This past week I was talking with a friend about cliques, inside and outside the Church. We talked about what is being seen when we huddle together exclusively with folks who are ‘just like us’. This subject has been rattling around in my little pea brain every since so I figured that I would try to work it out a bit (one of the main reasons for this blog).

  Let me say this from the git go…I don’t like cliques! Of any kind! Growing up we were poor. Momma and Daddy had 6 kids and 5 of us were girls and they just couldn’t afford to dress us all in new clothes so we wore a lot of ‘hand me downs’. Momma had the gift of being able to sew so she would ‘make over’ clothes from the oldest for the younger to wear. Because of our ‘status’ as being poor we were excluded from a lot a stuff and was never a part of the ‘in’ crowd, we were part of the ‘outcasts’. I always felt like an outsider looking in. Momma couldn’t afford to buy uniforms for cheer leading or instruments for band, or other things the ‘in’ crowd did. I grew up thinking I wasn’t good enough. I was made to feel like I was low class, an outcast. I know some of you know what I’m talkin’ about.

  It’s sad to say but some of our ‘churches’ seem to have the same attitude. If you don’t have $50 dresses and $30 shoes, you just don’t ‘fit in’ and are shunned. Oh yeah, you have to have everything match too, no ‘mismatches’ welcome in the ‘club’. Or if you were different in some way. But let me tell you something….Jesus loves the ‘mismatches’, the outcasts, the different, the misfits! He didn’t like the ‘cliquish’ either. In fact He shunned the cliques. Jesus kept away from the religious! He touched the leper, He took the blind man by the hand, He hugged the beggar. One of His most loyal followers was a real outcast, the prostitute, whom He loved and welcomed with open arms.

  We like people that look like us, act like us, like what we like, and are similar to us; however, the Christian life is just not that neat. The point of the gospel is not to unite people according to the flesh, but rather to unite people in Jesus Christ. If I am a cliquey person then I am enjoying exclusive relationships with folks while also excluding others whom Christ has brought together. I have just unwittingly undermined a major aspect of what Christ has bought through His gospel! I have promoted my personal preferences to a position of supremacy and put the gospel in position of submission. This should not be! You are no less important to Jesus than the man/woman standing behind a pulpit.

  The heart of Jesus is the unity of His people. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.” (John 17:22) We are united in and through Jesus Christ. This comes to be emphasized when God calls people from various backgrounds, cultures and ages to come together and sing the sweet message of Christ’s kingship in their lives.

  However, when we step back and look at our congregations, and even our own friendships, do we not see groups of people who share many of the same earthly preferences? For example, I like to hang out with people who like to enjoy life and loves to laugh. In fact my motto is… Live! Laugh! Love! I’m a hugger, I love to hug people. (I’m ‘toucher’.) When I’m talking to you, I may put my hand on your shoulder, arm or I may reach out and take your hand. Or if I’m in a relationship with you I may want to hold your hand while watching a movie or walking. Holding another’s hand is a very personal thing, especially if it’s held for any length of time. A profound communication can take place through that contact alone, even if no words are spoken.

  In church I was known as the ‘hugging lady’ I hugged everybody. Don’t hold your hand out to me to be shaken, I’ll tell you right quick, I’m a hugger. I remember I was sitting in church one Sunday evening and I noticed a lady at the altar. I have to tell you she looked like a ‘bag lady’….old clothes that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in months, her hair disheveled and matted. Everyone seemed to shun away from her but Holy Spirit didn’t. He noticed her and pointed her out to me and whispered in my ear to go down to her. I asked Him what He wanted me to pray or say to the lady and He said, “nothing, just hug her”. Folks, sometimes we just need to be hugged, touched by someone. Sometimes we need affirmation that we are somebody and are loved. That reminds me of Jesus and the blind man…. “He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village” (Mark 8:23). First, He touched the man! He took him by the hand as if to say….hey, “I’m here. You may not can see Me but you can feel Me, feel My love.” Second…He led him outside the city. He took him away from the cliques, the ones who shunned him, away from the ‘insiders’. He took an ‘outsider’ outside and made him an ‘insider’ just by His touch. And folks we can do the same thing. Paul said, “Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.” (1Thessalonians 5:25-27) In part, this was Paul’s thinking when he addressed his readers as “brethren.” By using this terminology, he brought himself right down to the level of his readers to identify with their position in life and with their personal struggles and victories. They were truly brothers and sisters, born from the womb of God, related by the blood of Jesus Christ, and members of the same spiritual family. Blood kin! One of the things I love about Paul is he never raised himself above his ‘followers’! He wanted to let them know, he was one with them even though he was the ‘preacher/teacher’ he was no better than they were. We are the same in Christ Jesus! We may be in different ‘stages’ in our walk with the Lord and some may even be called into a leadership position, such as Paul but we are not to ‘lord’ that over folk, make one feel any less than what they/we are…all children of the Living God and brothers and sisters.

  I’m also reminded of the story Jesus told of the ‘good’ Samaritan, “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he walked across to the other side. Then a Levite, a religious man (a preacher) showed up; he also avoided the injured man. “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill, I’ll pay you on my way back.’ The Samaritan cared not that they weren’t of the same culture, race or religious denominations.

  When you receive life-saving mercy, ‘otherness’ ceases and we experience instead our common humanity, our sisterhood, our brotherhood.

  I’m an affectionate, demonstrative person with my feelings. If I love you, I like to let you know and usually by touching you in some way but I know people who aren’t and that’s okay too. One of my sisters wasn’t a touchy touchy person. In fact I never saw her pick up one of her kids and hug them or tell them she loved them. I know she did and they knew she did, she just wasn’t a ‘toucher’. We were totally opposite in our personalities but we were sisters and I loved her. That’s part of the point I’m trying to make here, if we are in the body of Christ, we are siblings, brothers and sisters. We may have different personalities, come from different parts of the world, speak another language and may even have different colors of skin but we are kin through the blood of Jesus, blood kin is what I like to call it.

  It should be said at this point that I don’t think there is anything wrong with having friends that enjoy the same types of things as you do. However, as a Christian we should never unite on the basis of anything above the gospel and we should not exclude people or isolate ourselves from people who love and cherish the same Christ. To put it another way, I have to ask myself if the basis for my friendships and relationships are earthly or eternal. As I look at those people I spend time with do they all like to watch ‘chick’ movies that make you cry or Happy Feet, (which by the way is my most favorite movie) or Shrek that will make you laugh and cry? Are there people that I hang out with that don’t share the same hobbies? Do I spend time with older people or single people or people who watch Nascar, football and drink Light Beer? I don’t do those things (watch Nascar, football or drink Light Beer) but I love people who do and that’s okay.

  Many of us are extremely biblical (religious) and God-centered in our beliefs, but regrettably release a ugly, stinky, self-centered, self-pleasing, practice with our relationships. (Don’t touch me, I’m too holy type attitude.) If you are a ‘cliquey’ person, get over yourself and fall in love with Christ and His unity producing gospel.

  Imagine with me ,if you will, the early church and its bringing together of different cultures to the Lord’s table. Colossians 3 paints the picture that there are no distinctions between “Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, male or female, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” Paul is saying one’s nationality or race or education or social position is unimportant; such things mean nothing. He is saying, do away with the cliques, the circles, the fences, the keeping people out. Quit making your brother or sister feel like an ‘outsider’.

 What Paul’s saying is whether a person has Christ is what matters “You are one in Christ. Go ahead and sit next to them. Talk with them. Share a meal with them. Give them a hug.”

In His love,
Elizabeth