"The Problem We All Live With: A painting of Ruby Bridges" by Norman Rockwell depicts the six-year-old going to school at Walter Frantz Public School in New Orleans in 1960. During her first year at school, Ruby was in a class of one, the first African-American child to attend that school under federal-court-ordered desegregation. She went alone because most white parents kept their children out of school that year.
In my town in North Carolina, I would not go to class with black students until I was in the seventh grade, 1968. A long hard fought battle, and sometimes we think that discrimination and segregation is over.
Would it surprise Jesus to know that in many places in the land of the free, while schools have become desegregated, that many churches in America are still closed to others not like us?
We are struggling to accept others - black, white, Asian, Native American, gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual. We even struggle to allow our children to worship with us. We make it difficult for those who were the pillars of our churches worship because we are slow to change our accommodations so that they can come into our sanctuaries and manage to sit for an hour.
All the while we celebrate a Jesus who called to himself children, outcasts, the sick, the different. People who did not share his upbringing, his national heritage, his language. Would it surprise Jesus that we still have trouble recognizing our neighbor?
On Sunday, a young parishioner stood in the pulpit to talk about God's extravagant welcome to all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. He is not the brash preacher from outside the community. He has a lot to lose, some may say. Yet he called his family, friends and neighbors to care, and to say out loud all are welcome here.
What may have surprised my friend is that his words did not fall on deaf ears. Rather, a conversation began. One person expressed joy at his words during our time of prayer. The church gathered, following worship, and stayed together to listen, for a moment, to each other's stories.
He took the risk of calling us to care, to love, and we responded, joyfully.
