Mid-Week Meditation: What if God was One of Us...

I was on a run yesterday morning when I heard the Joan Osborne's song, "One of Us," a rhetorical pondering of God's identity.  "What if God was one of us," Osborne chants, "Just a slob like one of us.  Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home."

Osborne is a meaty, heavy (I mean substantive.  Geez.  How in the world did these terms become bad ones?)  soul singer.  She has real staying power in the music industry, but perhaps without "One of Us," the popular culture and the hipsters alike would have nothing to do with her.  So, I accept the song for what it is--a carefully packaged appeal to the spiritual questions of the masses, without being too preachy or religious.

I appreciate what the song does and I assume that when she asks the question about God being one of us, she means it in the Matthew 25:31-46 manner:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’"

I assume she means her question in this context because, we know that God was one of us in the form of Jesus.  And we also know that, as Osborne's song laments, He was not treated favorably by many.  I believe that not much has changed.  If Christ came to one of our churches, we would still treat Him unfavorably because He didn't have on a suit, or the right shoes, or didn't have the right shave and haircut and couldn't prove His prominence within the community.

Several years ago, I asked a few people I knew to stop by my church and sit in the back for service over the span of a few weeks.  Some had criminal records, some were not wealthy and some were not dressed in church gear.  I asked them to stop by, not to test people in the pew, but simply to have the people stop by enjoy the worship service.  I found that without exception, the people that I asked to attend were treated uniformly--they were treated well, but with kid gloves, as if they had done something wrong by simply stopping by for worship service. 

My church is as warm a place to worship as you can find.  But, if Christians are to, as the scriptures call on us to do, treat everyone as if we were entertaining God, then we have a considerable amount of work to do.