The outsider as insider

Every Sunday, Christian churches engage in a whole range of unusual activities.

To the 'insider' these activities are well-known, even well-loved. He is so familiar with these weekly rituals that he does them automatically, with the minimum fuss (and thought). The insider knows what to call these ancient rites: hymn, chorus, prayer, Bible reading/lesson, sermon/message, collection/offering, communion/Lord's Supper.

But for some reason, another person persists in attending these Sunday observances. The insiders label him an 'outsider' and to him, these activities which seem so remote from his outsider's world, are anything but familiar.

He hears some songs with old-fashioned (i.e. pre-2005) tunes (which everyone else seems to think are modern), and with unfamiliar (and too many) words. He hears someone read from the Bible (yes, he's heard of that best-seller), which says some unfamiliar things in some unfamiliar ways. He watches as the group around him suddenly kneel, or crouch forward with eyes shut, or adopt a contorted half-way position. Then he hears them speak to God as if He can actually hear them. He wonders why some guy shoves a large wooden plate under his nose (can't they afford china?). It's got money in it and he's obviously supposed to add a bit of his own lucre, but who knows why? And the next thing you know, everyone is up out of their wooden benches (he thought only parks used wooden benches, and even there it's mainly for the pigeons), gloomily single-filing down the aisle to the front to have a tiny piece of bread and a gulp of wine from a large cup which they all, quite distastefully, share. He even hears someone mentioning an 'outsider' - perhaps they've a closed circuit relay to somewhere outside?

For our 'outsider' doesn't think of himself as an 'outsider'. He may feel like the odd one out in the group, but he still feels that he is part of the group - he is there, isn't he?

The difference is really between those who come occasionally and those who come more often. It's a long-term difference. Those who come often have the opportunity to get their ways and practices entrenched so that it is other people who have to feel uncomfortable, not them. The occasional church-goer doesn't have this opportunity so he is left to feel 'unfamiliar'. However, familiarity aside, when they are all in the same place, at the same time, doing (in varying degrees) the same thing, they are all the same. At that point there are no 'outsiders'. Everyone is there, together. Everyone is an 'insider' - even the 'outsider'!

All the same, many of our newly-labelled 'insiders' still feel mighty strange about what goes on. And who can blame them? Where else do you pray or sing communally or read out loud or sit and listen to a monologue or...? These things only have meaning to someone who understands their rationale.

Is there any point during this Sunday gathering at which our erstwhile outsider can feel at home? Better than one point, there are two.

The first is the people. Sure, these particular people may or may not be familiar and they are doing some strange things, but they are still familiar because they are people not martians. When our 'outsider' walks through the ornate front door and becomes an 'insider', he immediately sees a commodity he knows and understands - other human beings. He lives and moves amongst them every day. The only question that remains is what this group of people is like - friendly or rude; welcoming or insular; good blokes or odd fellows.

The second point of contact is the 'sermon' (if you are a long-termer) or 'the time when someone talks at you about the Bible' (if you are a more recent arrival). OK, the subject matter might be different (where else do you hear about Christ and the Bible) and it might be unusual to hear anyone talk for longer than a two-minute media report, but the 'sermon' is still a point of contact. For, if the 'preacher' (='guy talking') is not a monkey, the odds are that he is using words. And words are as familiar to us as breathing - in fact, we often take a breath only to exhale through some sentence or another.

But hang on one minute, just about everything else in these Sunday meetings is done with words too. Why single out the sermon? It is true that most of the rest of the meeting is conducted in human language and so has the smell of familiarity about it. But the 'guy talking' bit is special.

For he is explaining God's word to this group, and if he is doing his job properly, he is bringing news from God about the world everybody left to come to this Sunday meeting. Our outsider-come-insider has just walked out of this world - now the guy is talking about it. And that is contact.

But the guy doesn't only talk about this familiar world (you can watch the news for that from your own bed). He goes further. He talks about the Bible and how God has a word to say about this world. God has the word to say, and that word is Jesus Christ.

As all the insiders listen together to the guy talking about good news for their familiar world, we begin to understand the rest of the peculiar activities on that strange Sunday. The familiar illuminating the unfamiliar. The outsider becoming a real insider.

Originally published in The Briefing Issue #23, April 1989