own commitment sufficiently anchors the family’s ethos, standards, and rituals so that those who are present and uncommitted aren’t threatening anything but are making the celebration richer and more inclusive. That confidence would be grounded on knowing (in terms of this particular family) that they are the adults in the room and can welcome others without compromising anything. They would not be stingy with the gift and grace of family.
There’s a lesson here, I submit: We who are “practicing” Christians, responsible for proper church practice, proper doctrine, proper morals, and the authentic continuation of preaching and Eucharist, should not be stingy with the gift and grace of Christian family.
Like Jesus, who welcomed everyone without first demanding conversion and commitment, we must be open in our welcome and wide in our embrace. Inclusion, not exclusion, should always be our first approach. Like Jesus we should not be threatened by what seems impure, and we should be prepared to occasionally scandalize others by whom we are seen with at table. Let’s not be stingy in sharing God’s family, especially since the God we serve is a prodigal God who isn’t threatened by anything!