Closed Curtains

Krish Kandiah talks about growing up in the United Kingdom. One person he writes about is an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Oglive.

Mrs. Oglive was dependable. She was always home. He left a spare key to his house with her just in case.

The woman did not leave her home. She suffered from an anxiety condition called agoraphobia, the fear of open spaces. In four decades, she never crossed her front threshold. Once her husband died, she became even more reclusive.

Her pictures over the fireplace told a different story, lost to the past. There were honeymoon pictures and days at the beach playing with her children.

But now she was in, and she kept the curtains closed.

It is easy to close the curtains of the church. The world “outside” is dangerous, and we treat it as a contaminant. But Jesus sought out the dirtiest, most immoral people. He knew they were not polluting but lost.

Think of what would have happened if Christianity had closed the curtains to its world. Zaccheus would have gone home disappointed. A Gentile father would drag Timothy into his pagan world. And angry Paul would continue to terrorize those he did not understand.

Instead, we read of the “redeemed and saved” those headed in the wrong direction and turned around.

That church did not close the curtains, and neither should we.