Give No Offense

“Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God.”  1 Corinthians 10:32

A recent tweet circulating locally is as follows:  “The two primary reasons people don’t follow Christ:  1) They’ve never met a follower.  2) They have.”

Ouch.

Mahatma Gandhi is reputed to have said to a Christian missionary:  “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

And therein lays the problem facing the Church.  The world is deeply attracted to Jesus, but less than impressed with Jesus’ followers. 

As a Christian, I believe Jesus is the best hope for the world.  And while the Church has been entrusted with the witness to Jesus, I have often been disheartened by our infighting, and many times embarrassed by the words and witness of some of us who claim to be his disciples.  In the words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

There are a few songs circulating with titles like, “God [Jesus], Save Us from Your Followers.”  Ouch, again.  How is it that Jesus, who exemplifies love at its best, should be surrounded by followers who have such a bad reputation?

I want to make a confession, on behalf of Jesus’ followers, to anyone who has ever been offended needlessly, who has been oppressed or judged wrongfully, and who has been alienated from the church because of the arrogance of Christians.  Perhaps it is time for Christians to engage in a period of introspection, repentance and reflection, to consider the harm we have done in Jesus’ name.  And then to engage in acts of contrition, of penitence, as a testimony to the love which Jesus embodies.  We may need more than a season of Lent.  We may need a decade.

I offer the following clip as a demonstration of  the Christian witness to Jesus at its best:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QQtfjnvdJQ

May the Spirit of Jesus continue to overcome and transform the worst of his followers.  Then, perhaps, the world might be more open to belief.

Avoiding Consumption

Jesus prays that his disciples might be one so that the world might believe (John 17:21).  I suspect Jesus knew what a challenge it would be for the church to ever be united so he made it a central part of his prayer life to envision unity for all God’s people.  I am a minister in a denomination that puts unity in the very title of our official name (The United Methodist Church), but I am reminded of a photo of a local church marquee which, surely through a typographical error, boasted itself as the “Untied” Methodist Church --- and sometimes we are.

We are often untied by our difference of opinions, and evidence of that was obvious at our recent General Conference of United Methodists as protests and counter protests on various church petitions were voiced.  And we are often untied in the local church by arguments among ourselves regarding everything from the menu at fellowship suppers and the dress code for the ushers at Sunday services.  Good grief.

And if we are that untied within denominations, it stands to reason that we are perhaps not only untied but snarled in a tangle across denominations.  The very existence of different branches of Christendom stands as a judgment on our failure to achieve unity.

I peruse the purportedly Christian blogs on cyberspace in hopes of finding signs of unity and voices of good news only to find authors taking potshots at other authors for their failure to measure up to standards of orthodoxy and “truth,” as they so define it.  And it grieves me that we Christians have so often targeted each other as the enemy.   Is it any wonder that the world at large still doesn’t believe when we show such lack of love toward fellow believers in Christ? 

In Galatians 5:15, Paul makes an observation, “if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.”  Instead of pointing out the errors of doctrine in our sisters and brothers in Christ, why not look for the ways they are serving Christ in their words and deeds?  Rather than looking with disdain at our unorthodox cousins, why not point out the spiritual gifts they bring to the table of the Lord?

Let the people of God, who call themselves followers of Jesus, instead of “consuming each other” seek to live in answer to the prayer of Jesus that “they may be one . . . so the world might [indeed] believe.”