I’m
sure. Our family, the family of my
childhood . . . and the family of my life partner and the three
strewn-about-the world young adults, . . . both of these families had
absolutely no conflict whatsoever. Hard
to believe, I know. But I am a
pastor. As the oldest of four, I was the
perfect older brother who was the perfect child, never embarrassing my parents,
lovingly embracing my three younger siblings.
We all lived together in perfect harmony.
Thus it is with
our family now. In a household with
three opinionated children who think they know better, their parents never have
to get angry, call them into account, or judge them too harshly. We always mete out the perfect amount of
discipline. And they, in turn, are
angels of respect and kindness. All of
their teachers remarked through their time in school how they never talked too
much in class, always got perfect grades, and were forever treating their
classmates with love, empathy, and kindness.
Our children, in turn, know that they have the most mature and perfect
parents such that there is never any conflict.
No, there was
never any conflict in the house I grew up in in little ole Metamora,
Illinois. Nor has there ever been any
conflict in the variety of places our children grew up in--as I traveled from
church job to church job. You know what
they say about pastor’s kids, and our children always had the double-pastor
whammy. Pastor’s kids are just the best,
you know? They never rebel and become
adults who go to church every Sunday.
They would never be found lighting the new church carpet on fire,
crawling underneath the pews, or isolating themselves from all the other church
members by reading a book in an isolated pew.
Never.
Yeah. All not true.
But you guessed that, right? Both
my family of origin and my present family have had a familial life filled with
conflict. Both families are diverse
individuals with diverse personalities.
And that can be the real struggle. Or that can be the glory of both. A few years ago the Montana-Northern Wyoming
Conference decided to open the floor to a talent show. Our daughter, smiling and brimming with
confidence, decided to do a stand-up routine, sharing to the delight of the
crowd, the inner most failings and flailings of her pastor parents. Wonderful.
Some people said they had never laughed so hard.
Yeah, so you
know? Her phone number is being kept in
a lock box away from any of you. Not
happening.
As a Healthy
Congregations facilitator for local congregations, one of the first things I
say to a congregation that feels like it is coming apart at the seams is that
conflict is a normal and natural part of our common life together. Many of us develop our deep intimacy with
friends and family members by walking through deep, deep conflict and fires we
would never have wished or wanted to walk through.
But too often
we develop expectations of church life that are wildly unrealistic. The friendships I have kept in former churches
are with those people who walked through so much church conflict and pain
together.
I really think
that is what happened to the mainline church in the 60s through the 80s and is
now happening to the evangelical and conservative churches. We all had this romantic notion we were
pretty much the same. But then we begin
to learn that we are actually much more diverse than we ever thought. And the conflict we experience as a result of
that diversity somehow has us believing that that makes us a bad church, an
unhealthy church. When, in reality, what
it makes us is a real church community. If we can find a way to remain connected as
we discover our diversity, so much energy is released, so much possibility
becomes apparent, and the church catches fire with energy and life.
Strange,
right? Because we know families don’t
work that way, somehow believing we are all the same. But we have these romantic notions of what
churches are supposed to be, the sameness, the lack of conflict, and sometimes we
lose out on the fire God intends for us, the gift of diversity, the newness and
the growth.
The Pentecost
story is an ancient one. The author of
the story knows that the liturgical season of Pentecost is a celebration of the
harvest in the Jewish tradition. Pentecost
is a thanksgiving celebration for the abundance of wheat and grapes. Jewish people not only celebrate the growth
and flower of their crops but also remember that God delivered them from Egypt
to a broad and spacious place for community life and conduct.
Pentecost also
celebrates God giving the Divine Law to the people of Israel on Mt. Sinai. As the story goes, the words of the Law, the
way, came down by fire and divided into 70 tongues, one tongue for each known
nation in that ancient world. God gives
the Law, universally, to all peoples in all their diversity, and they can all
understand the Law or way of life as freely given.
In the new telling of the ancient story of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, two
signs of the spirit moving on that day were that Jews, from all corners of the globe gathered in Jerusalem, all of them were able to hear the disciples speaking in their own diverse languages. “How is this so?” they ask. How does the divine celebrate our diversity so well?
When accused of
being drunk on new wine, ridiculing that Spirit, Peter rises to make a speech
reminding the people of the ancient Biblical text of the Biblical book of Joel
where other signs of the Spirit moving as fire fire were that diverse ages
would contribute to the project. Your
young ones will see visions. Your old
ones will dream dreams. All genders and
sexualities, Peter says, shall tell the truth together. They shall prophesy. Though the Spirit’s arrival creates fear,
anxiety, and conflict, Peter assures the crowd that on the other side of the
Spirit’s activity, God is beginning to
do something new.
It is always
the same for the faithful church. What
begins with fear, anxiety, and conflict, a diverse outpouring of gifts, ancient
tradition and story are told to welcome the new that God is creating among us.
Time was, on
one of the national church websites that the United Church of Christ was
described as “a heady and exasperating mix.”
We tend to be a mutt church, a mongrel, many of us castaways from other
traditions, other denominations. Two of
the strongest church members at the church I served in New Hampshire were a
couple of Irish Catholic guys from Boston.
Both of them said they would always be Roman Catholic but, goodness, how
they loved being part of the United Church of Christ in North Hampton. Both guys were the raunchiest, rowdiest,
kind, and dear-hearted people you would ever want to meet. And they loved to tell their pastor dirty
jokes . . . just before the worship service started. As that congregation loved its diversity,
learned how to accept that conflict was a necessary part of intimate, loving
relationship, that church caught fire with mission and ministry. What unleashed the Spirit for them? They found new people in their present
congregation who were willing to listen to their stories of pain for what it
meant to be Roman Catholic as altar boys in Boston. They knew the congregation did not try to
muzzle their painful stories, change who they were deep down, and could hold
them even as they still identified as Irish Catholics.
But again, the
daughter is never doing the stand-up comedy routine here. And no, this is not an invitation to dirty
jokes on Sundays. I do hope that we can hear
the Pentecost story and embrace the beautiful diversity God intended so that we might see the ways this church
catches fire in mission and ministry.
Last week I
outlined already the incredible things this church does on the regular. I asked you to wear red today as a reminder
of the Spirit I see moving among you, like wind and flame, to creatively bring
something new out of the ancient. Oh,
there will be conflict. That’s what
happens when we celebrate God’s wonderful diversity. May we once again re-tell ancient story of a
newness given across diverse age groups, diverse stories so that we might
develop an intimacy with one another that feeds us and helps us spiritually
grow. And have fun as we do it all.
Where do you
see the Spirit moving? Catching
flame? Maybe a place that scares you a
bit but also has the hint of new life, maybe the old story told in a new way? Where do you see a necessary diversity
happening in our congregation and our community that is pregnant with new
possibility? How might we be on fire with
the goodness of God? Recognize the
necessary conflict as an opportunity for our growth and life? I can feel the spirit moving. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment