Guest Post: “Where Do We See Jesus?” Jessica Boudreaux

“White people, you have to understand this: Jesus does not look like you!”

This was the opening line and the perpetual refrain of one Sunday’s sermon at a church that boasted of their intense inclusivity and rich diversity.

After recently moving from the conservative, rural American South to the liberal cityscape of the North, I was quite excited to see (almost all) the churches here openly proclaiming their inclusivity and diversity, which was a stark contrast to what I had been used to ‘back home.’ And I eagerly began visiting some of these places in hopes of finding a community where I finally felt that I belonged. Surely, if they were all so inclusive and welcoming and diverse, there would be space for me to come just as I am—and not have to work hard to merely ‘fit in’ with the crowd.

But suddenly, Jesus doesn’t look like me? He only looks like ‘other people’ who don’t look ‘like me’? I found out later, after emailing the pastor, that my hidden ‘diversities’ were not part of the specific diversities they were intending to include. I was welcome to ‘find a place to fit in’ (but not add to) their existing ‘diversity.’

St. John Chrysostom said once that if we cannot find the face of Jesus in the beggar outside the Church doors, we will never find Him inside the Chalice or the Bread.

I would like to add to this the idea that if we can’t also look around at all the people who have somehow managed to drag themselves inside of the church doors—including ourselves—coming in all the ways we find ourselves broken and in need of the Healer’s Touch (because, why else would we have come to church, if not because we ourselves are seeking to participate the Resurrection of the dead?) and see in the faces of everyone the Face of Christ, we are still missing the point.

In the area where I live, almost every church is proud to proclaim their inclusivity and diversity and how welcoming they are to “others.” To me, this sounds dangerously like the prayer of the Pharisee, relative to the Publican, in the parable Jesus tells us: “I (as part of the ‘us’ group) welcome and include you (as part of the ‘them’ group) into ‘our’ church!”

Inherent in this (probably well-meaning) invitation is the implicit assumption that—you are not like me, but I am being Jesus-like and am willing to include you into my group. Despite the particularities of what group it is that is seemingly being included, the statement is ripe with the division that is still being promoted. “There are those like us, and there are those who are not,” we seem to say.

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Unless I am having a hard day, I typically appear to be part of the ‘us’ group in almost every church gathering. I have white skin, and I identify as a cisgender, heterosexual female human. But what I secretly know is that, apart from my physical appearance, I am really not at all ‘like’ the people who would try to claim me as part of their ‘us’—and when they find out the invisible ‘differences’ in me (and they most certainly will if I allow myself to be known by them), I will most likely be excluded—even by the most inclusive-claiming groups, because I have been many times before.

And I suspect that most of the people who seem to like to find comfort in their ‘us-ness’ are also very terrified (like me) of their ‘them-ness’ being found out. But even if not (even if every single person of the ‘us’ camp was like a Stepford Wife), in our glorious attempts to include the excluded, we tend to become farsighted in those goals, missing the fact that even the ‘included’ ones have need of tending to.

Just because a sheep is found to be in the pasture, looking sufficiently sheep-ly to blend in with the flock, doesn’t mean that they somehow need less care or attention than those who find themselves fenced out or purposefully refusing to come into the pasture. All sheep are different, and all have different ways in which they need the shepherds of the flock to tend to them.

Is there anyone really like you, anyway? Are we active in our inclusion of all the diversities that comprise us as individuals? Or do we mean that we are only actively inclusive of the ones who are popularly being excluded at this moment in time? Do we still make sure our claims of inclusivity reach into groups of people with addictions, physical and mental illness, uncertain housing and food situations, unique life philosophies, bizarre clothing choices, the need to wash their hands often, or even those who vehemently dislike peanut butter? Because if this is truly our aim, we will not need to proclaim how inclusive we are—it will be sparklingly apparent in all the aspects of our attempts at forming and living together as a community.

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In my life, and maybe in every other person’s life too, the one I find it hardest to remember to include in the all-encompassing, ever-unfailing Love of Christ is myself.

So, yes—Jesus does look like me. And you. And literally every single human on this planet. And if we can’t see our Belovedness first and foremost, we will never know how to acknowledge the Belovedness of anyone else.

And to push St. John a little further—If I can’t see Jesus when I look in the mirror, I have no hope of seeing Him in the face of any other person—or even knowing that He comes to me in Bread and Wine.

If Jesus doesn’t look like me, then he doesn’t look like the beggar on the street—or the widow or the orphan or the hungry or the sick- because all of those people live inside the depths of my own heart. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ that we need to reconcile—only the paradigm of division. This signifies that it needs to be healed. There is only the One Body of Christ, and we desperately need to remember that we are all tiny little crumbs, pressed together, and together, forming One Holy Loaf.

And from that position of abiding in Truth, inclusion becomes definitional—when we know that we are all inseparably united together eternally to Him and to each other in the Incarnation, we know that we are One—and there is no ‘other’ we ever need to ‘include.’ Jesus has already done all the ‘including’ for us—our work is to live lives that show we submit to that inclusion, not merely loudly proclaim it with words laden with politics and ambiguity.

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Jessica Boudreaux is a graduate of St. Stephen’s University (NB) and writes poetry in her free time.

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