Aug. 31, 2014
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16: 21-28

Greg Jones was at one point the Dean of Duke Divinity School.  His wife was a United Methodist Pastor serving a new parish somewhere near the school.  Jones talks about the divisions in that church and recalls the experience that his wife witnessed one night in the fellowship hall.  There were two groups in the church, both of which claimed to be the true and duly elected governing body of the church.  As accident would have it, they both showed up for their monthly meeting on the same night.  One group was coming and the other was going, and as they passed one another harsh words and accusations were exchanged.  Tensions grew and before anyone knew it chairs were being hurled across the hall.  Church members were throwing chairs at one another.[1]

Now, I’m sure that in his reflection Dean Jones said something insightful about the incident.  But, I don’t really remember what it was.  Reading his reflection reminded me of the confirmation trips to NYC that I have been doing with my confirmation groups for the last bunch of year.  One of our stops is the John St. UMC, which is the oldest UM congregation in the country.  Downstairs, they have a museum.  And, in that museum is a broken off table leg.  You see, at some point in that church’s history there were two pretty determined groups.  One group, the uptowners, felt that it was time to sell the building and move to a better part of town.  The other group wanted to stay.  When the uptowners insisted that they sell, the other group literally moved into the sanctuary and said, “If you want to sell this place you’ll have to kick us out.”  So, down the uptowners came and an all out brawl ensued.  The glassed-in table leg was left over from that brawl.  It was, of course, used as a weapon in the battle.

The moral, which I explained to the group is that they might want to think twice before joining the Methodist Church.  (I’m sure this sort of thing would never happen in the UCC.)

The Apostle Paul writes to a young Roman congregation, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor… Live in harmony with one another, associate with the lowly, do not claim to be wiser than you are.  [Finally], if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.”

Often in his letters Paul is talking about the “Church vs. the World;” he talks about the challenges that the Church will face as it seeks to live out a faithful witness to Christ in a world of competing priorities.  But, that’s not the case here.  Here, when Paul talks about “enemies” he’s talking about discord within the church.  Love one another, live in harmony, outdo one another in these efforts!  This is about behavior within a congregation.

Its pretty safe to say that if the Roman church were already doing these things – if rich and poor, slave and free, male and female were all living together in perfect harmony – Paul would be speaking to the church on different matters.  The fact that he’s offering these instructions is an indication that there was a problem.  And since in just about all of his letters Paul is managing conflict in one way or another it is probably safe to say that since its inception, despite the great blessing and hope the Church so often embodies, the challenge of bringing together people with divergent backgrounds, stories, opinions, and personalities has been a constant.

A colleague of mine was lamenting how she can’t say the name of her church without somebody saying, “O, that’s Mildred’s church!”  Mildred, it seems, has a bit more control over things than is perhaps healthy for that church.  My colleague said, “No, it’s Christ’s Church,” but acknowledged that if Jesus himself showed up at church and tried to redirect Mildred she would say, “Listen here Messiah, I was here before you and I’ll be here after you.  Don’t you tell me what to do!”

It makes you wonder, what would it take to change Mildred’s heart?  What would it take for those Romans to really love one another the way Paul tells them to?  What would it take for the Methodists to stop throwing chairs?  How do we overcome that which divides us in order to become the Church we are called to be?

I think we are given guidance – not easy guidance – but guidance nonetheless in our gospel passage today.  If Romans tells us what we should be, Matthew tells us how we should do it.  Maybe that’s why the lectionary writers paired these two passages.  Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

As I said, It’s not easy.  It’s not complete either.  It certainly doesn’t account for the particular complexities of any conflict dynamic.  However, I do believe that for the Church and for those who seek to follow Christ the answer has something to do with this dying to self – with a willingness to say, “not I, but you, O God,” – with the faith to surrender ourselves to a God with whom/from whom we may receive ourselves.

Richard Rohr, whom I think is just great, has written a wonderful book called, Falling Upwards.  His premise is essentially this: there are two stages to life, and these stages don’t necessarily correspond to age.  Rather, they correspond to maturity.  We spend the first stage of our lives establishing our egos, staking our claims, and building up a sense of self so that in the second stage of life we have a self to let go of, a self that we can surrender, a self that needs no longer to insist on its own way, but rather can be formed more powerfully by God’s way.

The transition from the first stage to the second stage is without a doubt a kind of dying, and with that dying very often comes a bit of pain.  The ego doesn’t like to give over anything, even if it is giving it over to God.  But, if it is painful, it is also good.  It opens us to a new kind of freedom and a new kind of power and a new kind of peace.

I’ll tell you what I mean.  Angela and I were having what could only be described as a fight.  Of course, it was entirely her fault, but she was having a hard time seeing that.  The fight escalated to the point that we just couldn’t even talk about it anymore.  We both went to our separate corners and fumed.  Feeling like I had no other recourse I prayed about it.  I said, “God, I’m so mad I don’t even know what to say any more.  Can you believe her?  How can she possibly think she’s right?  Did you hear her?  Tell her she’s wrong!  Knock some sense into her.”  I went on for a bit with stuff like that when I distinctly heard, “Tim, I love you.”

…”Yes, God, but did you hear what I said?”  What about this and what about that?; and on I went until I heard it again, “Tim, I love you.”

…”I heard you, but you aren’t getting  it…”  “Tim, I love you.”

So, at that point, I caved.  I let go of the argument.  I listened to those words.  I let them sink in.  I sat with them for a while and I calmed down.  “Tim, I love you,” that’s what mattered, that’s what I needed, and that’s what God was offering.  After a while it actually felt good; it felt peaceful and calm after feeling so upset.

Yet, I knew that things weren’t yet done.  Nothing had been resolved.  So, eventually I said, “What about this whole fight?  What about Angela?”

And God said, “Tim, I love her too.”

We made up and were friends again.  I don’t remember the ensuing discussion.  What I remember is the sense of letting something within me die a bit that night so that something better could live.  Of course, I’m not a finished product, and neither is anybody else that I know.  Dying to self and living to God is a lifelong project.  I think we always have some “phase one” in us even if we’re experiencing more and more of “phase two. “

But, that’s what I love about church.  Church is the one place we can come together and practice living that death that leads to life.  It’s here we can say with one voice, “God, not me, but you,” and we can hear together, “Church, my people, I love you too.”

[1] Everyday Matters, Abingdon Press, 2003.