Letters from the new pastor- Prayer and Division
“Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in a personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.”
Henri Nouwen
One of the most disturbing things about churches is the consistent tension we face in loving one another while holding to conviction. We use empty and pithy cliches that say to “love the sinner and hate the sin.” Jesus simply said to love. He also said to “sin no more.” Without question, the church of Jesus is consistently challenged with this tension— loving and accepting while holding to convictions.
Some call it “grace AND truth.” Often I find little of either in our conversations, social media offerings and our relationships. What I see in us, myself included, is a propensity to “write off” or dismiss those who think and act differently. In short, we (church) far too often moralize (determine someone as right and good or wrong and evil) others rather than lean past our own opinions and discover the image of God in ourselves and others. And in doing so we homogenize our communities (we just welcome carbon copies of ourselves and we have no variety).
I’m not advocating that we be relativistic or soft, but I am also very wary of our comfort level when it comes to being offensive or manipulative. I dearly love the quoted statement above because it pushes me further past and deeper beneath all of the surface level normal— it plunges me to the depths of God’s love.
It is only when I deal with burning issues from a posture of a God-relationship and my place in it that I can rightly see the “logs” in my own eyes (see Matthew 7). Love the sinner, hate the sin? No, more like love the sinner, because that’s me. And at that point, I can get out of the way for God’s love to eradicate the sin from my life more and more. I want to be too grateful for God’s love at work in me that the sins of others are nothing more than another reason to point to His love and acceptance— he loves and accepted me, and I KNOW how fallen I can be.
This is one reason why, in daily prayer, so many of us Christians should focus on confession. Confession for sins I know I’ve done, for others that I’m not aware of— for the times I showed up where I didn’t belong (trespassing) and the times others have wandered where they didn’t belong with me— for the times I didn’t know or didn’t do what I should have done. If I’m often reminded, in prayer, of how much grace is extended my way, it’s very unlikely that I will become casual with it. For when grace and love lose their novelty and wonder, I lose gratitude for them. And when I lose gratitude, I can get pretty mean and judgy.
That’s my prayer— for me and for you: may we daily become inspired by the love and grace and acceptance of a God who chooses us. May we be rooted in Him. And may we be less mean and condescending with others as a result of that rootedness.