February 13, 2005
Rev. Dr. David Bartlett
Needing One Another
I.
Some years ago I attended a conference on the future of the local church. The organizers of the conference had brought together a group of laypeople and clergy from all over the east to share the stories of their congregations.
One presenter told how the membership of her church had doubled in three years. Another told how a congregation had undertaken four new social outreach programs with enormous success. Another about Christian education so effective that it was the envy of teachers and students all around. Another about a Christmas pageant more splendid than the original festivities in Bethlehem.
After the morning presentations and just before lunch we were to hear a reflection by Professor Peggy Way then of Vanderbilt University. Professor Way stood behind the pulpit and surveyed the enthusiastic congregation.
“I’m thrilled,” she said, “just thrilled to hear about the exciting things your congregations are doing. In my little church we think it’s been a good week if we can just manage to stand each other.”
I forget what else she said because as a pastor of a blessed but fairly typical church I thought to myself: truth at last.
II.
In the letter we call First Corinthians the apostle Paul writes advice to a church where the members can barely stand each other.
There is a particular issue that makes it hard for them to get along. This issue is one that still emerges in churches to this day. The issue is speaking in tongues.
Some of the church members like many Christians today believe that the Holy Spirit has given them the gift of speaking in tongues. This did not mean that suddenly they knew Latin and Coptic and Aramaic and Hebrew as well as their native Greek. It meant that when they were filled with the Spirit they spoke and sang and cried out in a language that meant a great deal to them but wasn’t one of the intelligible languages of the world.
The gift of tongue-speaking started a crisis.
“We have a gift,” said those who spoke in tongues.
“You have a problem,” said those who didn’t.
“We’ll pray for you,” said the tongue speakers.
“No, we’ll pray for you,” said those who didn’t speak in tongues.
They could barely stand each other.
“You are the body of Christ,” says Paul to the Corinthian Christians. “Every one of you is a member of the body. So treat each other appropriately.”
We can read between the lines, “For God’s sake learn to stand each other,” said Paul.
The town of New Haven Connecticut, which I left first thing this morning to come visit you, grew up around the town Green. Because the town was founded by Congregationalists, one of the forerunners of the UCC, right at the center of the Green is the First Church of Christ in New Haven, also called Center Church. There has been a meeting house there since 1639.
But right next door to that church is another church, United Church on the Green. And that church has been right next to Center Church since 1733. They are both congregational churches, and there they sit, literally a stone’s throw away from each other.
You can guess why: early in the 18th century a theological dispute broke out in your denomination…a dispute as deep and heartfelt as the disputes that threaten to tear us apart today. A group of more evangelical Christians thinking that their brothers and sisters in Christ were getting a little wishy washy walked out. And went thirty yards away and started a new church.
Because they just couldn’t stand each other any longer.
In every church where I’ve served as pastor; in the denomination where I’m ordained; in the denomination I now work for we are about this far from walking out on each other.
As in the 18th century the issues that divide us are real issues. Gay and lesbian people in committed relationships and those who support them think that those relationships are a gift, just as traditional marriage is a gift, when it’s full of love and commitment.
Lots of other Christians think that gay and lesbian relationships, however loving and supportive, violate the clear message of the Bible.
The two groups often manage to get along only so long as we don’t talk about this issue. On this issue we can barely stand each other. There’s way of knowing what St. Paul would say about committed same sex relationships; he’d never seen one. We know what he’d say about churches and denominations falling apart: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. For Christ’s sake, stand one another.”
III.
But more than that, we are called to understand each other. Paul’s concern about Corinth isn’t just that they disagree; it’s that they don’t bother to put themselves in the other’s position.
“Look,” he says. “Let’s stick with this body thing. Let’s say you’re an eye and you’re so pleased with your visual acuity that you never think what it must like to be an ear, short on sight and long on sound. Don’t just stand each other. Understand each other.
In the town in Georgia where we have lived forjust a few months we spent the fall church shopping. Just as commentators tell us there are blue states and red states, I can tell you that there are blue churches and red churches in Decatur, Georgia.
You could tell by the bumper stickers on the cars in the church parking lots. Lots were filled either with Bush cars or Kerry cars, never with both.
Paul’s vision for the church is a lot more difficult. He would look for a church where red voting people and blue voting people didn’t just sort themselves into political ghettoes but would actually talk with each other. Would actually ask: “What difference does Christian faith make to the way we vote, and spend our money, and raise our children?”
He calls us to stand each other but far harder to understand each other.
In lots of congregations where I speak about the issue of gay and lesbian people and the church I notice that the people we seldom hear from are, you guessed it, gay and lesbian people.
But I don’t see how we can really begin to move toward a braver and kinder resolution unless we talk: all of us. To talk with each other and not about each other. To argue but also to listen. To understand each other. To be one, slightly lumpy, slightly grumpy, oddly loving body.
IV.
Then Paul goes one step farther. As a church we not only stand each other and understand each other, we stand with each other.
Paul puts it this way: “Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
When I was a young minister the churches where I served were being torn apart over the Vietnam war. In part the argument was about policy but in part the argument was about sympathy. Some children of the church were going to Vietnam. Some children of the church were going to Canada or to jail.
It was all too easy for some of us to decide that the soldiers were killers and for others of us to decide that the resisters were cowards.
What was hard was to stand with each other: to stand even with those with whom we disagreed. What was hard was to honor those who served in the military for their sense of duty whether or not we supported the war. What was hard to was to honor those who opposed the war for their sense of honor, whether or not we supported the war.
In the church in New Haven where I served as a young minister and a resister, it took about thirty years before I was fully reconciled with fellow Christians who disagreed. In our nation we’ve just finished an election where we argued more over an old war than over the present war.
On issues of sexuality and commitment we will disagree as deeply and maybe as long.
But my prayer is that we’ve learned this. To stand with each other. To practice the love that does not let go. Disagrees, argues, fusses and doubts. But just does not let go.
V.
Paul puts the claim even more boldly. “The eye cannot say to the hand I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the foot, “I have no need of you.”
It’s not just that the eye shouldn’t say to the hand “I have no need of you.” The eye can’t say “I have no need of you,” because it’s a lie.
Republican Christians can’t say to Democratic Christians “I have no need of you.” Nor evangelical Christians to mainline Christians nor mainliners to evangelicals: “I have no need of you.”
And gay and lesbian Christians can’t say to heterosexual Christians “I have no need of you,” nor heterosexual Christians to their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters: “I have no need of you.”
You can say to your fellow Christian: “I don’t agree with you.” You can even say: “I’m annoyed with you.”
What you cannot say is: “I have no need of you.”
Because that’s just not true.
Amen.