The In-Group

Who is in your in-group?  And what will you do for them?

Will you tell them when they are wrong?  Will you try to understand them?

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children— “My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.” - Hebrews 12:5-6

In today's reading from Paul's letter to the Hebrews, he quotes Proverbs 3, describing how God chastises all He accepts as His own.

This sounds rough, like an early example of tough love, but the message in Proverbs is bigger than that.  It is actually at the heart of the human problem, for it talks to who is in and who is out.

Those who trust in God and hold Him close form a community of faith, a people of God and it is to these that Paul is speaking, reminding them that they chose to be brothers and sisters in Christ.

They have formed their own In-Group, and how they treat each other within that group matters.  How they will be treated by those outside the group is another matter.  That is where the discipline comes in.

Today, God seems to be a charter member of a lot of different in-groups.  The rhetoric and profanities spewed by so many in defense of their fellow in-group members leads me to wonder if God is truly present in any of these gatherings, whether they are in His name or not.

I guess we would all like to think He is on our side, in our corner, and that we are marching to His drumbeat, but how do we know for certain?

So long as we believe our position is just and true, why listen to anything else?

Yesterday I saw a clip of the protests at Union Square and though many participants marched peacefully, one college professor was caught on camera cursing the police among others.

I am sure she was not hearing anything other than her own voice, and I wonder if all who had marched with her felt she was a good spokesperson for them.

The loudest voices get the attention, and in the process, the message may be drowned out.

We have come a long way from those who believed in the time of Jesus that the end was coming soon and they had better focus on being right with God.

I believe that life itself is an act of discipline.  We are given space to plant ourselves and see how large a circle of in-group members we can include in the world we create.

God sends us challenges and we turn them into obstacles and enemies.  Is that what He wants us to do?

Today, I think I will extend my hand to someone whose in-group is different from mine, and let's see if we can find a way to hear each other.  And as Paul said, "Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart."

More to come...