Those Who Oppose Our Message

[Salvation #4]

So, we're confronted with the possibility that we're blundering through life without a clear understanding of the gospel. And the apparent fact that we, "the saved," disagree on almost every aspect of what salvation is and what one has to do to be saved. We nod our heads and say the lost must be born again, but we have very different ideas about what that phrase means, how it works, or what it has to look like.

No surprise that this causes some heavy-duty cognitive dissonance—when many of us grew up with the gospel neatly packaged and delivered to us with a fistful of cliches about how simple the gospel is. But the bigger problem with our disagreement may be what it tempts us to believe about or do to those who disagree with us, though they are our brothers and sisters, our family, the church.

Let us be clear: disagreement coming from those in our own faith community, from those we thought we didn't have to persuade or defend against, can be very threatening. Especially when our criterion for being in community turns out to be the very point of controversy. If I can't convince you, might that mean my claims are weak? If you don't agree with me, might I be wrong? And if those in the church don't agree, why would we expect anyone else to believe our message?

Confused or threatened by our differences, our first instinct is often to question. Weren't we on the same side? Aren't we children of the same heavenly Father? Our hurt and puzzlement are understandable, perhaps. Disagreement, difference even, is the opposite of what causes community in the first place. Especially, as in the case of the church, when our solidarity is defined in stark absolutes: heaven and hell, the lost and the found, the redeemed and the damned. Especially when the stakes are life and death, and the consequences eternal.

The speed with which we move from confusion to suspicion, however, is much more problematic. If we disagree, his faith must be weak, we reason. If we differ, she must not take the Bible as seriously as the rest of us. We bolster our own rightness at the expense of the other. Our fear of being wrong and our need to justify at all costs are sad but all too predictable. I in the middle, again. The sin thing. Rather than preferring the other, always trusting and always believing the best, we entertain doubts about motives, allegiance, or even spiritual maturity. They probably aren't even saved. That would explain everything. Such ultimate accusations reveal how far we will go to justify our own position; how readily we will sell our own kin down the river to discredit their views and vouchsafe our own beliefs; how willing we are even to sacrifice relationships, rather than give up what we hold dearer than love and loyalty.

Difference leads to disappointment, suspicion, and, perhaps, eventual betrayal on our part. Which—far from apologizing for—we defend as our right. As though we founded the club and wrote its membership rules. How great our disappointment in those who should have seen the reasonableness of our wisdom. How great the offense of those who, if they were really saved, should have known better. As though, even worse than letting us down, they have actually sinned against us by not agreeing with all of our cherished convictions, our self-defining opinions, and our precious, precious preferences.

Community

"It seems everywhere I look these days I’m reminded of the soul-searing danger of avoiding community...."

Great quote from Stephen Lamb, posted at The Rabbit Room, along with some good thoughts on the necessity of community for truly knowing God.

Stay in the Boat, Jackson.

I'm the firstborn, so rules and being right come naturally. Add to that my amazing brain power, and it's a wonder that I haven't taken over the world already. As I have become (ahem) wiser, however, I have decided that being right is not so important--is not the main goal of life. I recognize (often much too late) that I have made some terrible mistakes; I know that I am capable of doing so again. But these do not signify the end of the world to me.

I am blessed to be part of a family, a great circle of friends around the world, and a church community. What these have in common is relationship, if we are willing. And relationship provides the means for someone, the "other," whomever that may be, to help me see the plank in my eye--and faster than I might by myself, even if I were willing to look for it. Relationship relieves the pressure to be right all the time. We don't have to figure everything out by ourselves; I don't have to make myself perfect. That won't happen "until we see him face to face" anyway.

Spiritual maturity isn't about being right more often. Relationship isn't happy-happy all the time. And we don't even get to choose the family relationships we are born into--neither our immediate family members nor Adam, for that matter. When I enter into relationship--serious, covenant-type relationship--I "sign up for" heartache, disappointment, and as much nonsense as God knows I can bear. And I know that I will be the source of these, as well.

So, I can be very tolerant of others' mistakes, others' ignorance, others' faults, unhappy though I may be. And I can hope and expect that others in community will extend the same grace to me. I can endure a lot of arguing about where the boat should be going. There is a fundamental requirement, however, in relationship. Not "rightness," and not that everyone agrees with me, even when I'm right. What is required is that we stay in the family, in the circle, in the community.

That we stay in the boat.

Staying provides the opportunity to work out the process. To sharpen the dull iron. To take as long as it has to take. Staying means that we are "there" together, wherever that is. Recall Ruth's willingness to make Naomi's country, people, and even God her own. If we leave, how can we hear reason from those who love us? Who can speak sense into our nonsense? Who will help us? Who will slap us when we need it? Whom is God more likely to speak through than those whom we already know and who know us better than anyone else does? Those whom we have already committed ourselves to.

We don't have to be right, or smart, or lovely, or strong. But we have to stay in the boat.