It is so easy for people to think that church is a special club. They are in it, so it must be special.

And then they look around and they see people who don’t look like them. They are a different color or class or race. They are from a different culture or country.

And they don’t like it.

How can “those people” get in here? Like it makes them lesser, because the church is big enough for people who aren’t like them.

I’ve taken communion with homeless men. I’ve shared the cup with addicts and alcoholics. The person at the rail on one side of me is divorced. The other person is going to be divorced soon because she is cheating on her husband. Widows, orphans, and the wealthy are here.

We all are joined in this communion. We all are joined in this Body.

We are all crumbs
And we are all chosen.

And it is beautiful.

They aren’t “those people”. They are us with different faces and different stories. But they are us, all the same.

For us to exclude them or think they are lesser is to harm ourselves and to weaken the Body.

In the same way that a husband is married to his wife, when we are joined into the Body of Christ, we have to love all of it.

To paraphrase Pogo “We have met Christ, and He is us.”