Church, some say, should be a place of peace. Church should be a place where we can come after a week of dealing with conflicts, fears, and doubts, and find peace. I was told we don’t want conflict at church.
And I do understand. I do understand why, when we come to the hour of worship, we want release from the normal hurly-burly of life. I do understand why, when we are in the house of God, we want an atmosphere of love and calm and quiet. Most of us do want that. I want that.
And yet, it is also true that because we are real people we will have real conflicts. Real people bring deep contradictions and genuine issues to church with them. Just walking in the church door does not change who we are. A whole lot of folks can at least manage to stay polite for a couple of hours on Sunday, but that does not mean that their lives are not plagued with problems and corroded with contradictions. That’s just reality.
I come back so often to Paul and to the church at Corinth. That yeasty, fractious, loud, argumentative place. That church, not exactly a place of peace, with problems, factions, immoralities, questions. That church whose address was Corinth, but it could be Washington, it could be Piney Branch Road and Aspen Street. I keep coming back to that church, because I like it! I like that church, with all of its issues! It’s familiar! And its life teaches us about living with contradictions:
II Corinthians 5:17-20, 6:2b-10
I once heard a man describe what mixed feelings are. He said that his description of mixed feelings would be seeing your mother-in-law drive herself into the ditch by the side of the road and get stuck, and you feel a kind of wicked delight. But when you look again you see she drove into the ditch in your brand new car!
Contradictions. Mixed feelings. Bad news - good news jokes. Have we not all had these happen to us?
This Friday was my daughter’s birthday. A time for fun, a time to be with her for a little while, a time to rejoice in all she means to our family. Good news. But she broke the spell by saying, “Well, Dad, here I am at the big three-oh.” Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If you, dear daughter, are at the big three-oh, then that means I am only fifteen months away from the bigger six-oh! Mixed feelings. We live with mixed feelings and contradictions wherever we turn.
Yesterday afternoon Margaret and I went to the store to make a few purchases. We paid for them with our Visa card and left. When we got home and unpacked, I found in the sack not only the customer’s copy of the credit card slip, but also the signed store copy. Aha! That would mean that the store doesn’t have a record of my purchase! Did I just get something free! Wow! But .. but .. mixed feelings. The clerk who waited on us at the store was a church member!
Here’s the slip, Cohen Cosby!! This is a test, this is a test!!
Contradiction and mixed feelings in all of life. Just why should the church of Jesus Christ be any different? Why should life in Takoma Park Baptist Church be an exception? It is not. It is not. We live in the midst of contradictions. But that is exactly what church is all about. That is what the gospel is all about. And that is what God is involved in.
I
You see, the gospel is reconciliation. Paul tells us that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. God’s work is resolving conflict. Our conflict with God, which we call sin. Our conflict with others, which we call anger, hatred, and misunderstanding. And our conflict within ourselves, which we call anxiety. But God is in Christ reconciling. That’s what God does.
But now notice: you have to have a conflict before you can have a reconciliation. You have to have some tension before you can get a release. Looked at that way, tension is a good thing, because it allows us to experience release. Contradictions are good things because they permit us to get some clarity. And it is only when we experience reconciliation that we have something to share with the world. It is only when we know release from sin and contradiction that we can be messengers of the good news.
Did you add up all the contradictions Paul felt in his ministry with the church at Corinth? Did you count up all the stuff that he felt, all the bad news - good news items? He says that he found himself in the bad news camp a whole lot: “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger”. A serious laundry list of woes and worries! Tough to deal with!
But then he also added up the good news items: “purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God”. He found all of that in the church too. A serious laundry list of gifts and goodies! Wonderful to receive! It’s all there, bad news - good news.
Now listen to some more bad news - good news mixed feeling stuff: he says that at one and the same time, people considered him “in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostor, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see -- we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
Wow! Here’s the point. Here’s the thrust. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has I am saying, count in a blessing if you find contradictions in your church. Count is a blessing, because we have to experience conflict before we can have resolution. We have to know our sins before we can receive forgiveness. We have to know what it is to be miserably misunderstood before we can have compassion. We have to know the contradictions of life in the church before we can lead others to the church. But I say it is all of God, whose very work it is to reconcile. If there is no tension, there is no reconciliation. Give thanks for the contradictions in this your church, which make the gift of reconciliation both necessary and possible!
II
In fact, as I read this bad news - good news list, it tells me that contradictions are actually enriching. Enriching. It tells me that God can and will use the tensions we have to enrich us. Some of the language is very instructive. Listen to it again: we are considered as “poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” This Corinthian church, this apostle Paul, whom you might have looked at and said, “what a mess” -- they had everything worth having. And they were able to share it with others. “Poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
Contradictions will enrich us as a church. Let’s just identify some of our contradictions. Let me get off of generalities and identify some specifics. But let me also tell you how God is using these contradictions to grow us.
We have tensions and contradictions about worship. Some folks tell me we ought to relax and swing and let loose and let go. Others tell me we should get everything done in a sixty minutes package each Sunday morning, nice and neat, quiet and dignified. That’s a contradiction. Some say our music is too formal and too traditional and we hold ourselves down too tight. Others say our music is too loud and too gospel and too new. That’s a contradiction. Some folks tell me that there are certain subjects which ought to be avoided from this pulpit, some of which I get into on occasion. Others, however, seem hungry and thirsty for issues to be dealt with, creatively and forcefully, and wish it would hit harder. That’s a contradiction. But I believe God is using all this to make us grow by forcing us to ask what worship is and to feel, not just to think up here in the head, but to feel, down here in the heart, how to respond to His Spirit. We don’t have all the answers, and maybe we never will, but just having the questions raised is a growing experience. It’s a point where God is enriching us. And we’ll have something to give the world because of it.
We have tensions and contradictions about missions and ministry. Some folks tell me we ought to cut back the dollars we are giving to missions, and that we need to keep more here at home. Others are looking for us to do even more than we now do. That’s a contradiction. Some folks tell me they are uncomfortable with our continuing to minister to the needs in our community, and that we on the church staff should be spending more time caring for you, the sheep we already have, instead of looking for new ones to bring in. Others, however, push us to find new places to invest our energies, new needs to meet. That’s a contradiction. Some folks tell me that we shouldn’t keep on working on new things, like new Sunday School classes, new training programs, new discipleship groups, new this and new that; some folks say, you’re always changing things, just leave them alone. Others, on the contrary, look for new ways to grow and new thrusts to offer, new knowledge to learn. That’s a contradiction. And again, we don’t have all the answers, and maybe we never will, but just having the questions raised is a growing experience. It’s a point where God is enriching us. And we’ll have something to give the world because of it.
If there is conflict in our church, I say, “Count it all joy.” Count it all joy, because we are growing from it. You know, the books I read that helped me most were the ones I disagreed with! Some of my books have scribbles all up and down the margins, where I wrote in my dissent. I didn’t agree, but I grew. Some of the preachers I learned the most from were, in my opinion, dolts and idiots whom I would never bring to this pulpit, but I learned from them. They made me think. I was enriched by the conflict! So, our church, by the grace of God, out of the contradictions, though “poor, [is] yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” We are not perfect, but we are redeemed. God is not finished with us yet. But He is growing us. I say, count it all joy.
III
So I can hear, so wonderfully clearly, the “nowness” of this Scripture text. I can hear the “now” that Paul hears. “Now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way .... God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us.” We are ambassadors for Christ, now.
Friends, I believe with all my heart that now is the moment for us. Now is the moment of truth for Takoma Park Baptist Church. Now is the time for us to move forward and to accept our work as ambassadors for Christ. Yes, we are ambassadors with contradictions. Yes, we have mixed feelings and tensions; but so what?! We know that having tensions is necessary for what God wants to do through us, and that is to give the world the message of reconciliation.
Yes, we have certain contradictions within the life and thrust of our church, more than the ones I mentioned. But so what?! We know that those contradictions are God’s gifts. He will use them to enrich us.
So now is our time, now is our moment, to be ambassadors of Christ. Now is our time to seize the opportunity. Eleven or twelve years ago, just before I became pastor, one of our members said to me, “I think the Lord is giving Takoma Park one more chance to be faithful to doing His work, and if we don’t take it, He will drop us.” One more chance.
I believe that God has given us that chance and that we are in the business of receiving it. I do know that over the years God has given us many gifts. In just the last few weeks interesting and wonderful things have been happening. Two weeks ago, several of us gathered here at this altar for prayer and poured out our hearts, asking for unity in the life of the church. It was a powerful moment, made more powerful when the service closed and several came forward to give their lives to Christ and to His church. Someone said to me just this week that she could feel God addressing Takoma, God encountering Takoma, in a new way. A “now” kind of way.
Let us not miss the “now” moment! Now is the acceptable time, now the day of salvation, now the moment to become ambassadors for Christ. Ambassadors with contradictions? Yes, praise God!
So I refuse to be discouraged about Takoma and its contradictions, not only because I’ve seen too many good things .. things like four Experiencing God discipleship groups .. but also because I read somewhere that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church. I refuse to be discouraged.
I refuse to be anxious about Takoma and its tensions, not only because we’ve done some extraordinary things ... things like giving far more money to kingdom causes than ever before .. but also because I read somewhere that God is at work in all things to bring about good among those who are called according to His purpose. I refuse to be anxious.
I refuse to short my energies, I refuse to turn off my imagination, I refuse to slow down my work, and I refuse to cut back my financial contributions, just because there are contradictions. I refuse to do any of those things, in fact, I intend to increase in every one of them, because now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation, now is the day for Takoma’s ambassadors with contradictions to be poor but make many rich, to have nothing and yet possess everything, everything, everything.
Come to think of it, if your mother-in-law is in the ditch in your brand new car, now is your chance to win her love and gratitude. Insurance will replace your car. You can reconcile contradictions.
