"Paint the Beauty We Split"

Some may argue that the fracturing, splintering and breaking up of the church is as old as civilization and therefore is some sort of proof that those who uphold unity as misguided at best. It is not lost on me that the current United Methodist Church is a break away from the Church of England which itself is a break away from the Catholic Church which was a split with the Eastern Church which split from the Jerusalem Council. I understand the human tradition of splitting. But it is also true the United Methodist Church is also a church that was birth at the union of at least two churches (the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren). Additionally, Jesus prayed in John that those who follow him might be made one. So for as many examples we can point to that splitting is God’s desire, there are just as many examples we can point to which suggests that unity is God’s desire.

This argument is boring and tiresome, but more, it distracts. It distracts from the larger human tradition captured in the following lines from In all Carlo Carretto’s book, The God Who Comes.

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely. And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another? I would not be able to establish it without the same faults, for they are the same faults I carry in me. And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ. I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else.

The current splintering of the United Methodist Church is an example of the Church failing to understand our tendency to make Church reflect us and not Christ. We hear this in the way the Church is talking about if some should leave or stay. We hear that we should follow our convictions and that we ought to be able to let those who believe differently a gracious exit. The underlying assumption is that the personal conviction and beliefs are paramount, that those are what should drive what denomination a local church should be. Some will try to argue that it is less about personal conviction and more about adhering to some Biblical or creedal standard. But when the Bible and creeds never are in conflict with your convictions and beliefs it begs the question if we are just making “my Church” and not the “Church of Christ”. It is weird, is it not, that God always seems to have the same beliefs and convictions you have?

The truth is that I need the very people that I disagree with to walk with me. And the truth is, those who disagree with me need me in their lives too. I do not have all the answers and if you think that you do, then heck, I want you in my life! And if you have all the answers, then don’t you want to help those who, like me, do not have the answers?

To put this another way, I need you to show me how odd I am so that I can come to see that I am, as Carretto said, “am no better than anyone else”. When those who took the same vows that I took, decide to disaffiliate, then I believe all of our discipleship creates the conditions for all of us to become less faithful.

There is a song on the “Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast called “Sticks and Stones”. Recently the producers talked with the lead singer of the song and asked about the lyric that says, “Paint the beauty we split.” The songwriter said that his take on this lyric is that it is a plea and prayer to God. That God may make beautiful (paint) the church (the beauty) that we are tearing apart (we split).

Lord in your mercy, hear this prayer.

The Church Is Not A Community

For sometime now I have heard that many are tired of being in a church with so many divisions or so many points of disagreement. This fatigue has provoked some to inquire or even leave the Church in order to be with other “like-minded” Christians. The virtues of being with “like-minded” believers is argued for in many places such as the book the Benedict Option to caucus groups such as the Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA).

There is nothing wrong with being with like minded people. It is good to be with like-minded people as it gives a peace and comfort knowing that I am not alone. The defining characteristic of a like-minded group is that the group is held together by what they have.

There is a name for a group of people who are together because of what they have. It is called a community. A community is a group of people who belong to one another because of something they all have or hold in common. The Benedict Option and WCA advocate the creation of like-minded communities. This seems innocuous enough. Like I said above, like-minded communities have many benefits.

The problem is that when we take the idea of community into the Church because the Church is not supposed to be a community.

In a very basic sense, a community does not fundamentally challenge one another to change because to do so would threaten the communities very existence. If members of the community change, then the community may not all hold the same thing in common. If members of my bowling community started to dislike bowling, then the bowling community would politely ask those members to leave and not come back. Because what makes the bowling community the bowling community is the shared loved of bowling. If some members of the community no longer like bowling, then group may not be all “like-minded”.

Additionally, at the core, communities are groups that are motivated by purity. If there is anyone in the group that is not of “like-mind” then they cannot be a member of the community because a community is only possible if the entire group is of like mind. There is little appreciation for the one who is not like the community (impure). The community that has some members who deviate from the communities norm, are asked to leave. In fact asking the “other” to leave is considered graceful. I cannot imagine being asked to leave the community is grace-filled, but communities that hold the same ideas as the reason for existence are convinced that this is graceful.

Peter Rollins makes a point in this 90 second clip in which he talks about a community and a communion. He reminds the viewer that the community is gathered by what they have or what they share. But a communion is gathered around a lack or by something the group does not have. For instance, Alcohol Anonymous (AA) is a group that gathers around a shared lack (ex: lack of alcohol) and loss (ex: loss of control). The group is made not on what they achieve or what they have done, but on what they each lack and/or loss.

Each Sunday, Christians around the world gather together to share in the sacrament sometimes called Communion. It is the sacred meal in which calls to mind the time that God in Christ ritualized the death of God on the cross.

The death of God is terrifying. It is the ultimate lack. It is the thing that so many of us (self included) refuse to accept because it is too much to consider that the eternal and all powerful God would enter death - even temporarily. The church is a gathering of people who recognize we have lack (sometimes we call it sin).

The church, each week, gathers together not because we all are of “like-mind” or all hold the same thing. The core of the Church gathers together because of what we lack. We gather because we lack forgiveness, mercy, and grace toward ourselves and others. Like Jesus said, we do not know what we are doing and we lack the way to go. We are in need of God because the communion of the church knows it is not God.

The Church is much too sacred and important to be a community. The Church is a communion.

The Evil of Our Public Lives

When I was younger I was told that if I was not willing to do something in public, then I ought not do it in private. The concern was that what we did in private was potentially more evil than what we would do in public. There may some truth to that for most of us - especially in our teenage years when we might violate social norms or rules in private (Kevin Bacon might owe his career to such a truth).

While the concern of evil lurking in the private was emphasized, the inverse was all but ignored. That is, sometimes we would do things in public that we would never do in private. The concern that what we do in public was potentially more evil than what we would do in private was never really considered.

However, the reality is the more we ignore the latter the more we are prone to participate in evil in the world.

The evil of the public life memorialized in the coliseum

Most people would not privately whip themselves into a frenzy and loot, harass or kill. Yet groups do this all the time. Most people would never breathe threats of violence toward another, but then we get online and that is often what we do.

If the story of Jesus teaches us anything it is that our public lives can be more evil than our private lives. We can kill the very Christ of the world in public displays. We can loot the very heart of God in public elections. We can be like Saul and become the mob of violence and retribution in public.

Maybe we need to take some of our concern that our private lives are evil and examine our public ones.

Expect Peace After Only Eight Years

Benedicta Ward translates this story:

A hermit who was anxious went to Theodore of Pherme and told him all about it. He said to him, ‘Humble yourself, put yourself in subjection, go and live with others.’ So he went to a mountain, and there lived with a community. Later he returned to Theodore and said, ‘Not even when I lived with other men did I find rest.’ He said to him, ‘If you’re not at rest as a hermit, nor when you’re in a community, why did you want to be a monk? Wasn’t it in order to suffer? Tell me, how many years have you been a monk?’ He said, ‘Eight.’ Theodore said, ‘Believe me, I’ve been a monk for seventy years, and I’ve not been able to get a single day’s peace. Do you expect to have peace after only eight years?’

We have an anxious church that is seeking peace. It is a church that asks how long must we wait for the peace we say we all desire. If a single monk, Theodore, did not have peace after seventy years, then what makes a denomination of 3 million think that we can have peace after just fifty years?

We can split the denomination, I understand it has happened before. I understand that growing by dividing is possible. I understand there is harm being done. However, what makes us think that the split that the UMC is facing will be THE split that brings us to the peace we long for? What makes us think that any denomination or church could ever be at peace?

Maybe the peace we say we long for is just the excuse we cling to in order to divorce ourselves from one another.

How long must we wait for the peace we desire? Longer than we have tried - if we have ever started. A split will not bring us the peace we think we will get. Fights will continue, just read the Bible. Do we think that this is the generation that will arrive at the peace the church says it desires?