Years ago, I heard a speaker tell of an epiphany about her husband. She said one of the things she found attractive about her husband when they were dating was how attentive he was too little details. Not that this should have been surprising. He was a very successful accountant. One night, years after they were married, they were preparing to go to bed. He asked her if she had remembered to lock the back door. She assured him she had. As she got into bed, she thought he would go turn out the light, but instead, he went out of the room to see if the back door was locked!
She said she was infuriated. Either he thought she was such an idiot that she didn't know whether she had locked the door, or he thought she was lying! Then it dawned on her. This was exactly the same trait she had found so attractive in him when they were dating. Double and triple-checking everything to make sure it was right. It was just being played out in a way that she found irritating. It was him being who he was.
I have learned over the years that whenever I find someone else's behavior annoying, I stop and try to imagine how this trait might be valued in other circumstances. It doesn't always alleviate the problem, but it at least helps me back away from developing deprecating attitudes toward the person. It helps me remember that when I need assistance suited to that person's proclivities, I should maybe ask them for help. It also helps me reflect on times when I jump into a situation unsuited to my temperament and skill set and make a jackass of myself. It reminds me that I need other people who don't function like me, even those (and maybe especially those) that irritate me.
I have a long-time friend who is a marriage counselor. He told me once that the problem with marriage in America is not that people undervalue marriage. The problem is they over value marriage. They believe marriage will make them complete. When hardship or disappointment comes, they conclude they must have made a mistake. So they get a divorce and start looking for the one who will make them complete.
My friend suggested that marriage is one of God's most powerful tools of sanctification. Two people are brought into a close intimate relationship. Sometimes our partner draws out our best, but our partner also will draw out our worst. Intimacy means that all the ugliness, anger, fear, and resentment in us is eventually brought to the surface. The couple who is in Christ are to bubble up all the scum to the surface so that it can be scraped away like dross from precious metals in the refiner's fire. As time passes, more scum surfaces and must be scraped away. It continues on through our life and is part of our spiritual formation.
My friend says clients come to him and tell him they are considering divorce. He asks them why. He said he often gets the answer that the client is unhappy in their marriage. His question is, "Who told you would always be happy in your marriage?" In essence, intimate relationships are frequently going to make us unhappy. We can't grow deeper together unless we are willing to confront the reality of who we are.
I think his wisdom applies to being the Church. I wrote last week that I think the "business" of the Church is identity. We are to find our identity in God, not in our job, not in our spouse, not in our church. Identity in anything else is idolatry. We find our strength in God and bring that to our job, spouses, and church. Jesus' prayer in John Chapter 17 is that we would be one and that in being one, the world would see God's love for humanity. That oneness, and all that flows from it, can only happen when each of us has our identity rooted in God.
Paul tells us in various places that God has given us various gifts to fulfill our role as the body of Christ. Bodies require coordination. But we want to absolutize our proclivities as the defining feature of being the body. We diminish and even demonize other body parts because they do not share our high esteem for our function. We look for others who share our proclivities to reinforce our value of ourselves. Then we proudly proclaim we have achieved oneness in Christ and authentic community by being out of fellowship with the rest of the body of Christ!
I often hear the prayer that "God would make us one." It is a pointless prayer. We already are one! It is an established reality in Christ. The only question is, are we going to live like it? The problem is that the more we become one with God, the closer we get to each other. Tony Campolo used to say that "Jesus is the light of the world!...and we all know that light attracts bugs!" You don't know just how buggy sometimes until God brings you into intimate community.
You say you aren't happy in your church? I ask you the question my counselor friend asks, "Who told you that you were always going to be happy in your church?" Confronting each other's ugliness in intimate community is God's sanctifying plan. Community is hard, ugly, painful, frustrating, and exasperating work. Jesus died creating it.
I am all for Emergent congregations. We intuitive (Meyers-Briggs) types are often out in front of change. Sometimes doing goofy stuff, and sometimes we give inspired leadership. The sensing types often come along later, only when they can see concrete examples of what might be. What I fear is that many of us intuitive types may be seduced to create congregations that are more about the unhindered expression of our intuitive natures rather than seeking a vision for how we become one before the world.
Tomorrow, I have some thoughts that may help us avoid that trap.
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