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listening in
Maybe you noticed my silence of late in the blogging department. I was listening in to the conversation prompted by the previous post, between Brenda, Archie, Billabong, Trenton, Metler and others. People want to talk to each other about these things don’t they? They want to convince each other, poke, and prod, question and offer themselves in response to each other. At stake in the conversation were questions of who gets to lead and why, who’s in and who’s out, what the gospel is and isn’t, and how we are to understand and engage the Bible. Since the Bible touches on all the Big Questions–life and death and immortality among others–there is plenty to get worked up over in a conversation like this. So now I want to ask, what would please Jesus in these matters?
No, I’m not going to offer my take on all of the above. Believe me, I was tempted. I mean, I was cheering some of these comments and booing others. At times I wanted to protest, “But you’re missing the main point of my post!” But of course, that wasn’t the point, or rather that was simply my point.
So back to my question: what would please Jesus in these matters? Wouldn’t it be nice, just once, if Jesus reappeared in the flesh at some undisclosed computer portal and set us all straight with the comment to end all commentary? This is how to read my book, he’d tell us. This is who gets to lead. This is what I think about people who are homosexual. We’d all be set straight. But then, of course, we’d parse his words, having heard them differently, perhaps, and we’d be right back at it, his comment buried in a pile of commentary.
Here’s my thought on what would please Jesus in these matters. It would please him if we kept talking to each other. No, I’m not suggesting that this particular blog is the new meeting ground for the Jesus pleasing conversation. I’m thinking, rather, that the variety of perspectives shared in the last post from the commenters, is fairly representative of the kinds of perspectives held in many churches whose sensibilities are more or less evangelical. And by that I mean…well, that was the point wasn’t it. What does that mean?
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”–Jesus of Nazareth. In matters of conversation and community, that comes into play when we disagree more than when we agree, does it not? What would it be like if the varied people in a given church community said to themselves, “Of all the things Jesus taught, this is the most important. This is the keep-it-simple stupid command. This is the Bible summed up according to Jesus. Better get this right before we move on to what’s next.” And then they would set about applying it in their conversations with people who are dim-witted and numb-skulled. Who think the Bible teaches. Who think that we teach or God teaches but not the Bible per se. Who think women can lead in the church in the 21st Century. Who think they can’t in any century. Who think people who think like some people think are on a slippery slope that ends in a crash, not a splash. Who think life is lived on a slippery slope, like it or not, which is why we need to keep grasping for God, and why it’s not so helpful to keep pointing out that others are on a slippery slope as if you are not also.
That’s naive, you say, to expect people with such disparate points of view to continue conversing at any proximity as though they were in the same community. Some of these questions are binary. Either a woman can lead in the church or not. If a woman leads, what are those people to do who sincerely believe that a woman’s place is in the White House, but not the pulpit? What about the woman leading who knows that some people in the room think her leadership is illegitimate? What is she supposed to do?
We all know what would happen. The birds of a feather on this issue or others would flock together. There would be a flurry of wings and a rearrangement, a re-flocking. Push would come to shove and some people would stay and some go elsewhere. Heaven knows it happens over smaller matters than who gets to lead and who doesn’t.
There would be nothing unusual about that at all. It would be expected. You’d be nuts to think anything else were possible.
Unless it were possible, in everything, to do unto others what you would have them do unto you as if this summed up the Bible. Listen to others as you would want to be listened to. Talk to others as you would want to be talked to (if you thought the things they think.) Bend yourself into a veritable pretzel if it would help you do unto them what you would have done unto you.
Picture it. People with the thoughts and perspectives represented in the comments of the previous post, actually committed to remaining in conversation with each other, like a married couple who for the sake of the kids, is willing to keep going to the marriage counselor week after week to unjam their loggerheads. To hear each other spout off, then sigh at each other’s spouting and look plaintively to the marriage counselor saying, “See what I have to live with?”
They wouldn’t pull any punches necessarily. They would just keep talking and listening and talking.
Impossibly hard, I know.
Naive, to say the least.
Difficult to even know whether that would be heaven or hell, for heaven’s sakes!
What if it’s required, though?
What if it’s not enough to simply think our way through these things?
What if we have to love our way through these things with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength?
October 9th, 2008 at 6:47 am
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”–Jesus of Nazareth
Yup. It seems we Christians have lost the ability to understand just how sure and secure our faith is. Instead of word of law or debate we live as reflections of the truth which is the man Jesus. Who is also love.
John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Truth does not need defense it stands on it’s own merit.
1John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
Grace, as it is, becomes harder to accept because we seem to require condition. It, really is too wonderful to be true.
The holy changes the unholy NOT the other way around.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Well, I don’t know. I do enjoy hearing other people’s points of view. People who are sincere followers of Jesus. People who are trying to follow him faithfully. I do enjoy the humility I experience in them. Sincere and humble followers do receive one another differently. I enjoy being around people like that, even though we differ on some questions. I have trouble though when people try to call my faith or my intelligence into question when we have these disagreements, particularly when the disagreements are about things that Jesus did not emphasize as central to his ministry. I have trouble when people use bullying or contempt or derision to reinforce their arguments. And I have trouble with people who are more interested in winning arguments and being right than they are in seeking the presence of God.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:02 am
But also let me say that I can get caught up in my own emotions, such as frustration, anger, irritation, impetuousness, contempt, hostility, arrogance, and fear. And I do lose sight of Jesus then. And I don’t like it.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Ken–your post reminds of the first presidential debate when Jim Lehrer was trying to get John and Barack to address each other instead of looking out to the audience/camera. I think we humans are like that. It’s much easier to address your deepest convictions facing forward to an anonymous audience (pastors excluded, of course) than to look directly into someone’s eyes and engage in a real, honest-to-goodness dialogue. That indeed is the scary part.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I, for one, am willing to be “actually committed to remaining in conversation with each other,” but I ain’t gonna marry any of youse guys! :-p
October 10th, 2008 at 6:37 am
I was part of a project that had a lot of life on it in the late 90’s called Bridge Across the Divide. There were people on both sides of the issue of homosexuality. We had ex-gays and conservative Christian viewpoints, we had gay activists and gay Christians. We also had ground rules. We would say things like IMHO (in my humble opinion) and not blast each other and demand that they listen to us.
I think I learned more from my four years in dialogue, with people who fiercely disagreed with one another, than I have in any other format. The challenge is to temper our words even when we have passion. I believe that this kind of dialogue IS possible. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility. So long as civility and love are the touchstones of that dialogue.
I would welcome dialogue like that once again!
October 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I thought the dialogue between Jesus and Peter was the example of how it should go. I mean before Jesus died and when Jesus served Peter that fish dinner.
Jesus told Peter to get lost, then prophesied that he was a traitor, then told him to love everyone and be a leader. Talk about your end round of dialogue.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I think it is important to have different opinions and to discuss them. It often strengthens our walk with other believers when we push back on one another. However, we have to be careful not to judge one anothers perceptions as we all have different backgrounds which have led us to particular conclusions.
October 10th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Some of the Christians I have admired, learned from, and loved the most are also people with whom I have had theological disagreements. My son and I disagree with one another on many things, but I do love him more than my life. My wife isn’t even a Christian–talk about a divide!–but I love her deeply. So one of the things I’ve had to learn (or explode!) is that much of what we like to think about and talk about and disagree about is not central. It cannot be, or as I say, I would have to explode.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:35 am
I really appreciated how the tone of this exchange changed since Ken’s last mercy-filled response.
I think that’s the key right there.
I often listen to pundits like Bob Dutko, Rachel Maddow, Jim Press, Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, Bill O’Riley and Keith Olbermann rail at the opposing point of view and come away convinced of how they are right or wrong about their issues and how the opposition is evil, godless or ignorant. It seems so simple.
And like them,I have argued with others and chosen to unleash all my cynicism, biting humor and negative opinions upon them.
Nothing accomplished except greater alienation and animosity towards them if I ‘lose’ the argument or puffed up pride in my rhetoric if I ‘win’.
That is until I face someone I care about.
Then, I will develop my point carefully, blunting any barbs of aggression in order to exchange ideas but also keep the relationship.
Maybe that’s the way to ‘argue’.
I have gained nothing from the former way, but have gained understanding and grown friendships from the latter (’former’ and ‘latter’ terms always confuse me).
I currently enjoy a good friendship with a person who disagrees with me on 95% of all ‘issues’, beginning with the fact he is an agnostic and I am a christian, going downhill from there.
But our close friendship stems from our mutual willingness to see past issues and appreciate each other’s character (well, at least I assume he appreciates mine
)
So much so, I can say I would trust him with my life and even stood as his best man @ his wedding.
So back to my observation on Ken’s merciful response, that verse in the Bible about the power of a kind word really seems to be accurate.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Yessss! When pastors are at their best, they are bringing us into God’s own presence.