Two-Minute Homily Members Only By Harry T. Cook It is a fact that a lot about institutional religion is exclusivist in nature. A church can sometimes resemble a gated community -- despite the clich�d bulletin board notice in front of tens of thousands of churches, which reads something like: ALL ARE WELCOME. As desperate as local churches, especially those of the declining mainline denominations, are these days for membership, visitors can turn out to be unwanted strangers if they do not look the part of decent American churchgoers. A lesbian friend of mine tells of walking one Sunday morning into a new church in the company of her partner. They were holding hands. "The stares of abject horror that greeted us belied the message on the sign out front, which said, 'God's House; Not Ours.' " The stares were saying that either it was really the house of the staring ones or that God was not welcoming of same-sex relationships. The stares said, in effect, that the church was a gated community into which the two women had essentially snuck. Undaunted, the couple kept returning Sunday after Sunday until at long last the found acceptance, mainly, they thought, because they saw to the tasks around the church with which no one else wanted to bother. "We became indispensible," one of the couple said with a broad and knowing smile. I asked my friends what it was they were seeking. Were they seeking a pastor who could preach entertaining sermons? Did they want good church music -- often an oxymoronic expectation, by the way? Did they want to be able to receive communion? No, they said. They were seeking community, to be part of a human organism composed of people who care about people of all sorts and conditions -- people who wanted to do something about the needs of others. They said they wanted to be known as N. and N., not as "that couple." They wanted to be part of the community they were seeking. It was a long haul for them, but eventually the stares stopped and what was behind them seemed to melt away into basic human kindness. "We turned out not to have some contagious disease," one of the women told me. The Canaanite woman of today's gospel narrative was also seeking community -- the community of attention. You can almost hear her speak Linda Loman's line to an unheeding Jesus, "Attention must be paid." Such attention is not generally paid unless and until that which demands it finally makes it case or has it made by an advocate. My daughter is in mental anguish, her mother pleaded. Attention must be paid. It is said that Jesus healed the daughter's mental illness by remote control. Of course he did not. What heals that kind of illness, if it can be healed at all rather than gently and patiently tolerated, is the attention of taking it seriously. What heals the wounds of rejection and pulls down the walls of fear and opens the gates of exclusion is nothing more or less than acceptance and the embrace of those wounded, of those feared and of those excluded. Hillel the Elder, who memorably said, "What you hate, do not do to another," might have said to his younger contemporary who at first would not countenance the Canaanite woman's presence: Would you, my young friend, wish to be ignored and rejected in a time of great need? No? Well, then, remember that attention must be paid. | 
