The Fight

I’m breaking from my daily format and stepping back to share some thoughts on all that’s happened so far this week. Plus, after reading yesterday’s entry, I think I slipped into a bunch of incomprehensible insider jargon that made my eyes glaze over when I read it.

So a couple of weeks ago, as I was getting preparing for the Vacation Bible School our church was going to offer, I got a call from one of the denominational affinity groups. The woman on the phone was explaining the role this group would be playing at the national gathering of church folks. She told me that there would be daily opportunities to gather with them to hear about issues that were coming before the assembly. These were invitation only events, she added. Oh, the temptation. I was being invited to be an insider, to huddle together with ostensibly like-minded people so that we could advance a particular agenda. Given what I’ve seen this week, I feel even better about my decision to decline that invitation.

What I’ve seen is people huddled around tables, consulting phones for texts from other allies in the cause of like-mindedness. I’ve seen people wearing their badges and tokens of like-mindedness. And as they huddle together, strategizing, they speak of their opponents using labels: liberal, evangelical, orthodox, apostate. Making it worse, this is all happening under the guise of faith. It is baptized in prayers that are belied by the conversations that follow. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so terribly depressing.

Looking at these strategic machinations, it’s hard to distinguish this gathering from the civic political process. We’re supposed to be trying to listen and act on God’s will for us, but instead it looks like rival parties vying for control and victory. When winning the vote becomes that important, it’s pretty clear that the church has already lost.  The people who populate our pews, the people who send bring their kids to Sunday School, the people trying to understand their own story in light of God’s story, the people who want nothing more than to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ deserve better from us.

The other night I got to spend time with an old friend who belongs to a splinter denomination in another Christian tradition. That wouldn’t be my choice. But then we have made a lot of different choices. There is much about the way he leads his life and lives his faith that I admire. It makes me take a closer look at my own life and faith. Ultimately, though, I know him. He is my friend. The passion he brings to his faith inspires me, even if I don’t necessarily share certain positions. He is more than my friend, he is my brother in Christ. We don’t have to share governance, political opinions, or even theological positions. We still share the only like-mindedness that matters: the mind of Christ Jesus who

though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,  but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

When we lose that humility that the Apostle Paul calls us to in favor of the fight, I’m afraid we lose far more than a vote on the floor of a church council that in the great sweep of things matters very little. Because the things we decide this week aren’t nearly as important (nowhere in the vicinity of being as important) as how we decide them. We’ve got to do better. The way we do better is to stop trying to win and approach one another in love and humility, resting in the Grace and Mercy of God, which is the only thing that can save us.

This morning’s plenary was opened with words from Rabbi Gil Rosenthal who said this, “people who do not speak to one another do unspeakable things to one another.” Amen, and amen.