Church as Family?
The man in the picture is Erik Johan Tolkkinen, my maternal great grandfather. He was born in Finland in 1859 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1882 when he was 23 years old. He and his wife Helena Oillia raised 11 children on a farm in the frigid prairies of New York Mills, Minnesota—they were tough people. It doesn’t seem sufficient to say that the Tolkkinen family attended the Finnish Apolstolic Lutheran Church in New York Mills. More than attend it, they were embedded in it. It was where they did their community organizing, got their news, and arranged their children’s marriages. It was where they could speak in Finnish (and where their children learned English). For those of us living in modern urban cities, we think of church as a place we go to in order to exercise our faith. For my great-grandfather, there were no boundaries between church, community and family. They were all one. As charming as that kind of closeness may sound to us today, many experienced it as claustrophobic. I understand now why my mother always used to say “church is the place where people go to fight about things.”
In 2019 I attended services at the Finnish Apolstolic Lutheran Church in New York Mills. A few people made eye contact with me and one or two even talked to me–a rare expression of acceptance for a visitor in that small town. The only reason I got such a “warm” Finnish welcome was because I am a Tolkkinen. Those who are not a part of the town’s lineage could live their whole lives there, raise children, die and be buried there and they would still be referred to as the “outsider.”
For the Finnish immigrants who arrived in New York Mills, xenophobia was a survival instinct. It served a purpose. But for us today, it’s a community killer. In our world, we must be open to a free-flow of people—not just for the sake of our survival, but in order to truly carry out our vocation as a place where all people may find a deeper purpose for their lives. The Christian church was born to be a place where people of different ethnicities, status, perspectives, and life experiences could come together—not through their shared interests—but through Christ. Following the model of Jesus, the church is meant to be a society of people who have nothing in common and who might never mix socially under other circumstances. That kind of outreach is uncomfortable—it goes against our instincts. We have to push ourselves past our comfort zone to reach out our hand to strangers and actively make a place for them.
I understand that some people call church a “family” as an expression of the closeness and affection they feel for one another. Yet such language has unintended consequences. But when new people hear it said that we are family, they also hear that they are not family. At its core, the function of a family is to protect its resources from outsiders for the preservation of its own progeny. Many families are welcoming and hospitable. Yet because of their close ties, families also have the unique ability to (very subtly) circle the wagons without saying a word so that anyone who approaches understands that this space (money, food, affection) belongs to us. In contrast, the purpose of the Church is to throw open its doors wide so that all can find a welcome in Christ. We don’t ever want to circle our wagons, intentionally or unintentionally. If we do, we may still call ourselves a family, but we may also find that we cease being the Church.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Jen
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