The Worst Word in the English Language

    This past Saturday, I joined my wife Kathy and our youngest son Casey in Flat Rock NC for our annual visit to the home of Carl Sandburg.  For the past eight years, after picking up Casey from Camp Tekoa in Hendersonville, we've paid our respects to the "People's Poet", visiting his home (Connemara) playing with the goats (eating some goat-milk fudge), sitting on the big rock about behind the house where Carl Sandburg loved to write, while remembering and reflecting about the value of words to speak to the human condition and to the strength of the human spirit.

    And this past Saturday, as we've done before, we watched a video.  It was a video of an interview with Mr. Sandburg conducted by famed newsman Edward R. Murrow.  During the interview, Murrow asked Carl an interesting question:

   "What do you think is the worst word in the English language?"

   The reply came quickly - "Exclusive."

   He went on to say that the word exclusive is the worst and most despicable of English words, because it allows us to exclude others from our hearts and minds.

   I've thought a good bit about Carl Sandburg's reply over the past few days.  I've thought about it in light of my recent reflections about the church, about faith and grace. 

   First let me say, that as a middle-aged, white, American, Christian, male, I readily admit that I have never been the victim of injustice due to the color of my skin - I've never been marginalized due to my ethnic background, language or accent - I don't know what it must feel like to receive less pay for equal work due to my gender - I have never experienced persecution at the hands of anyone because of my faith.  

   I've never been victimized by personal or systemic racism, never been profiled, never falsely accused or unreasonably suspected.  I've never been the victim of cultural, political or religious bias or prejudice.

   In fact, if truth be told, its people like me - middle-aged, white, American, Christian males, who have traditionally been the power brokers of our cultural, political, religious and societal institutions. Consequently its people like me who have been most often guilty of building the kinds of walls designed to keep people (unlike me) out and making the rules to keep people (like me) ahead of the game. 

  Of course, I know the pain of personal slights and insults. I know the wounds of being de-valued, disregarded, disrespected and ignored (After all, I am a pastor...and a parent!).  However, any personal stories I may have of feeling excluded are not worthy of mention, in light of the systemic kinds of exclusion many people have faced their entire lives.

   And so, Carl Sandburg spoke to me all the way from 1954 this past Saturday, and burned a bad word in my memory.  "Exclusive."  

   Living exclusive lives - with hearts and minds protected behind gated communities, circling the wagons, keeping others out, avoiding the unclean, despising the Samaritan - does not describe a Jesus-centered life.

   Living exclusive lives is what we do when we put labels on people, easily de-humanizing them.  By labeling we categorize people like lab rats, allowing us to keep others at a safe distance.   Labeling is a way for "us" to identify (and distance ourselves from) "them".   

   It's what we've been guilty of in the church much too often.  May God forgive us for all the times we have shown more hostility than hospitality to those unlike us, for the times we've been silent in the face of hate, injustice and violence, for the times our language and actions have been un-kind, un-loving, un-Christian....in a word, "exclusive."

  As the church, we are not called to be the gate-keepers of the kingdom.  Regardless of what we may think, not one of us has been gifted with sufficient discernment, nor have we been entrusted with the task of identifying and pulling the weeds from the Master's garden, lest in our self-righteous, sincere exuberance we yank up a handful of God's most precious and prized wheat.

  I don't know about you, but I can't imagine a scenario where even the most dogmatic, close-minded, religious fundamentalist could feel good about standing before the thrown of God on that day, boasting how he or she protected God's church from the likes of "them." 

  I'm thinking a lot of things about the church these days.  Some things are troubling and sad, things like barrenness and brokenness, decline and death.  But I'm also thinking about things like faithfulness and fruitfulness, things like repentance, renewal and resurrection.

  And today I'm thinking that I agree with Carl Sandburg.


Grace and Peace!

Pastor Randy