COMMENTARY:
Common ground
___By Tom Ehrich
___DURHAM, N.C. (RNS)--I hear wild laughter from our back yard. I see my 9-year-old son playing with a new friend.
___They know each other through a science program. They ask a child's version of the where-are-you-from questions that adults ask: "How do you eat pizza?" "What games do you have for your Game Boy?" "Do you like basketball?"
___The answers serve mostly as an opportunity for each to reveal his own interests. This isn't a test, but an attempt to find common ground for an afternoon of play.
___Meanwhile, the boys' parents sit inside and do their own relationship-building. We talk about interests and experiences. Some are similar; some are different. There are no right

When Jesus taught the multitude, he did not conduct an identity check.

answers. We are looking for common ground.
___That common ground won't be where we used to live, but where we are now. Our backgrounds matter less than our needs. Our differences matter less than our common quest. What I am drawn to is a sparkle in the eye, enthusiasm in the voice, curiosity about the world, gentleness of spirit.
___The particulars of "been there, done that" fill in the mosaic, but mostly they are an occasion for eyes to sparkle.
___I have been in situations, however, where used-to-be was everything, where relationship-building was actually an identity check, a vetting, a verification that I was worthy or potentially useful.
___Seemingly innocuous questions--"Where did you go to college?" "Where are your children in school?" "Where do you work?" "What religion were you raised?"--were actually a test. My answers would determine whether I was allowed in.
___I expect such vetting in employment interviews. The worst of it, however, has come in churches.
___I have seen congregations freeze out the differently dressed, verify that the single worshipper has a spouse at home, listen for clues about social standing, turn away from practitioners of "unusual" religions and apply a hundred litmus tests on belief and behavior.
___As a professional, married, white male, I get less of this than some. But I have had noses turn up at irrelevant details, like being from Indiana. And closed arms suddenly open at some signal. "He's one of us."
___When Jesus taught the multitude, he did not conduct an identity check. He had no apparent interest in pedigrees, tribal affiliations, ethnic heritage or religious background.
___Jesus saw people in the present. He used words like "are" and "now." He understood that God's promises are not bound by history, but are grace going forward. Whatever we bring with us to the table, God feeds us now. Consistency with past prejudices meant nothing to Jesus.
___His predecessors had rigid hierarchical views, but he treated people as equal. His predecessors treated women as dirt, but he embraced women as friends. His predecessors asked God to rain fire on those whom they named sinners, but he believed God loved all. His predecessors lived for vengeance, but he lived for forgiveness.
___When he taught, Jesus was surrounded by country folk and city folk, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, sinners and saints, locals and foreigners. He taught them all, fed them all.
___Why is it, then, that in the name of one who saw no barriers, we Christians require identity checks, baptismal certificates, denominational verification, avowal of party line, adherence to particular creed and attainment of certain personal standards?
___What could it matter to the "body of Christ" where I went to college? From what does a congregation protect itself by enforcing doctrinal standards?
___ What of any gospel value is gained when congregations erect formal barriers? Or even informal barriers, like the subtle ways congregations prefer the married to the divorced, the employed to the unemployed, the healthy to the unhealthy, homeowners to transients, young to old?
___It is tragic when people test each other and parade their pedigrees. It is arrogant when we treat our community norms as God's requirements and our prejudices as God's will.
___But it is blasphemous when we do so in the name of Jesus, who was a fellow victim of humanity's hatreds, not a perpetrator.


___Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. He lives in Durham, N.C.









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