Here's one of the more counter-cultural things of which I am fairly convicted:

Who we choose to neighbour with, to pray with, to worship with, to fellowship with - these are not spiritually neutral decisions. Most often, we choose the path of greatest comfort and least challenge, and then justify it theologically or emotionally.

I have heard so many people talk about "finding a home" in one place or another, and I am genuinely happy that they find places of comfort. The trouble is, invariably, these found homes tend to be more excellent at meeting tailored emotional and social needs than at creating environments for spiritual challenge and growth.

Emotional and social needs should be met. But is this the primary function of Church? Is it not rather to enable one another to follow Jesus, the one who spoke of denying ourselves daily and picking up our cross? Is it possible that we have supplanted his command with our demands?

I confess (and this truly is a confession) I have little energy for trying to meet emotional and social needs, particularly of those in privilege. I know we should have the kinds of conversations and relationships that help people confront, address, and find healing in and through their pain, no matter what it is. We should be places and people of deep welcome. But what if our welcome, even our pain, becomes exclusive? What if the conversations we have are so centered around the particular pain of our own social groupings, that those who are "other" than us, who have experienced a wholly different kind of pain, cannot gain access? What if they become unwelcome because they are distracting from our own desire to be comforted?

When our pain and our need become exclusive and paramount, we can lose touch with the radically inclusive suffering and healing of Jesus. Jesus told his disciples that they were to be his witness in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. They were fine with Jerusalem and Judea, but wanted nothing to do with Samaria and the ends of the earth. Those were "others". Their experience was entirely different, and almost entirely unwelcome. They had found a home with one another, and were, seemingly, relatively comfortable. And then the Spirit drove them out of Jerusalem through the ravagings of Saul, and they were forced to confront the problem of converts among Ethiopians, Samaritans, Romans, etc...

They were not really at home in these environments. Paul certainly wasn't. But they were commanded to make home in these places, to receive strange hospitality, to call one another brother and sister, to give up their privileges and rights in order to make space for people they previously would have crossed the street (or the countryside) to avoid. They were told to humble themselves, to not think highly of themselves, to become servants (and not in some modern missionary concept of servanthood where we still essentially maintain the client-service provider power dynamics). They therefore had to rely on the Holy Spirit to be their comforter, because their worldly circumstances were not actually very comfortable or comforting.

Being comforted is important. But we are meant to receive this comfort primarily from the Spirit of God, who seems to have some specific intentions for what his Church is meant to be. In particular, we are meant to learn the comfort of God in the midst of a new, strange family that looks very different than the expectations of the world.