CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter
The Gospel lesson for last Sunday was Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus’ words about how to reconcile with a fellow church member who has wronged you. It reminded me of…
In the mid 1970s, I was appointed to be the pastor of a neat church in a big town. I knew it was a good appointment. Many of my friends spoke well of it. I was pleased to go there.
In the first month, the church treasurer came to see me, ostensibly to talk about church financial business, but really to sound me out on theology.
At that time, Jerry Falwell was just coming to national prominence. He was the leading voice for taking religion into politics. Not just any religion, but his particular fundamentalism. It was the only true, Christian, American way, and it should become the law of the land.
People were taking sides, either for or against this brand of religious patriotism. It was important to know who was in and who was out. Some folks, like gays and lesbians, had no chance to be in at all.
My church treasurer never mentioned Falwell. He came at it sideways, talking about his son, who was a university student, and how he had gone to a “Bible” church in his university town, and learned the truth. It sounded like he was wondering about his son. It didn’t seem like a real theology discussion. We didn’t talk about Falwell. We had what I thought was a nice conversation about many things. I did not know I was being given a test, which, apparently, I failed.
At the next meeting of the board, in his treasurer’s report, he pointed out that I had made some long-distance calls to places in Mississippi that he thought were questionable. He couldn’t think of any reason for a minister in IL to be calling someone in MS on church business. In other words, he was accusing me of stealing from the church by making them pay for my personal calls. [This was in the days when every long-distance call had an individual charge, not like the blanket programs now.]
He was measured about what he said, trying to sound objective, but there was real tension in the room, because it was clear that he was telling the board that their new minister was a thief. And he had not done what Jesus advocated--what made common sense, even--by asking me first about those calls.
I explained that I was the director for the traditional senior high youth conference at Epworth Springs church camp over the Labor Day weekend, with students from all over central IL participating, and I was telephoning two bright young brothers, ministers in neighboring towns in MS, making arrangements for them to lead that gathering of our youth, and after it was over, the conference would reimburse the church for any expenses I incurred in running the retreat for the conference youth. [Bill and Chuck were great, and it was a huge success, by the way.]
All the board members thought it was fine that their new pastor was working with youth from all over the conference. I mean, who in a church is ever against doing something for the teens? It was also clear to all of them that their treasurer was trying to make trouble for their new pastor, and that he should have followed what Jesus said to do in Matthew 18:15-20: if you have a beef with a fellow member of the church, discuss it privately. If that doesn’t work, it’s only then that you take it to the board. If he had asked me personally about those calls, the issue would never have taken up board time.
Apparently, though, unknown to me, he had decided that I was on the wrong side of the growing theological divide and that he should do something that would… what… maybe make them go to the bishop to try to get rid of me? At least point out that non-Bible church-fundamentalist liberals could not be trusted. Instead, he pointed out that he could not be trusted. He lost all credibility. He humiliated himself. Embarrassed, the next month, he resigned in a huff, as though he were the one who had been wronged somehow. He and his wife started attending the Southern Baptist Church on the other side of downtown.
Falwell introduced a whole new dimension to politics—the “evangelical” notion of God. Once you have claimed that God is on your side, there is no room for compromise. I mean, you can’t compromise the truth of God. That is once and for all. But compromise is the only way politics works. Politics without compromise is simply war—winner take all. The losers are left with nothing.
You can be “evangelical,” all or nothing in religion, in the way the word “evangelical” is misused now, as long as it’s not in politics. The same is true with liberal or progressive or conservative or any other “brand” of religion. If you don’t like the theology of your church, you go to another church, or start your own. As many churches or religions as you want. But there can be only one government. Everybody has to work together or nothing works at all. That is pretty much where we are now-nothing working at all.
Jesus had lots of good advice on how to deal with one another, in order to reconcile, but if you really don’t want to reconcile, if you really want to draw lines to keep others out so that you know you are in, there is not much anyone can do about it.
Oh, yeah, that old poem about drawing a line that will take them in… but they have a right to stay outside the lines, and go to hell in their own self-righteous exclusivist way. As an includer, I’d rather reconcile, but until both sides are willing to work at that, the only thing includers can do is to keep excluders out of power, so that they cannot enforce their exclusivist hatred on the whole church. Or nation, as the case may be.
That is being gentle as a dove, but as wise as a snake. Another piece of advice from Jesus. [Mt 10:16]
John Robert McFarland
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