How can we be on Christ’s “cutting edge”?

We seem to have a fascination with being on the cutting edge. Recently, I stopped at a local electronics store for a few moments before picking up my children from school. Unaware that it was any special day, I strolled through a fairly empty store.

As I stood looking at the new releases, my eyes caught a mass of people circling the inside wall of the store starting in the computer section. I wondered what was going on? Soon, someone asked if I was looking for the line waiting for the release of the newest iPad. Those in line couldn’t wait for the latest that technology could offer them.

Those of us in the church often have a desire to be on the cutting edge as well. In doing so however, we may miss those who really are on the edge. The people on the edge or fringe of our churches are often those whom members question, reject, and even deny. They don’t always conform to our church member “molds.” They may look different, ask difficult or unique questions, and have needs that the majority of those gathered do not.

Don’t Scripture and the early church teach us something about reaching out to those on the edge? Isn’t it the duty of the church to be the group that courageously goes to the edges, to the “least of the brothers and sisters” and even to the enemy? This is what being “cutting edge” in the church should be. How “cutting edge” is our local parish? How well are we reaching the “least of these”?

Author Richard Rohr says, “When any church defines itself by exclusion, it is always wrong. It is avoiding its only vocation, which is to be the Christ. Only as the People of God receive the stranger, the sinner, and the immigrant, those who don’t play our game our way, do we discover not only the hidden, feared, and hated parts of our own souls, but the fullness of Jesus himself.”

Only when we venture out to the cutting edge do we begin to see the full picture that Jesus intended His church to be. Many churches have become comfortable with a photograph that is only half developed – so they don’t have to see the people Jesus sees - the people that He wants His church to reach with His grace and peace.

What if our churches stopped trying to be on the “cutting edge” as the world describes and instead got on Christ’s “cutting edge”? What would this look like? We may again see miracles, experience fuller lives and again see Christ in our neighbor. What can we do today to be on Christ’s “cutting edge”?

by Rev. Robert S. Henry

First Appeared in the April 2011 FWLutheran Newspaper