[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Tug of War


I should be in church this morning, but I'm feeling discouraged about 
church. It's because of the passionate possessiveness that seems to 
go along with church.

"Church has to be the way I want it to be or it's just plain wrong." 
"Church has to be the way I want it to be or I don't feel spiritually 
nourished." "Church has to be the way I want it to be for the sake of 
the older people" (or the youth). The operative part of statements 
like these is the first part: "Church has to be the way I want it to 
be." The rest of the statement is mind candy.

The fact is that church should be the way God wants it to be; the 
problem is that we think we, and we only, know what God wants. And we 
don't. We know what advice Paul gave to the early churches, and we 
know that Paul is to be taken very seriously indeed; but Paul's words 
don't favour a stance of self-righteousness or arrogance -- quite the 
contrary. He says instead, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and 
self-control. Against such things there is no law."

How does "Church has to be the way I want it to be" fit with Paul's 
words? The simple fact is that it doesn't. Church instead becomes the 
absolute opposite of what Paul says. The people who want church to be 
other than what we want become Those Evil Awful People Over There; 
church becomes the subject of power struggles, infighting, preemptive 
strikes, and alliance-building -- all in the name of The True Faith 
Once Received, or something of that order.

Is there a true faith once received? Yes; our faith that God once 
walked around with us, was willing to die for us, defeated death for 
us that we might live and be free. The Gospels give us that, and Paul 
works out at least some of the initial practical ramifications. But 
that doesn't include (for example) liturgy, or who can be a priest, 
or which groups should or should not be included. He speaks instead 
of humility, gentleness, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

People are human; they struggle to possess and rule what matters to 
them deeply instead of letting go and letting God. The stakes seem so 
important, so crucial, that we forget the damage we're doing to other 
people as we fight to get to where we believe God is calling us. We 
run roughshod over the opposition, thinking that the ends justify the 
means and the payoff is worth the costs.

But that's not love.

We are not called to be victorious over the people we're fighting 
with; we're called to love them. We're called to see them as just as 
valuable and God-beloved and precious in God's sight as we are. Which 
is really hard to do when they're behaving just as badly as we are. 
It turns into a life-or-death "my way or the highway" struggle, and 
the more one side yanks on the rope, the harder the other side has to 
yank back just to stay upright.

It doesn't occur to us that maybe this isn't about winning. Maybe 
it's supposed to be about turning our wills over to God and letting 
God get on with God's work.

It's particularly hard for those of us with strong, successful wills. 
I can be pretty strong-willed myself, but by the grace of God, I have 
been clobbered often enough and hard enough to begin to realize that 
maybe it's not about my will but about God's. Being broken is a 
highly blessed state of affairs.

But for those of us who are strong-willed AND successful, especially 
those who have succeeded in leading churches, that breaking looks 
unbearable. We're just not going to go there. Doesn't matter how much 
collateral damage we do. If we let go of the rope, the other guys 
will have won. And we cannot facing losing, especially when we 
believe that our side is just plain right and the other side is just 
plain wrong.

Maybe, just maybe, what we're called upon to do is to put the rope 
down and walk away, leaving the other side in possession of the 
field. Because maybe, just maybe, it's in the silence after the 
shouting that the Holy Spirit can breathe.

We get nowhere by battling over church; we only disgrace our faith in 
the eyes of the onlooking unbelievers. But we've got to realize what 
OUR responsibility is for the problem. And that's what setting the 
rope down is about; it's saying "fighting about church is wrong; why 
am I doing it?".

If there's anything that the Nativity and what follows it says, it's 
that this faith thing is not about power and control and having 
things as we'd like them to be. God no doubts wants this world to be 
a place of peace and prosperity, and God's power could make that 
happen. But it doesn't happen. Therefore God is not about power and 
control and having things as God would like them to be.

And that's our model. Or should be.

Maybe next week I'll be less discouraged. And maybe I need to leave a 
few copies of this around the joint.