In August of 1999 in Landover, Maryland, the papers reported that 100 years of Christian fellowship, unity, and community outreach ended in an act of congregational discord. Holy Creek Baptist Church was split into multiple factions. The source of the dissension was a piano bench which sits behind the 1923 Steinway piano to the left of the pulpit. Now Holy Creek Congregation has four different services each Sunday, each with a different pastor — and the piano bench will be put in a different place at each service. The services are far enough apart that neither group will come into contact with the other. An outside party will be moving the piano bench to different locations and appropriate positions, between services, so as to please all sides, and avoid any further conflict that could result in violence.
This is nothing new is it? I have known churches to split over the color of paint or the carpeting chosen for the sanctuary; the kind of music used in worship, or whether the preacher wore a robe.
I began to think of how church splits started very early in Christian history. In the Scripture today we read about a church split where some said they were followers of Peter, others said they were followers of Apollos, some were followers of Paul, and some said they were followers of Christ. To which Paul responded, “Is Christ divided?” Evidently, if we are the “Body of Christ”, he is.
As I read this scripture, I began to think of all the divisions that I could think of just off the top of my head. I started writing them down, beginning with Catholic and Protestant (PROTESTants). There are liberals and conservatives, Calvinists and Wesleyans, Evangelicals, Emergents, Holiness, Mainline, Pentecostal and Charismatic, Fundamentalists — and that is not even going into Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, etc.
Do you realize how much division there is just in the way we baptize? Methodists think that it only takes a little water on top of the head. (Actually, we baptize in three different ways.) Some baptize by pouring water over the head from a pitcher. Baptists think you should be put clear under the water. One denomination in our area thinks that you are not saved unless you are baptized by immersion. Another thinks you should be dunked three times forward into the water.
Joke is told about a Methodist and Baptist arguing about baptism. The Methodist said, “You mean that if I go into the water clear up to my waist it is not enough?” The Baptist shook his head “No!” “What if I go in clear up to my shoulders?” “No,” again was the answer. “What if I go in and everything is wet except the very top of my head?” The Baptist again shook his head in disagreement. “There, you see!,” said the Methodist, “It’s the top of the head that’s important!”
Phillip Yancey writes that at last report there are thirty-eight thousand different Christian denominations on the world. He goes on to quip, “There used to be 37,999 until one person decided he or she had a corner on truth that made his church more ‘pure’ than all rest and formed a new denomination or cult.” Then he tells the story of a friend of his. “Unable to find a church pure enough in the United States, moved to Australia where he still couldn’t find a church with a theology that satisfied him. So he started his own church. Last I heard there were three people left in the church, after numerous splits and divisions: an old man with Parkinson’s disease, my friend, and my friends’s wife. The two men take turns preaching at each other (women aren’t allowed to speak in this church).” And there are so many divisions in our denomination that we have been called, not United Methodist, but Untied Methodists. I believe all of this grieves the heart of God. Jesus’ final prayer that we all become one still remains unanswered.
I worry about the division that exists all across our country that is tearing us apart as a nation. It seems that we are hopelessly fractured and divided into conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat, red states, blue states. I have literally had people in my church judge other people and ask them how they can be a Christian and be a democrat. Sometimes I think we are better at pushing people away than drawing them to Christ.
You do realize that you can be baptized, attend church, believe in God and the Bible, know the Scriptures and have asked God for forgiveness and still not be a good person? In fact you can use your religion to beat people up and feel superior to them so that you are justified in being mean to them. Wasn’t this the point of what was happening with Jesus and the self-righteous Pharisees? If you are going to be a good person you have to actually follow the teachings of Jesus and do what he says. You have to ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to help you be able to live as Jesus taught. And you have to walk in the way of love.
We are experts at majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors. Jesus talked about the Pharisees who tithed their spice cabinets. He said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” Matthew 23:23 It is easy to forget the more important matters of the law, isn’t it?
In the church we tithe the spice cabinet and we have much more acceptable sins than the people outside the church. I know many people who would never touch alcohol, but who think nothing of being judgmental, critical and nasty. I know people who would never commit adultery, but think nothing of racial slurs. They would die before they smoked a cigarette, but never blink an eye at their own bigotry or complaining, critical spirit. They would never watch an R rated movie, but they think nothing of gossip, backbiting and ruining another person’s reputation. No, we have much more respectable sins in the church.
1. If there is going to be unity in the church we have to give up having to always be right.
Would you rather be right or would you rather have right relationships? Many churches and homes have been split because someone always has to be right. A lot of churches have had years of chaos and loss because of one person who was impossible to please, thought they were always right and always had to have their own way. They got by with it because everyone was afraid to offend them, and because he/she was “such a good worker” in the church. And many churches have allowed someone like that to spin the church into a dysfunctional mess.
Some people feel like they have a corner on the truth. Sometimes we see ourselves as a champion of the truth when in reality we are only a champion of conflict. You do realize that no one cares about how right we are? It will not be our united opinion that will convince the world of the truth and bring people to God, it will be our united hearts. It will be people who know how to love each other in spite of disagreements. No one wants us to pound them with our idea of truth. What they are interested in is whether we care about them or not. What they care about is whether we love one another and like each other. What they care about is whether we can get along long enough to think about someone besides ourselves. What they care about is seeing a church reach out beyond their walls. They will know we are Christians, not by our correct doctrine or even the truth we teach, but by our love.
Truth is important, but it means nothing if it is not accompanied by love. The Bible says, “If I had the gift of being able to speak in other languages without learning them and could speak in every language there is in all of heaven and earth, but didn’t love others, I would only be making noise. If I had the gift of prophecy and knew all about what is going to happen in the future, knew everything about everything, but didn’t love others, what good would it do? Even if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, I would still be worth nothing at all without love. If I gave everything I have to poor people, and if I were burned alive for preaching the Gospel but didn’t love others, it would be of no value whatever.” 1 Cor. 13:1-6
2. Our unity is meant to be a reflection of the unity of God.
We are to model the unity of God. We are not to be divided because God is not divided. Our individualism is blended into community.
We talk about the Trinity — the Tri-Unity of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the perfect unity of love). God is not just three persons, God is a community. There is mutual inter-penetration and indwelling. The relationship within the Trinity is not a static state of being, but rather as a dynamic relationship. One of the words that theologians use for the Trinity is Perichoresis. It literally means “to dance around.” Like dancers in a performance there is a constant movement of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others. Perichoreis pictures the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a divine embrace as they dance in love, ecstatic joy and perfect harmony. I love that image. The Eastern part of the church did not describe the Trinity as an egg: three very distinct parts making up the one egg. An egg cannot move or act. Rather they described the Trinity as being like three candles in a room — each radiating their own energy and light. Yet no one in the room would be able to tell which part of the light came from which candle. The three candles form one light.
Jesus said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” John 17:20-22
It is amazing what can happen when no one cares who gets the credit. It is amazing what can happen when no one is concerned about who is more right than the other. And that is what God is like — always more interested in the dance of love than in being recognized or rewarded.
3. The purpose of unity is that the world may believe.
John 13:35 says: “By THIS all men will know that you are my disciples, IF you love one another.”
Again, Jesus said, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:20-23
I have often been tempted to look at the church and despair. I wonder how we can ever bring the world to God as divided as we are. I have come to the place where it serves to convince me that the church is of God. In spite of all this the work of God marches on. The church grows, and nations, even whole continents, have been converted. We are here today because of the mysterious, powerful move of the Spirit of God across our land that continues in spite of our foibles and fumbling. It gives me hope and causes me to be joyful about what God is doing.
The Bible says, “Here is a trustworthy saying: ‘If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.’” 2 Tim. 2:13
Unity is something that only God can make happen. Left to ourselves we are hopelessly divided — which is why we must do all we can to stay near him and remain in his will.
I want God’s Spirit to course through me. I want to be a unifier, not a divider. I want to be someone who is part of the solution rather than someone who is part of the problem. I want my love for God to result in more love for my fellow human beings. I want to be a person of grace.
You are familiar with the history of the apartheid policies of South Africa and the unspeakable violence committed against blacks under the white regime. After Nelson Mandella’s release from prison, he asked Bishop Desmond Tutu to set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring to light the ugly truth of what had happened, and do it without exacting revenge, but rather reconciliation. Under the rules, if an oppressor faced his accusers and fully confessed his crime, he could not be prosecuted. Many protested that this was not justice, but Mandella insisted the country needed healing more than it needed justice. In one of the trials: “A policeman named van de Broek recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body, turning it on the fire like a piece of barbecue meat in order to destroy the evidence. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy’s father. The wife was forced to watch as policemen bound her husband on a woodpile, poured gasoline over his body, and ignited it.”
The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond. ‘What do you want from Mr. Van de Broek?’ the judge asked. She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial. His head down, the policeman nodded agreement.
Then she added a further request, ‘Mr. Van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him. And I would like Mr. Van de Borek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him, too. I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.’
Some in the courtroom spontaneously began singing ‘Amazing Grace’ as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand, but van de Broek did not hear the hymn. He had fainted, physically overwhelmed by grace.” (Phil Yancey What Good Is God?)
She literally followed the Scripture which says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21).
May Amity UMC be such a place of grace — giving people not what they deserve, but what they do not deserve: forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation and love — just like God has loved us. And when we live like this, the world will finally believe.
Rodney J. Buchanan
Amity UMC
January 23, 2011
The Bible says:
How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the Lord bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.
Psalm 133:1-3
