Portland, Oregon is an urban center wedged between Mt. Hood, the Williamette Valley, and the Tualatin Mountains. The massive Columbia River provides access to the Pacific Ocean making it a working seaport, even though it rests some ninety miles inland. The downtown area bustles with Intel engineers, remnants of the hippie movement, and scads of outdoor enthusiasts who punch the clock in town only to be able to slip away to the high desert of Bend or the rocky coast any chance they get.
On Saturday mornings, you can find all these Oregonians mingling side-by-side with artists, entrepreneurs, farmers, and performers at the Saturday market. This multi-block adventure of sight, sound, and smell is a mix of farmer’s market, art crawl, American Idol audition, and garage sale. Street musicians and jugglers are wedged between vegan food stands, chainsaw art displays, and hemp clothing booths. It is a diverse feast for the senses and the soul that reflect the popular bumper sticker and billboard, “Keep Portland Weird.”
Years ago, when I lived in Minneapolis, one of my sisters drove from Ohio to Minnesota for a summer visit and made the observation that many of the restaurants and stores along the five state adventure were the same as those where she lived. Canton, Ohio had Cracker Barrel, Subway, and Applebee’s, but so did Merrillville, Rockford, and Madison. If she needed some lumber from Lowe’s or an ink cartridge from Office Depot, she wouldn’t have to wait until she returned to Canton, but could pull off at any number of upper Midwest exits and grab what she needed.
She mentioned how disturbing it was to witness “the homogenization of America.” Mile after mile, chain stores and restaurants were taking over. Every town was beginning to look the same. Gone were so many of the mom and pop diners, corner markets, neighborhood hardware stores, and independent movie theaters.
Thankfully, homogenization is not God’s hope and vision for the Christian Church. While Jesus talks about unity in the Church and his followers being of one mind, there is no expectation that we all become carbon copies of one another.
One of the beautiful and powerful things about the Christian Church is God’s desire to keep it diverse and unpredictable and well...weird. I even saw a bumper sticker that said as much - “Keep Church Weird.” The people of God throughout the world are brought together for worship and togetherness from all walks of life, with varied interests and talents. There are those who text and tweet praying alongside those who don’t embrace technology beyond a color TV. Widowers sing beside newlyweds and newborns. Cancer survivors, teachers, fast food workers, and college students reach out to one another as they “share the peace.”
We sing and pray together in worship, not because we look the same, vote the same, were born on the same continent, or wear the same clothes, but because our hearts and minds are united when God meets us in the ripples of baptismal waters, a sip of wine, and a morsel of bread. No matter our race, age, or sexual orientation, God welcomes us as we ask for forgiveness and seek reconciliation, and seek love and meaning in our lives.
Leif Grane says, “The church is [universal] because it includes people from all over the earth…The church is characterized precisely by the fact that the church and the people in the church are not identical.” As this reality spills into our lives, some may say it is weird, strange, or bizarre. Jesus calls it faith, hope, and love.
Keeping it weird,
Pastor Lowell