Rending and Beyond

Len Wilson —-

In an age of rending, how do we repair? There may be no bigger question for the church today.

It’s a bigger question that one reflection can handle, to be sure. But Paul suggests in his letter to Philippi that a prime way is that we seek to become one in Spirit.

How do we do this? Christian Twitter aside, it begins with seeing the person on the other side of the aisle, including their perspective and their spirit. Have you ever, as a Christian, been willing to admit that someone who has a different theological or political view may also have God’s Spirit dwelling in them? Have you ever actually changed an opinion because of another? We can only do this with humility to God’s Spirit, when we put our agenda under the Lord’s agenda. Step one to learning humility is to be in communion with, and listening to, those with whom we disagree. As followers of Jesus, we would do well to hold our agendas lightly.

I ask these questions with aplomb, yet do not suggest that the issues at play are trivial. One of the hardest things is to carry our convictions with both weight and lightness. In an age in which public traditions are getting yanked down with ropes, one temptation is to minimize or even subsume the work of two millennia of the cloud of witnesses for the sake of a catholic (“universal”) spirit. On the other hand, Christianity may only thrive in the tension of incarnation, which necessitates a re-evaluation every generation.

Christianity is the paradox of following a person not an ideology, which leads to the tension of pursuing truth with grace (those two words again, which cause such controversy when paired). The call of the cloud of which we are a part is to together seek the presence and mind of God. What was true to the earliest church as recorded in Acts 15 is no less true today. To be in relationship with others, to be of one Spirit, begins with humility, otherwise known as admitting someone else may have a contribution to make.

But here’s the thing. Enlightenment philosophy has taught us a Hegelian approach to difference—namely, your take, then my take, leads to a new, blended take. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

This is not the Jesus way. Jesus is God. He does not seek truth, summarize truth, or debate truth. He is truth—the way, the truth, and the life. He is the only person in the history of the world who can rightfully use the phrase “my truth.”

For Jesus to be humble, then, is not for him to abate truth, any more than you can shed your own ancestry. Instead, humility as modeled by Jesus is to be consumed by love for the person across from you—to consider their perspective and need, and the reasons why they say what they do. And then to love them so much, you’d sacrifice your very life to help them know the truth that is Jesus, and in Jesus, to be set free.

Jesus never said that we should discern what is right by employing a rubric of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. Helpful tools, to be sure. But not the end of all. Instead, Jesus said, follow me. To follow Jesus is not to engage in Hegelian debate, but to bring the one across from you close, to together listen to what the Spirit of God says, and to obey.

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“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”
— ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2‬:‭8‬‬