One night during General Assembly I was out with a group for a beer. As we were sitting there, one in the group said to me, “You know what they say, sometimes you’re a packer, sometimes you’re a packee.” And boom, there it is, a Presbyterian churchman just made a real lame Paki joke, directed at me, letting me know that he knows I’m a Paki.
Oh, and this isn’t the first time—I’ve been called “swarthy,” and “dark,” and people have used a funny accent. I rarely respond, and I didn’t again that night. Given the constant and steady ubiquity of the reference, what am I going to say? And it always backfires; folks are apologetic to my face, but walk away thinking, “he needs to lighten up.”
I’m not bitter or angry, I think. It’s a thing that happened; still, it does burn inside of me. I don’t want to go to church; I don’t want to embarrass myself by being, you know, me, amongst the real Presbyterians. In the weeks since that comment, it has grown like a cancer inside me.
Oh I know it’s just one person who was being familiar and funny. He’s a good person, I like him, he made a bad joke. Heaven knows I’ve made thousands like that; something that falls flat soon as you say it. I know it’s not institutional. But still it eats at me.
I was born into a Presbyterian family, have been a member of this denomination for over 40 years, have been an elder, have spoken from pulpits, occupy a visible position within the church. But I’m still a Paki because I do not look like or have the history of a supposed demographic that defines the Presbyterian Church in Canada. (Even as I write this I feel pathetic having to defend my presence.) I am and always will be an outsider; I’m not Presbyterian enough.
And not just me. Anyone who falls outside that imagined self – definition of Presbyterian suffers the same fate. If you’re of British or Scottish descent (pure laine for centuries), middle – aged and male, you’re in. You’re immediately recognized as the church. If you’re not, you’re not. Oh, you can be an elder, you are encouraged to tithe, take out a membership, bolster the budget, but—and here let me speak to my fellow outsiders—you know you’re told in very subtle ways (and occasionally vulgarly) that you’re not really Presbyterian.
I justified my own failure last month as an example of systemic thinking. And perhaps this is as well. But I knew last month as I was writing my excuse that it is no solace to the victims. And it is no solace to me here when the tables are turned. In other words: The onus is on me to be understanding and forgiving. It’s so exhausting. I don’t think this is the intention of Matthew 5:39. Is there a theologian in the house who is also not a hater?
I’m a confident member of this denomination but incidents like this make me wonder what if I wasn’t. What if I was a newer Christian or Canadian, what if I was younger, older, darker, shorter, female, homosexual, Aboriginal? What if I was different in the million ways there are to be different from the narrow definition of “Canadian Presbyterian?” Would I still be a child of God in the eyes of the church and its members?
As it is, I’m left in one of the outer courts of the temple, told to be content. It’s not really working for me. Luckily, God, through Christ, is a lot more embracing. The church, I dare say, needs to follow His lead.
