May 24 - Avoiding romancing the concept of community
Scripture focus: Someone might be able to beat up one of you, but not both of you. As the saying goes, "A rope made from three strands of cord is hard to break." Ecclesiastes 4:12 (Contemporary English Version)
I have this lifelong friend who loves to go to church and come out feeling beat up. He says it spurs him to action. He's of the opinion that most preachers today have lost their way, gotten soft on sin and refuse to preach God's word.
My friend is pretty good at taking a beating. He's very competent. When stirred to action with a message calling for more suffering, sacrifice and surrender, he has the strength and stamina to follow through. This obedience brings him pleasure. Recently his pastor challenged him to ask twenty people if they knew Christ in one day, and my friend doubled the bet and asked forty. This church is growing by leaps and bounds and the congregants are delighted and feel God's pleasure as they grow.
But here's the thing that bothers me. My friend, who is very good at accepting challenges to perform, eats more than he should and exercises less than is safe. He's beyond chubby. His doctor says he's going to die soon if he doesn't start taking better care of himself. And this is kind of hush-hush, but his wife thinks he has anger management issues. But hear me on this – he is a performance machine, and he doesn't mind me saying so!
He's willing for me to share our decades-long story of messy community as an illustration of how the two of us disagree about the melody and meaning of life. I think he's singing just a touch off key; he thinks that as long as he's accomplishing great things I should stop with the confused looks when he recounts his faithfulness while belittling his wife in front of me. I don't know. Maybe I'm confused. But here's what I keep saying to him: what does it matter that you ask forty or four hundred people if they know the living Lord, if your wife cowers when you berate her in public (or private)?
Here's the point: living in community is a very crazy experience. In community we wrestle with how to maintain friendships without compromising our core values. This isn't easy. My friend and I live in imperfect and messy community. We disagree on issues that I believe are really serious. I probably am not mature enough to go to his church and he probably thinks mine is soft on sin. But we have maintained an uneasy friendship in spite of our fundamental disagreements. I am no longer able to eat out with him and his wife, because watching the way he treats her makes my heart sick. He refrains from reminding me that he believes that I'm in big trouble for being a woman who speaks in church. He and I agree on one thing – we're trying to figure out how to support each other even when we don't always like what the other person says or does. And it's hard. And we get it wrong a lot. But I don't happen to think getting it right is the point – loving others is more important in the kingdom of God than being right. (Which is why I think he should cherish his wife more and correct her less.)
Skill set #16: Learn how to disagree without disrespecting or demanding uniformity of thought.
Recommended reading: Psalm 41-43
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