Michael pushed the intercom button just outside the office doors and with a friendly “come in” one of the volunteer receptionists “buzzed” him in. There he stood, in the area just outside the main office door, waiting to see a minister. I was “on call.” Moments later Michael sat in my office. His hair was in dread locks. His clothes were meager at best. He seemed to wear the markings of a difficult life on his young but weathered face. It was in his eyes. And it was below his eyes. Tattooed initials cascaded down his cheek like teardrops. They seemed to spill onto his neck and arms in a tapestry of art and symbolism and vocabulary. The familiar aroma of cigarette smoke wafted off of him like a dark cloud amidst the sanitized air of the church offices.
Michael was looking for “gas money.” I wondered if he was looking for more as he told stories of attempted murder and felony charges and time served. He grinned with a glimmer of pride when he talked about the job he had secured at the local Do-It-Yourself Superstore. They didn’t usually hire felons, especially those with his rap sheet. At least that’s what he assumed. He considered himself lucky, or blessed. I’m honestly not sure which word he chose. But the pride in his smile was replaced by hurt and a scowl when he described the last time he had been to a church service. It had been about six months, just after he was released on parole. He and his girlfriend found their way to a church building that morning because he “knew he needed it.” The stares coupled with the absence of conversation made them feel unwelcome. They perceived that there was simply no place for them in church and vowed to each other not to go back.
I had not asked him about church. I certainly had not asked him when he had last been to a church service. But he felt compelled to share. Perhaps to build a case for why I ought to help him with some cash. But as he finished telling me about the painful experience his eyes inquisitively searched may face for any sign that I could give him that he would experience our church differently. I found myself being silently interrogated and wriggling under the pressure of personal and corporate guilt. Could I truthfully tell him that he and his girlfriend would be welcomed with open arms this coming Sunday, that no one would be caught staring at his tattoos instead of his eyes when engaging him in conversation, that he would be engaged in meaningful and welcoming conversation at all?
My fear is that we would say a whole lot without saying anything at all whether we even realized it or not. A prickly person like Michael, just by showing up, would instantly threaten to burst our carefully protected bubble. In prison he had daily encountered walls and fences designed to keep him hemmed in. In church he would far too likely encounter walls and fences designed to keep him hedged out.
It’s not as if we intend to be as ungracious and pretentious as we can appear. We consider ourselves to be kind and hospitable. A rare person will read this and find themselves saying, “deservedly so, Michael, and people like him should have no place in church.” But unfortunately, also rare, is the person who would invite him for lunch after service, or to be part of their life group. Most Christians agree that there is a place for Michael in the Kingdom of God, they are just lest sure there is a place for him among them specifically. There must be some place that someone “like Michael” can go to be around people more “like him.” Perhaps if we were more honest we would realize that he is in exactly the right place among exactly the right people for we are far more “like him” than we are willing to concede. The difficulties of Michael’s life are literally written all over his face. Ours are a bit more concealed and somehow we (I) have found a way to take pride in that fact as if it made us better than Michael, rather than worse.
But for the grace of God…
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