We didn't hold a Bible study this week, with it being a long weekend, but a few of us met for coffee and a chat anyway.
Following our study on letting love be genuine, word has spread of conflict within our congregation. We heard with dismay of people within the congregation being hurt and hurtful, of the destructive power of gossip, of the growing divisiveness of an "us/them" mentality. How can we, a few, relatively powerless and insignificant members work for peace in this situation?
It seems so sad that, even as we are reading about having the mind of Christ, people we care about are making accusations of other people we care about. As we read about overcoming evil with good we find negativity growing and spreading. What good can we do? We don't know all the sides of the issue(s) so cannot even judge fairly who is right in each situation - but is that what we are called to do? Going back to last weeks' lessons and making genuine love our goal - we have concluded that the most powerful actions we have at our disposal are praying and staying positive. While we struggle with the latter as various stories emerge, we will continue to try to spread affirmation and positive support. We will continue to try to speak positively of our brothers and sisters, even when we don't agree. But more importantly we will pray.
Too often we downplay the importance of prayer. While we are hampered by our human limitations and emotions, God sees the situation clearly. While we often misread situations and misjudge the right thing to say or do - God knows not only what we should say or do but how it will be received. While we get tired and discouraged - God can strengthen us to carry on. We need to keep praying, to draw on the strength and omniscience of our wonderful, loving God - maybe there will be a solution that we can't see. Maybe God will work through our meagre attempts to help bring about healing and hope.
And so, on this day when most people focus on the larger issue of world peace - towards which we also need to work and pray - and grandiose attempts to bring it about, we dwelt on working for peace within our troubled selves and our troubled congregation. May we continue to "pray without ceasing" and somehow be a catalyst for peace within ourselves, our congregation and our world.
Saturday, 16 November 2013
November 4 - Let Love be Genuine
Sometimes what seems like a pretty innocuous theme turns into a challenging discussion. This was one of those weeks. We started out by reading Article 22 of A Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Though I think we all knew that Mennonites stand for Non-resistance and peace making some people were surprised by the contents of this chapter. It became very obvious that, even though we have a lot in common, care about each other and respect each other as Christians seeking to find answers to how to follow Christ, we have different understandings of what "non-resistance" means. And this was just the start of the challenges.
Romans 12:9-21 speaks of genuine love - for each other within the church and for strangers. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Even when we disagree, we are still supposed to bless each other. We are to be ardent in spirit, but not to claim to be wiser than we are. We are to bless those who persecute us and live in harmony with one another. The challenge comes with the passages on not repaying evil for evil, but feeding or supplying beverages for needy enemies. At first this seems fairly simple as we don't really have "enemies" as such. but the video broadened the definition and brought it closer to home. The one speaker on the video spoke of meeting someone from another faith - and reaching out to her was like reaching out to long ago and combatting the persecution that followers of both faiths had experienced back then. So even though they weren't enemies now, at some point they both had a history of evil cutting them off from each other through the persecution of that day so, by coming together, they were overcoming evil with good. This was a little vague for us. The other example hit home, though. The speaker shared about a situation where she had been deeply hurt by a couple within her congregation. She had dealt with it by avoiding direct contact - until she was heading a small group/committee, which included this couple. What do we do when we disagree? How do we handle it when others within our faith family say and do hurtful things, either knowingly or unwittingly. This is suddenly hitting us where we live.
The guide emphasizes blessing those who persecute you, on leaving vengeance to God and on focussing on "enemy-love". This sounds so good in theory but those of us dealing with situations found it difficult to commit to this. Although we all agreed we should, it was harder when a concrete situation came to mind.
To add to all this, I was listening to a sermon from the Meeting House (themeetinghouse.com) and guess what the theme was? You guessed it - disagreeing in love. The pastor there emphasized over and over that we are a family and families stick together and love each other even if they disagree (and fight). He has no problem sharing his definite views on homosexuality or nonresistance - but acknowledges that other "good and godly Christians" read the Bible and come up with a different answer. Their congregation will never become an "affirming" congregation - yet attracts people of other orientations because it is a safe place to explore what it means to be a Christian. They state with no apology that they do not believe in serving in the military or carrying a weapon for work - yet have police and military officers as a part of their family because they know they are loved and accepted, even if not everyone agrees they have made the right career choice. How can we get to that? In our congregation the polity forces us to be more definite as we determine jointly who can become members or take on leadership positions and how we will present ourselves. But is there not some way that we can pull closer to this?
The conclusion I have come to, in my imperfect understanding, is that the most important part of the whole Romans passage is the first part (verse 9) where we are called to genuine love of all our brothers and sisters. We don't have to agree on everything. We should be able to disagree, even argue with each other, but when we disagree we should do so respecting the other person as an intelligent, God created Christ follower. God will decide who is right and what the penalty will be for whoever is wrong. Our job is, as far as is possible, to live peaceably with all, in unity, in harmony. We are called to love.
This is difficult for me. When I have succeeded in looking for the positive and respecting an alternative view, even if I "know" it is wrong, I have managed to maintain loving relationships. When hurt sets in, however, it can be difficult to let go of the pain and love the other person anyway. The tendency is to lash back. But we have challenged ourselves to speak positively - not only about our enemies but about every one. It is a skill that needs to be practiced - so we will try to practice it until it becomes a habit. (Please forgive me when I fail). We will try to look for the positive in those around us so we can genuinely love them, whether or not we disagree, and maybe even forgive them when they hurt us.
As I said...a challenging week.
Romans 12:9-21 speaks of genuine love - for each other within the church and for strangers. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Even when we disagree, we are still supposed to bless each other. We are to be ardent in spirit, but not to claim to be wiser than we are. We are to bless those who persecute us and live in harmony with one another. The challenge comes with the passages on not repaying evil for evil, but feeding or supplying beverages for needy enemies. At first this seems fairly simple as we don't really have "enemies" as such. but the video broadened the definition and brought it closer to home. The one speaker on the video spoke of meeting someone from another faith - and reaching out to her was like reaching out to long ago and combatting the persecution that followers of both faiths had experienced back then. So even though they weren't enemies now, at some point they both had a history of evil cutting them off from each other through the persecution of that day so, by coming together, they were overcoming evil with good. This was a little vague for us. The other example hit home, though. The speaker shared about a situation where she had been deeply hurt by a couple within her congregation. She had dealt with it by avoiding direct contact - until she was heading a small group/committee, which included this couple. What do we do when we disagree? How do we handle it when others within our faith family say and do hurtful things, either knowingly or unwittingly. This is suddenly hitting us where we live.
The guide emphasizes blessing those who persecute you, on leaving vengeance to God and on focussing on "enemy-love". This sounds so good in theory but those of us dealing with situations found it difficult to commit to this. Although we all agreed we should, it was harder when a concrete situation came to mind.
To add to all this, I was listening to a sermon from the Meeting House (themeetinghouse.com) and guess what the theme was? You guessed it - disagreeing in love. The pastor there emphasized over and over that we are a family and families stick together and love each other even if they disagree (and fight). He has no problem sharing his definite views on homosexuality or nonresistance - but acknowledges that other "good and godly Christians" read the Bible and come up with a different answer. Their congregation will never become an "affirming" congregation - yet attracts people of other orientations because it is a safe place to explore what it means to be a Christian. They state with no apology that they do not believe in serving in the military or carrying a weapon for work - yet have police and military officers as a part of their family because they know they are loved and accepted, even if not everyone agrees they have made the right career choice. How can we get to that? In our congregation the polity forces us to be more definite as we determine jointly who can become members or take on leadership positions and how we will present ourselves. But is there not some way that we can pull closer to this?
The conclusion I have come to, in my imperfect understanding, is that the most important part of the whole Romans passage is the first part (verse 9) where we are called to genuine love of all our brothers and sisters. We don't have to agree on everything. We should be able to disagree, even argue with each other, but when we disagree we should do so respecting the other person as an intelligent, God created Christ follower. God will decide who is right and what the penalty will be for whoever is wrong. Our job is, as far as is possible, to live peaceably with all, in unity, in harmony. We are called to love.
This is difficult for me. When I have succeeded in looking for the positive and respecting an alternative view, even if I "know" it is wrong, I have managed to maintain loving relationships. When hurt sets in, however, it can be difficult to let go of the pain and love the other person anyway. The tendency is to lash back. But we have challenged ourselves to speak positively - not only about our enemies but about every one. It is a skill that needs to be practiced - so we will try to practice it until it becomes a habit. (Please forgive me when I fail). We will try to look for the positive in those around us so we can genuinely love them, whether or not we disagree, and maybe even forgive them when they hurt us.
As I said...a challenging week.
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