One afternoon when I was 14 or 15, my father and I down in a bottom of a large hole in the side yard digging a septic tank. We were digging with a trowel and a pair of pruning shears, because the ground was so laced with tough, springy ivy roots that you couldn’t use a shovel, you had to scrape each one clean and then cut through it. It was very hard work, dirty, boring, and hot. And for reasons I cannot now remember I asked my father when the split in the Christian church had occurred.
He started with Peter and Paul and hadn’t even made it to the Reformation when mother called us in for dinner. In case none of you have noticed, I take after my father. Be careful what you ask me, you might want to bring a lunch in case I get carried away.
Because I had only been asking about Catholics and Protestants.
What I didn’t know was that the followers of Jesus have been arguing for two thousand years about what it takes to be a Christian. Even our own denomination has split and reunited so many times that our family tree looks more like Bre’r Rabbit’s briar patch than a decent, orderly Presbyterian sort of history should.
And many people think this is a bad thing. Many people think that all these controversies and splits and schisms and so on are a sign of poor spiritual health and a disgrace to the Gospel. Some people - the kind that Parker Williamson, the editor of the conservative Presbyterian newspaper The Layman - calls institutional loyalists, fear that controversy will damage the organization. That’s characteristic of a lot of Presbyterians; it’s easy to let issues of polity - that is, how we govern ourselves - take precedence over theology, that is what we believe.
As a matter of fact, that particular difference in approaches to controversy showed up at a meeting I was in a couple of months ago, the special one called t,o debate Amendment A. For those of you who don’t follow denominational in-fighting with sports-fan-like zeal, Amendment A is the attempt to remove the part of our constitution which requires fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness. Anyway, we broke into small groups for discussion prior to the vote. In my group, some people were more concerned with whether keeping those restrictions would reduce the pool of people whom they could get to serve on committees. I pointed out that getting people to serve on committees wasn’t - or at least shouldn’t be - a central goal of the church, but that knowing what we believe and standing up for it was. This position was not universally popular.
There’s been an awful lot of fairly heated argument about this issue, and I’m sorry to say it’s not over yet. And some people are sick to death of it and talk about leaving the denomination, of splitting off to become another, purer kind of Presbyterian, like the PCA, the EPC, the OPC, or who knows how many other sets of initials. The only thing Presbyterians have more of than initials is committees. But I’m getting off the main point.
I think heated discussion is a good thing. I don’t actually enjoy it, I ‘m a people-pleaser and a placator by both training and temperament, and I’d rather have everyone agree - at least as long as they agree with me, of course - but I think the time to start to worry is when people stop caring enough about their beliefs to make a stand for them. It’s important enough to me to keep the dialogue going that I actually volunteered to serve on the Presbytery’s Church and Society Committee. Most of the members of that committee think that people who belong to Presbyterians Pro-Life have horns, hooves and a tail. So there I am at the table every month, quaking in my boots for fear someone’s going to accuse me of homophobia or something, speaking my piece on behalf of traditional Biblical standards of morality.
But you know, I’d rather be there fighting over things that matter than hiding out with people who think just like me and having nothing more important to argue about than what color the choir robes should be. Controversy is healthy.
At least, up until the shooting starts. God forbid we should go back to the days of the Crusades, or to the religious wars and persecutions that accompanied the Reformation.
But it’s out of controversy that growth comes. If we never offend anyone with our beliefs, we are probably guilty of watering them down to avoid conflict. I’m not pointing fingers here, I’m often just as guilty of ducking confrontation as anyone. But if we’re passionate enough about following Jesus Christ to actually obey his commandments, we’re going to run right into some very strong opposition - even within the church itself.
Chicago’s Willow Creek church is a case in point. It’s a mega-church that holds what they call “seeker services” on Sundays and worship services on Wednesday nights. And their Sunday services don’t look at all like what American Protestants would have recognized as proper worship as recently as a generation ago; for one thing, they don’t have an organ. And it shocked a lot of people. “They’re watering down the gospel!” people said, “they’re selling out to the popular culture!”
But you know, a lot of people became Christians through those seeker services, and started going to “Believers worship” midweek, and are not only growing in faith but bringing their friends to faith in Christ, too. And the Willow Creek movement became a catalyst for churches all around the country to take a good hard look at themselves, and wrestle - sometimes quite painfully - with their core beliefs and identities. Almost every church in the country has been touched by the conflict between traditional and contemporary worship styles.
It’s a lot like what was happening 2000 years ago, when Peter came back to Jerusalem from Caesaria. Remember that he had been visiting the Christian communities up and down the coast of Judea, encouraging, teaching, and healing. Most of what he did was exactly what was expected of him and completely above reproach. But some disturbing rumors had reached his colleagues back in the city. As Eugene Peterson in his translation “The Message” puts it,
"The news traveled fast, and in no time the leaders and friends back in Jerusalem heard about it - heard that the non-Jewish 'outsiders' were now 'in.' When Peter got back to Jerusalem, some of his old associates, concerned about circumcision, called him on the carpet. 'What do you think you’re doing rubbing shoulders with that crowd, eating what is prohibited and ruining our good name?'”
So Peter tells them what happened. But we already knew about it - that is, Luke’s readers did - because the whole story was told in Chapter 10. So why is he telling it again?
I believe that this part of the story is just as important as what Peter did for Cornelius’ household. The Holy Spirit had used Peter to bring eternal life to a household of Gentiles there on the cost of Judea. In a way it would have made sense for Peter to just keep on going, taking the gospel to Asia Minor and Greece, in effect, getting a head start on what later became Paul’s job. Did Peter blow it, by going back to Jerusalem to report rather than just keep on going?
I don’t think so.
Because the conflict over whether or not the gospel was for Gentiles as well as Jews had to be addressed. If Peter hadn’t come back to Jerusalem, and shared the story with them, and gotten them behind the work, they would have stagnated. Since the persecution had cooled down, the Jerusalem church would probably have gotten smug and self-satisfied, worshiping in the comfortable, familiar way, occasionally welcoming in a new member or two, arguing about politics and waiting for the Lord’s return.
But Peter’s report shook them up. Peter’s report caused controversy. Peter’s report made them think about what it was that made them Christians, what it was that was really central to their identity. And that central mark of belonging was the Holy Spirit. Peter said to them, “If God gave the exact same gift to the Gentiles as he gave to us when we believed in the Master, how can we object to God?”
Peter’s report, and the controversy it generated, gave new life to the sending congregation as surely as it had to the new Gentile Christians. Because after that when the Jerusalem church heard stories of the scattered brothers preaching to Greeks and Egyptians and Cypriots and Phoenicians, all they did was send Barnabas to check and see if this too was a work of the same Holy Spirit.
The conflict and the ensuing change of heart laid the foundation for a new and fruitful relationship between the sending congregation and the new, younger churches. The sending church gave them authority and stability, and the new congregations provided energy and creativity.
Mind you, it didn’t last. Paul ran into the same problem as Peter did, only worse. When he came back to Jerusalem to bring the offering and make his report, the traditionalists tried to lynch him. So conflict can be carried a bit too far.
And as you know, I’m a traditionalist in many things myself. Change for the sake of change does more harm than good, as many churches that tried to adopt the Willow Creek model without thinking it through found out. The important thing is not that the Jerusalem church changed its mind. The important thing is that they took the opportunity to re-examine their own beliefs and identity, and in doing so found a new commitment, new energy, and a new vision.
Because the gift flows both ways. Whenever we reach out to people who are beyond our immediate circle there is danger. There is of course the obvious danger, that we will be rejected. There is the less immediate danger: that we will be challenged, maybe even changed.
A living church is a changing church. Sometimes it is uncomfortable. Growing pains are actually painful. I believe that we here are ready to begin growing. But I also know that when it begins some of you will be unhappy because of the change it will bring. There will be new faces, there will be new hymns, there will be new ideas, new patterns of worship and fellowship. I believe that as a congregation we are more than capable of riding those changes with grace. But we need to be aware that they will come.
When they do, let us follow the model of the Jerusalem church. Let us judge all things by the Holy Spirit and the word of God, and fight only for those things which are eternal.
