A Divided World Doesn't Need a Divided Church

 

I don’t know about you, but every three years an event happens in our country that I just can’t wait to be over. It starts with an announcement – on this day, this year, New Zealanders will be able to choose who represents them – who has the interests of our country at heart. And then it starts, first it a few announcements, but it is not long before it dominates everyday discussion; it is not long before people enter into arguments about who we should follow. We are all picking sides, going round saying ‘I’m on Winnie’s side’, ‘I’m for Luxon’, ‘Hipkins is my man.’ And the pious and religious of us take an upper hand – ‘I’m in the Messiah Group.”

Okay, I am bringing the example of our election to demonstrate just how divided we can be at times in the pursuit of following a leader. But it happens in the church as well and I want to suggest that in a divided world doesn’t need a divided church.

But the reality is the church is divided. There is a reason why we have so many dominations in the world – disagreement and the pursuit of the leader for the moment has led to Christ’s church fracturing into ‘I follow this doctrine and this leader.’

In all of this, I wonder how Paul would have responded given his message to the Corinth. A member of Chloe’s family had alerted to him to the same divisions happening in the church of Corinth. We don’t get to read Chloe’s letter so we have to infer from Paul’s letter that the church in Corinth was messed up. Chloe’s letter must have said early on, that members were taking sides and people were looking for leaders who personally reflected them and their opinions rather than coming together in diversity and unity with the understanding that it is the one Christ which brings us all together.  

To give these verses a bit of a contemporary feel we are reading today from The Message, 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 10-25

I have a serious concern to bring up with you, my friends, using the authority of Jesus, our Master. I'll put it as urgently as I can: You must get along with each other. You must learn to be considerate of one another, cultivating a life in common. I bring this up because some from Chloe's family brought a most disturbing report to my attention – that you're fighting among yourselves! I'll tell you exactly what I was told: You're all picking sides, going around saying, "I'm on Paul's side," or "I'm for Apollos," or "Peter is my man," or "I'm in the Messiah group."

I ask you, "Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul's name?" I was not involved with any of your baptisms – except for Crispus and Gaius – and on getting this report, I'm sure glad I wasn't. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas's family, but as far as I can recall, that's it.)

God didn't send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn't send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center – Christ on the Cross – be trivialized into mere words.

The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written, I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn't God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb – preaching, of all things! – to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle – and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself – both Jews and Greeks – Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's "weakness."

(1Co 1:10-25)

Just reading these verses, I feel that Paul would be in tears at the contemporary church, we are so divided; we are messed up and we are driven by personalities. And if history tells us something, we have a duty in this church to not let our opinions and feelings come in the way of the power of the cross for reconciliation. We have an obligation to, using the words on Paul, “learn to be considerate of one another.”

You see the Bible tells two stories – the first story is the story of ourselves – God’s creation. This is story repeats itself over and over across the pages of the Bible. This is a story of a people who repeatedly bite the bait of the accuser and enter into division. We see this in the garden where Adam and Eve separated themselves from the creator, we see it with the brothers Cain and Abel and later Ishmael (from which the nation of Palestine will come) and Isaac (who would later have his name changed to Israel). We see the story of division occurring pretty much in every chapter of Judges, and later, in the splitting of the nation of Judah from the nation of Israel. We see division in amongst the sects of Israel at the time of Jesus – the Pharisees, Essenes and Sadducees. We see it here in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and we see it in the world today.

A divided world doesn’t need a divided church.

The second story of the Bible is one of reconciliation through covenant promises by a Creator God to his Creation. This message of reconciliation is finally realised at the Cross. This is a simple truth. But it is hard to accept – just as Paul points out some demand miraculous demonstrations and others philosophical wisdom. It just doesn’t have the wow factor. The wow factor that comes often with celebrity and fancy leaders.

It is so easy to be swayed to leaders who reflect our individual differences. If one of us happens to be given the gift of healing, it is so easy for those of us who find power in miracles to see their gifting in place of the cross. If one of us can give a good reason for why we should do what we do, it is so easy for those of us who find power in the intellectual to focus in on their teaching, rather than seeing the way of the cross is simple if we set our eyes upon Jesus.

You see while the church in Corinth was spilt into those who followed Paul, those who followed the Greek Apollos and those who followed Peter, the disciple that walked with Jesus. Paul, Apollos and Peter all shared the gospel Truth of Jesus. The problem was the people of Corinth had begun to follow the personalities, styles and opinions that reflected their own differences.  

And, this is the message that Paul was giving the church in Corinth. He wanted to encourage them to focus in on the gospel that brought them together in the first place. Now hear me here ‘brought them together’. You see the church at Corinth was different to the church we read about in Acts. The church in Acts, was very much a Jewish church. Yes, the message had begun to be preached out to the ends of the earth; but the church we read about in Acts, is one that started first within the territories of Judah and Samaria.

Paul, was not called to share the gospel with his own people. Paul tells us directly that God called him to preach the good news to the Gentiles – to the Greeks, Romans and all other outsiders. The church at Corinth reflected his calling. It was a mix of cultures – Jew and Gentile.  When Paul says:

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle – and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself – both Jews and Greeks – Christ is God's ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one.

When Paul says this, he is not giving a metaphor of division. He is saying while the Jews among you seek miracles, and the Greeks among you look for philosophical wisdom, while the Jews among you see the cross as an anti-miracle and the Greeks as illogical, the reality is God has called you together. God has called you together to be as one. Paul is talking to two different cultures who wouldn’t really be together because of their differences and Paul is directly addressing the cultural aspects that make these people different – when it comes to practicing religion, Jews are distinctly spiritual while Greeks are distinctly intellectual. Paul is saying – put aside your cultural difference and come together at the cross.

And in churches today, God is calling for diversity and he is also calling for unity. He is calling us to be “learn to be considerate of each other, cultivating a life in common.” He is calling us to be as one.

Now it is important here to realise that when God calls us to be as one. He is calling us to be as one mind but not one opinion. This is important to realise. There are so many churches today who have harmony in opinion, and as such, would claim to be in unity because everyone gets along and agrees with each other. But this is often because the types of Christians going to these churches are the same – same culture, same socio-economic conditions, same political party affiliations.

Like the church at Corinth, we are not one of these churches. We are a church of diversity with a lot of differences – cultural, economic, political, the list goes on. But this will mean that we will become more prone to what Paul is talking about in his letter to Corinth; as a Church we are prone to having differing views about how church should happen and what the church should stand for.  This can put us at risk of siding with groups and opinions that reflect our differences and allow division to creep in.

A divided world doesn’t need a divided church.

So how do we do this; how do we avoid division? I want to remind us first and foremost that one mind does not mean one opinion. God is not telling us that we should all have the same opinion. But to be of one mind is to meet each other at the cross – not in the argument and not in the miracle.

To meet at the cross means coming together in the middle. This is not an act of compromise, it is an act of active listing and compassion. It is the first step we need to take to be considerate of each other. It is actively acknowledging in yourself, that in the conversations that we have with each other, your mind needs to be open to the thoughts of others.

This is incredibly hard for the typical Christian. For many of us, because we know the answer lies at the cross, we think that everything else we believe must also be true. Instead of active listening with the heart, we have a sense of spiritual constipation, we sit there listening, nodding and giving the occasion ‘yes’, but we are busting inside, waiting for the person to finish in order to talk over their truth with our own. In my book, that act in itself is not one of consideration.

If we want to live in diversity and unity, we need to demonstrate the heart of Jesus, the heart of compassion. We need to remember that the simple truth of the cross is the one thing that unites us with each other and living in diversity is acknowledging and celebrating our differences rather than trying to make each other in our own image.

Now I want to remind us, that we don’t have the opportunity to read Chloe’s letter but we know that one core issue concerned leadership and who was following who. But we also pressure leaders to be like us, and I wonder whether this was happening in Corinth as well. You see, how we position our leaders and the expectations we have of leaders to be our spokespeople can also bring in division and split people. When you want a leader to share your opinion, and you then ask the leader to proclaim your opinion as the opinion that a congregation should take, then issues creep in. I think this must have been happening in Corinth – just look at the mess of this church, issues like sexual immorality, ill treatment of the poor and the suing of each other would not have occurred in silence. 

In our world today, the last three years globally have been a real test for Christ’s church. In amongst the pandemic, we have seen at a global scale the fracturing and division of Christ’s church over the truth of Covid-19, the politics of Covid-19 and the reaction to Covid-19.

I want to suggest that our church, in particular, has been through a testing time. Particularly because of the diversity in our church. Remember diversity will mean that a variety of opinions exist. And, just because the cross united us, it doesn’t mean we all had the same opinions and beliefs on Covid-19 and the response taken. In amongst this, I am aware that some of us wanted our leadership to take a very firm position, which thankfully they didn’t. They walked the middle ground, this is not a luke-warm ground but a ground that allows diversity to have a place. It’s a ground that in our contemporary world is missing from so many issues.  

On this middle ground, we need to be openly talking about these issues together, learning to be considerate of each other, not aiming to be of one opinion but of one mind. We need to know that our unity comes in Christ alone, not in ideas or personalities.

A divided world doesn’t need a divided church.

I want to give a practical, and personal illustration on how the church can inadvertently take a position which diverts the world from understanding that the Christ is the cornerstone and, in fact, the reason for the Christ. And I will hopefully show you exactly what I mean when it comes to the church, unity, division and the reality that our unity should come at the cross.

In 2007, there was a change to the Crimes Act. The change was intended to protect children and give the state the power to intervene when there was concern for a child’s welfare. This change was given a different and politically loaded name by a Christian Lobby Group called Family First. It was called the ‘Anti-Smacking’ Act. Family First started a massive campaign both in the national media and in churches. And the church was spilt into two groups, possibility three – one group was ‘I follow Mike McCrossen’, the Family First CEO, the other was ‘I don’t follow Mike’ and there was, no doubtedly a ‘I follow Christ’ group as well.

I will be honest with you – I was in the I don’t follow Mike group. But I happened to be in a church that was very much preaching from the pulpit that we should all follow Mike. Why, because according to the Mike, and therefore the church (you see the I don’t follow Mike group was tiny), it is a fundamental right that parents must be able to smack their children.

This was not my perspective, due to my own childhood. I stood for the children who were experiencing physical abuse daily. Near the end of the campaign, churches in Aotearoa NZ marched on parliament grounds. At this point, I realised that only one church in the Wellington region that was open to me even expressing my opinion was St Andrews on the Terrace – the most liberal church in Wellington. This moment in our history, didn’t have me questioning my faith, but did have me contemplate doing my faith alone and disengaging from the churches around me.

All I wanted to know was if the church would protest to protect the children of Aotearoa; I still don’t have an answer here – but I don’t think the answer is found in a protest. Now I realise that while leaders spoke in support of Mike in front of congregations, that not all Christians marched on parliament that day; there were Christians who just kept their opinions to themselves because they didn’t feel that they had a voice.

And all I ask, is what message did the church give New Zealand and the children of Aotearoa in that protest, was it about Jesus, the one person who unites us? And that maybe instead of taking sides the church should have reconciled within itself. There are a lot of survivors of abuse in churches, including our church, imagine if instead of a protest and taking the side of a leader and spokesperson, we actively sought to meet each other at the cross and listen with our hearts. Imagine the reaction that would have come out of that action – a protest or a hug in amongst the tears of hearing each other’s testimony. Hugs bring healing in ways that a protest can never achieve.

A divided world doesn’t need a divided church.

We are blessed. We have a very diverse church. We haven’t always been as diverse as we are today, but we are diverse. And even though I couldn’t go, I want us to remember the table that Glory set for us a few weeks ago on our Culture Night. The diversity in our church is real. Let’s continue to celebrate it, and what better place to celebrate our diversity than at a table, in a feast of diversity and unity. Let us not pursue the road to one opinion, but let us become of one mind and learn to be considerate of each other, cultivating a life in common. Let us work together, in likeness of Christ – who died for us in our diversity to fulfil the promise made to Abraham that all people will come together in unity because of God’s covenant; God’s promise.

Let us demonstrate to this world a different way of living. After all, a divided world doesn’t need a divided church.

 

Getting Under the Surface of the Incarnational Church

Quick question – what makes a Baptist Church so different to others?

Well according to Adrian Plass to be Baptist is to belong to a “denomination in which one senses that there is as awful lot going on under the surface".

Let’s get serious now.  

Over the last few weeks, some of us have been working through Brant Hansen’s teaching on ‘Offendable.’  Brant’s key point is that Christians should not be offendable. As Phil pointed out last week, most of what Brant was saying is that we should not let anger consume us and drive us. But as we finished Brant’s teaching, I began to think there must be something much deeper than ‘anger’ to this concept of ‘offendable.’ Surely, it is not just anger that causes us to take ‘offence’ at others? Sometimes it’s our broken human nature.  

There have been times in my life where I have been ‘offended’ but not drawn to anger and there are times that I see the church take offence but this offence does not seem to come from anger alone; at times, we, as Christians, are offended simply because we do not understand someone or something that seems very different to who we are.   And I am not meaning all Christians alone, all churches are made of people, all churches have their own flavour and culture and when one person or a group comes in and disrupts the culture of a church then the reaction of offence is much deeper than anger. To say it again, it’s our broken human nature. And, the Bible is clear on this, put aside your brokenness and become more Christ-like.  

And I want to give you the key point of this sermon up front: to be truly unoffendable involves us accepting each other and accepting strangers who are different to us. When we do this, we can reach out to the world with compassion, not offence; with love, not hate.  But we must get it right with ourselves first.  

You see, a church’s reputation is not just forged through our outer works – it is also shaped by our inner behaviours – how we treat and walk with each other.  In a weird way, there is a difference to being a member of a church to being a member of a crafts, reading, board game or sports club. In a club, you are still an individual. You can lock your life away and keep it separate to the club.  

But, in a church, you are a member of a family, you are engaged in relationship with others. We speak it a lot in words, but it needs to be a reality – we are all part of the body of Christ – an arm cannot function by itself, it must be connected to the rest of the body. As the church we are not individuals – we stand together in a state of communion with Christ. 

So, today, I would like to talk to you about the incarnational church. And I want to ask the question: If we are the incarnational church, what does that mean for the way that we journey with each other? 

Let’s open God’s word to Ephesians 1, starting at verse 19: 

I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe Him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms.  

Now He is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made Him head over all things for the benefit of the church.  

And the church is His body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself.  

(Eph 1:19-23 NLT) 

I don’t know about you, but for me, one of the most complex and profound illustrations in the Bible is that of the church being the ‘body of Christ.’ I simply don’t get it most of the time. I read these verses in Ephesians and in Paul’s other letters and find myself asking – is this a metaphor; an illustration of sorts? Or is it a reality?  

And, as I read, I realise it can’t be a metaphor if it is so integral to Paul’s writings. His letters are permeated with these words “Body of Christ.” It may not seem a big deal, but Paul refers to us, the church, as the body of Christ 11 times his 13 letters.  So, in some way, we are the body of Christ today – but what does that really mean? 

To understand that we are the body of Christ requires us to understand the Church through the incarnation of Christ. 

We often don’t use this word ‘incarnation’ in church and when we do, it tends to be limited to Christmas. Incarnation comes from two Latin words ‘in’ which, in English, means much the same and ‘carō’ which in English means flesh. Carō is where we get the word carnivorous (meat-eating) and carnal (a word that has changed over time but once meant ‘of the physical flesh’ or ‘same blood’).  

Incarnation simply means – in the flesh, in the physical flesh. We use it as a concept word to understand that Christ is God ‘in the flesh.’ So, the incarnation is when God became one of us to suffer with us and then offer himself in our place as the perfect sacrifice.  

It is through the death of Christ on the Cross and His resurrection that we become one with him. His presence enters our being through the Holy Spirit and in a cosmic sense we enter His incarnation. We become one with Him and He becomes one with us. His presence is in us and, in that sense, the church is incarnational. 

The church was not created by a guy or girl with an idea. It was created by God. The church is not one individual but a community of people who relate and journey with each other. And, added to all this, within each of us, Christ dwells through the Holy Spirit. This makes as, as one community, a new creation in God. Not as individuals all saved through the gospel but as a people called together to serve God and each other.  

We don’t come to church, to this building, to ‘experience’ God. This would be an oxymoron to all of Paul’s teaching regarding God’s presence within us. Paul clearly tells us in 1 Cor 6:17-19 that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit – not a physical church building.  

However, we do gather, and we do gather for a very real purpose. We gather to worship and to make God’s presence, that presence that is in each of us, known both inside and outside the physical walls of this building.  

When it comes to the incarnational church, I know that it is easy to think that making God’s presence known is simply an outward gesture to our community. However, there is more to the incarnational church than the way we are seen on the outside. You see, I believe that to be incarnational in the community our church requires three internal unoffendable attitudes and behaviours: Relationship, Acceptance, Love 

And, while we can show these traits or virtues to our community of Wainuiomata, it is imperative that we first demonstrate to each other the desire to create a relationship, to accept our brokenness or broken times and forge ourselves together through love. This involves journeying with each other, getting to know others and learning how to demonstrate love to others. We get to get it right in here first so that when we do it out there, we do get it right. 

Let me use a parable of sorts.  

Most of us, read parables today with the idea that they were serious mini sermons given by Christ to get a point across; however, there is more to parables which our definition has lost in translation. Parables were stories with key points, but they were often humorous and seemed to come to contradictory conclusions. For example, let’s take the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ time, Samaritans were never described as good and would never be used to illustrate a neighbour. But when Jesus did it – he made people think about themselves and the relationship they had with their God and each other by picking out the outsiders in their society. A person that could offend anyone. 

So, what would Relationship, Acceptance and Love look like in an incarnational church?  

Well, I would like to introduce you to an individual - Lars 

Lars is a bit of a loner, an outsider. He is living with brother’s family in the shed of their childhood home. Lars has no close friends, but he is connected to his local church and works with blokes that enjoy watching porn. Lars is soon to become an uncle and his brother is concerned that Lars will never develop any close relationships at all. And then this happens: 

So, imagine this, you are part of Lars’ church community – you are an elder of sorts. After Lars’ brother finds out that Lars has purchased an anatomically correct doll from the Internet for a ‘relationship’, he visits his local doctor. The doctor tells him that Lars must be dealing with some stuff and that he should just treat the doll as human until Lars gets over it.  

The brother is desperate – he knows that something is wrong and that he can’t support Lars – so he comes to you and asks for support and help as a church. So, after hearing the brother’s plea for help what would you do? To be honest, what would you initially think about Lars and what would you want the church to do – given that the church is a community of families including children and elderly? This is how Lars’ church responded: 

Well, the church, and in fact the whole community, decide to accept Lars and his doll. To be honest they go beyond accepting to relating to both Lars and his doll with love. We learn that this acceptance is because the church had journeyed with Lars. It wasn’t an easy decision; it never is and never will be even in our church today; but they had begun a journey before the doll and when the doll arrived, they decided they needed to finish it to help Lars find healing.  

To finish this story, Lars finds out what his problem is – a deep fear of touch and an inner emotional scar of a father that hurt had him. Bicana the doll gets sick and is rushed to hospital. She evidentially passes away and the church holds a funeral for her. It is one of the most emotional scenes in the movie because it shows that a church’s ability to accept Lars and journey with him in love overflows into other outsider groups in the community.  

This church did not do any major ministry, it just walked with Lars in a time of emotional need. The impact of this walk saw the congregation of this church exponentially grow. A church of a few families ended up attracting bikies, hobos and just people looking for love. The tears shed at the funeral were real – this church had finally found out what it was like to be Christ in this world – to accept each other, to relate to each other and to walk with each other in love. 

I don’t know about you, but when I watch a story like Lars, I realise that I would jump to judgement rather than love first; I would have been offended. I would assume that Lars had purchased the doll for sexual gratification and as such I would put conditions on my relationship with him. I would no doubt be the one that would go home at lunchtime and talk to Eric about the bizarre choices of our leaders allowing an adult to bring a doll to church … with all the children … what sort of example would they be setting.  

And, then I realise as a person, a person sharing with you today, that I, like others, do engage in behaviours of conditional love, when I inadvertently hold back from developing a relationship with someone that is not like me or even engage in negative talk (gossip) in my church family.  None of you bring a doll to church, but I could have it a guess that most of us come to church with rubbish in our lives – I know that I do. 

And, when I think about this, I also realise that there are times that I am afraid to expose the rubbish in my life because I fear that others would develop a relationship of conditional love around me.   

And, when I watched the story of Lars, I found myself challenged – would you really accept Lars Fiona? No, possibly not. I would think that things aren’t all right in his head and I would be scared to relate to him. Would you love Lars Fiona? Yes, of course, the Bible tells me to love everyone even those who offend me. But that’s okay, I don’t have to talk to Lars, and there are plenty of seats, so I can avoid him. And because I know that truth is buried in me, I am also scared to tell others about my own vulnerabilities in case I offend others by exposing my inner self. 

You see at the end of the day – our church will be known by its changed heart which bring about actions leading to transformation in our own lives and in our community. Our church will be known to our God by what is going on under the surface. Our church will be known by our love and generosity to each other. It is not that we must accept everyone as a blank slate, but we must be prepared to journey with each person in love. The first step in this journey is relationship but, if we don’t, we have missed an opportunity. 

And it is so important that we get it right with each other here first. There are broken and lost people in the world that so need God. There are people in the world that cause us offence but God has called us to walk with them but it is so hard when these people just might offend us.  

This week we experienced a tragedy in Wellington with the Loafers Lodge fire. The Lodge was home, if you can call it that, to some of the most vulnerable people in Wellington, addicts, deportees from Australia (known as 501s), ex-prisoners on parole, the homeless and others. In response to that fire The Mayor of Wellington, Tory Whanau said: “We’ve failed a sector of our community. We’ve let some people down. We’ve let our vulnerable community down. And it shouldn’t take an accident of this nature to do that.” 

And Jesus our saviour said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” 

I want to say that the incarnational church, is unoffendable, because deep in the core of the incarnational church is acceptance and love. This is demonstrated through the relationships we have with each other first, the ways we respond to each other in times of disagreement, the way in which we allow for diversity in our relationships and the way that we respond to the big issues in the world today. An incarnational church is a group of diverse people who can live life together and not be offended by each other and the world. 

Let us be a church that is truly incarnational, not plastic, a church where there is so much happening under our surface because Christ is at work in us, and we are not afraid to open our hearts deeply to him and most of all to each other.