Unity: A Rabbit-hole, or the Eye of a Needle?

"Regarding Jesus’ own costly engagement of going where no one else goes or even imagines going, how far will we go in order to build genuine unity?"

The following blog is a response to a post by my professor, Paul Metzger, about pursuing Jesus' call to unity entitled, Jesus and the Rabbit Hole.

I have no desire for rabbit-holes (unless they are the Beatrix Potter kind). In fact, I have to confess that the whole Alice in Wonderland motif creeps me out—right up there with clowns! While I am at it, I see no need for a Willy Wonka psychedelic-tunnel-ride into the candy factory either. Though many one-sided efforts don’t seem to add up, or factor out, unity in Christ doesn’t require us to delve into fantasy or become weird or wacky…does it?  

However, it is likely that my negative reaction to Alice is due to my not really understanding it… and not taking the time to try. Perhaps the same could be said about some efforts at unity. All sides think the others are either crazy or culpable, and it takes some kind of radical commitment to humble oneself or one’s group—to listen longer than is comfortable, to learn to use a different set of tools that feel awkward, and to love the other beyond our level of understanding.  

What is it that hinders true unity? Is it primarily sinful individuals, or oppressive systems and groups? The more we listen to each other the more we know the answer must be, “Yes.” Crazy, isn’t it?

I don’t think that true, God-honoring, unity comes when we follow a Mad Hatter down a hole because we are bored, curious, or simply overrunning our vision. In fact it is the opposite…for gravity and good intentions do not help us get where we need to go. We must humble ourselves and let the Lord break us…as individuals and as a society while time remains. “And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” (Matthew 21:44) Of the two options Jesus presents, I vote for pieces rather than powder!

Could this whole hole-thing be an “eye of the needle” experience for us? Might the path to unity lead us cultural (both dominant and minority) camels to shed some baggage? Certainly the squeeze will be tight enough that we can’t get through to the other side while packing all our customary excuses and explanations—whether white, black, or something in-between. Another thing I wonder about sometimes is what great trial might we face that forces us to stop being separate and motivates us to stand together.

I think it is very likely that the goal of relational and structural unity is impossible for us, by either method; which places it easily in realm of possibility for the Holy Spirit…if we admit that we need his help. The gate to unity takes more than one key to open. Asking for his help together may be the price that needs to be paid.

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'" (Luke 14:28-30)

Metzger is encouraging us to count the cost of unity, not so that we will avoid it, but so that we will take it more seriously. Jesus came to earth, humbly born, wholly living, horribly dying to make unity possible between God and man, Jew and Gentile, male and female, powerful and poor. To paraphrase, Metzger asks us, “How far are we willing to go along this journey with Jesus?” Are we hedging our bets or secretly readying our lifeboats? Perhaps this is horribly out of context, but the words which the Apostle Paul spoke to a Roman Centurion as they faced imminent shipwreck, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 27:31)

I once wrote an article about counting the cost of following Jesus entitled, Unfinished Towers & Broken Towel Bars, from which I quote.

Unfinished towers dot the landscape of our Christian experience like so many abandoned oil derricks rusting in the sun—structure without power, form without life, intentions without insistence. They are a stark testimony to the folly of failed ambition, exhausted emotions, and bad decisions. Some lie in ruins because divided loyalties and confused priorities siphoned off the resources allocated for their completion. Most tragic though are the mangled remains of the once great, and promising towers that were devastated by the explosions of moral and relational failures, never to be rebuilt—places visited only by the scavengers of scrap metal and hunters of urban legends.

In fact, in the context of unity, our relational failures are moral failures. Are we trying to make a name for ourselves (Babel) or choosing to die to our own glory (disciples) in order to lift up the unity of the body? When all around we hear the clash of hammers, echoes of the self-building and name-making boom, humility does appear to be madness. In truth, it is the only sanity. The problem though is systemic, sin has metastasized, no longer self-contained it works through the whole body. However, those who recognize the danger still tend to operate in “-ectomies” settling for resections instead of the costly embrace of restoration.

How does the Lord respond to the leaderless and the lost, the hopeless and the helpless, the sick and the dying? We can waffle about theologies of glory as opposed to those of the cross, but it is through the cross that we get to share in the humble glory of God who helps his people.

“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
    and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
    and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalms 34:17-19)

I have no desire to fall down crazy rabbit-holes, but in humility I have taken up the cross to follow Christ…not through a rabbit-hole, but to a grave. However, all is not somber, for I have visited the tomb and it is empty!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

If we lack wisdom about the process (and we do) we need only ask… and be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:5, 19). 

Dust in the Wind: The Ever-Changing Dance

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound,

but you do not know where it comes from

or where it goes.” (John 3:8)

Have you ever watched the wind blow sand at the beach? The beach is not static, but dynamic, in constant motion. It can form intricate little ripples in the sand and move great dunes. Then the waves and tides work to erase the wind’s Etch-a-sketch and seasonally either add more sand or take it away in stormy bites. What does this coastal observation have to do with gentrification (urban renewal) or its opposite ghettofication (urban decay)? Neighborhoods are always in a state of renewal or decay…just ask a real estate agent. There is a lifecycle to a neighborhood. As much as we complain about it, people are always on the move as are the larger ethnic or socio-economic groups they may be a part. We are very much a part of the great dance, dust in the winds, or change.

As we have begun to awaken to the tragedy of gentrification in some of our trendier urban areas perhaps we should put such population movements in historical perspective.

Surf Stacking,
photo by Greg Dueker

In Britain, the native tribes were defeated by the Romans in 55 bc and then saw their lands progressively occupied and their leaders Romanized for about 400 years. Once Rome came under pressure in other areas and withdrew from Britain, other peoples invaded displacing their predecessors with a vengeance. Wave after overwhelming wave, one gentrification following another. Native Britons forced west into what is now Wales, by successive invasions of the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes along with regular raids by the Vikings of Denmark and Norway. Later the now mingled Anglo-Saxons were conquered by the Normans in 1066. The Norman kings tried to unify the nation by controlling Wales in the West and Scotland in the North, and Ireland as well. Interestingly, in addition to many foreigners immigrating Great Britain, some recent demographic articles suggest that today there are Irish, Scottish, and Welsh people migrating into the traditionally English areas instead of away from them. This reverse migration is not unique to England.

When I studied historical theology in seminary, one book I read (The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History) contained maps depicting the ethnic/national migrations in Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean basin (ad 500-1500) at about a 40 year refresh-rate. If you flip the pages quickly you can see the people groups in constant motion…like the sand on the beach. Fascinating...some kingdoms/people come and go in a blink of the eye, while others move across the landscape like a bulldozer (e.g., the Turks).

 

So why did the much maligned European immigrants come to this country by the millions? Most were fleeing wars and economic hardships in their homelands.  The constant wars ravaged the land and lack of room to expand may have contributed to their desire to immigrate. Trivia question: What country of origin represents the largest group of immigrants to the USA? You might be surprised. They predominately moved north and west and settled vast stretches of new country. See the interesting map below,

 

The first commandment God gave was to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:28; 9:1).

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This command was repeated by Noah to his sons after the flood. Not too many generations later, the citizens of Babel had other ideas. They decided that they wouldn’t move anymore and would instead dig in their heels, put down roots, and build a city thus making a name for themselves. Thus began the trans-historical, economic/political/religious opposition to the kingdom of God in the world.

So am I arguing for gentrification on the basis that it is normal, or even biblical? No I am not. I am not advocating for gentrification any more than I would cheer its opposite, ghettofication. I certainly don’t want to be party to imposing my power upon another population for my own gain. However, shift happens…as much as existing communities hate it. Keeping with the sand metaphor, gentrification can at times seem more like the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. Sudden heavy-handed shifts in demographics can either bury the existing community under the weight of new arrivals (think our current crisis on the Southern Border) or scatter that community to the wind (think N & NE Portland).

 

The question facing us is how to respond. Will we embrace shift and adapt to the new ministry opportunities that the wind has delivered to our doorstep (or to whose doorstep we are delivered)? Will we flee to new lands (California or Bust!) to begin again? Or like some die-hard Dust-Bowlers will we simply live in the basement of what remains and slowly watch our family die of dust pneumonia?

 

I hope we can choose the first option together and see the beauty of what God is doing in our midst!



Photo by Zach Dischner

Some Elbow Room?

This post is a response to an article written by Dr. Paul Metzger entitled, “The Gentrified Church—Paved with Good Intentions?”. In discussing the current and historic waves of gentrification in North and Northeast Portland, he calls the church to account for its racial and cultural heavy-handedness.

“Young white entrepreneurs are moving in, including church planters. Should we call this progress? The answer to this question depends on one’s background, experience, and perspective.

To many, gentrification means urban renewal, which for them spells progress. To others, it signifies cultural regress.”

Why do we always seem to push others out when we move in (who ever the “we” may be)? Why do we spend so much energy "clearing the land" to build our own kingdoms? Or like Abraham Lincoln’s father, who when he could see the smoke of a neighbor’s fire had to move on to find “some elbow room”? Does this include clearing the land of its people so that we can remake it in our own image? It has happened all too often, in fact it seems the lot of fallen man to do this. But shouldn't the redeemed person be more relational than that?

Too often in our discussions of racial injustices and oppression there is no clear-cut plan for moving forward in repentance and reconciliation. It seems like an endless cycle of listening to the same things over and over again with no relational reconciliation allowed to bear fruit. However, Metzger’s statement lays the necessary groundwork for ministry reconciliation to take place,

“Given the history of gentrification and segregation in Portland, true unity will include the following: white pastors learning the history of racism, segregation and gentrification; if they don’t understand Portland’s history, they will repeat it, no matter how good their intentions.”

But it is not enough to get to know the history of the city and its dismal track record on race relations; we must get to know each other as brothers and sisters of equal standing in the Kingdom of God. As our God is relational in the core of his being, so our ministries cannot reflect the humble glory of God in our city without becoming more relational than then have been in the past.

No one group has the answer, but the answer God brings for the city is found in Christian congregations learning to be one in love and mutual respect.  It is not to our credit to posture and play some not-so-subtle king-of-the-hill game. No one congregation or house church is THE church of Portland, or Beaverton, or Gresham, but merely one part of it. It is to our glory to honor another more highly than ourselves because biblical glory is always given, never claimed. As church leaders it is past time for us to start giving more honor to our fellow followers of Christ—those who have for many years served without much recognition or financial backing—who are men and women from whom we have much to learn.

Recently I attended a special prayer service for a friend facing a terrible cancer diagnosis. With very little notice, more than 40 people showed up to pray for this dear pastor’s wife (in her backyard since the house was not large enough). There were people there from at least four different congregations, including the two largest churches in Beaverton. Yet it did not seem like a gathering of churches, but simply the one church gathering to pray for a sick family member. There was no posturing, no competition between one congregation’s 50-somethings and another’s 20-somethings, between those from the small church-plant and those from the mega-churches, but rather deep gut-wrenching compassion and contending in prayer by all alike as the tears flowed freely.

I have great hope for this woman’s healing (and the others facing similar situations) and for the healing of the divided church in our cities. It is when there is a crisis or suffering that we see that the church in our community is larger than our smaller gatherings. I have observed that in a hospital’s Surgery or ICU waiting rooms there is only one church…The Congregation of the Desperate.

I wonder if our getting to know each other will happen voluntarily, or only through the furnace of suffering. I prefer the pain-free approach, of course, but we are all a little too proud to lay down our own appearance of control without a little persuasion. Maybe Portland’s problem is too few of the tornadoes or tyrants that force us to look beyond ourselves…not that I’m askin’.

I don’t think that I am the answer to the church’s problems, but I believe that I could be part of the answer along with those who will let me sit with them and get to know them. It starts with listening and friendship. Not too many takers so far. Dr. Metzger wrote, “In the midst of tending to one’s own church’s needs, it is important to tend to the needs of all churches in a community.” This is so true, but only if they want you to walk alongside them.

What we evangelicals need to repent of, is our sense of competition with other congregations, our pride in our own congregations, and our feelings of competent self-sufficiency. We need the humility to ask for help from each other and the relational closeness to know when another needs help without having to ask. Let our esteem be in Christ alone not in the façade of our appearances! 

If we need to be moving someone, let it be moving ourselves closer to each other relationally, linking arms and hearts, keeping in step with the Spirit rather than the flesh (Gal. 5). Listen to one another, pray with one another, be friends with one another. Then we may see God move in gentle power in our midst... and have to move out into the yard because the house isn't big enough for everyone.

Stealing, Sharing, and Speaking the Truth

In his article, Producers, Consumers and Communers, Paul Louis Metzger makes some excellent points about how our primary identity should not be merely producers or consumers, but as a community of God’s love. I agree wholeheartedly. However, I think it may be an unrealistic argument to suggest that there is really a viable movement that would say that their identity is primarily as a producer or consumer. It would seem that the issue might be better framed biblically as Stealing, Sharing, and Speaking the Truth. The following is a brief response to that article.

Dr. Metzger cites the teaching of a well-known pastor encouraging men to become "producers." To this, I say "Amen!" for too many men and women today (of all generations) are completely self-absorbed consumers, and even those who style themselves as producers do so by objectifying others. Western culture is far too consumption-oriented...not just economically, but relationally. Everything seems to be about what we can get or enjoy with little consequence for how it affects others. However, to be a Christian man or woman involves repenting of such self-focused consumer thinking. We need to be better at producing but not at the expense of others. Instead what we produce should be for the benefit of others. Too many for too long have been like the consuming locusts of Joel 2. May what has been consumed by sin—whether personal selfishness, ethnic arrogance, or national power brokering—begin to be restored by the Holy Spirit working in and through God’s people in the world today.

Stealing

“Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands (Eph. 4:28a)

We are, by nature of our very creatureliness, consumers. There is nothing wrong with that. Jesus taught that we can ask God for our daily bread without hesitation (Matthew 6). God shows his loving-kindness by providing for the needs of all his creatures be it man, ox, or bird. However, when we are focused primarily on our own wealth, comfort, power, and pleasure we steal from God and from others what is not rightfully ours. Paul writing to the Ephesians admonished them that the community of Christ-followers must be different as a result of Christ’s love.

The devil is a thief (John 10:10) and roars and ravages wherever he goes. Once we looked like that father...but we did not so learn Christ. We are to put off the old self and put on the new self in Christ (Eph. 4:20-24). The people of Christ cannot but grieve the Holy Spirit when they look (in word and deed) more like the thief than the Good Shepherd. So let us stop stealing and begin doing "honest work" that doesn't produce at the expense of others. 

Sharing

“…so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. (Eph. 4:28b)

It is important to note that the reason for laboring in the life of the former thief is not merely to be able to stop stealing to support oneself but to start sharing with those in need. We were not created to live alone in self-sufficient and sanitary sectors of the kingdom. We were made for community and all the relational interdependence that entails. We labor to produce so that we might share. However, sharing is not a one-way street. If we give to others like we are their savior without also receiving we are not functioning as a communer. If we only take what others offer we are not functioning in the love of Christ. No one in Christ doesn't have something that God has given them that needs to be used for the body to grow.

Speaking the Truth

The truth we need to speak to each other is that we need each other. No man is a rock or an island but we are all to function as essential parts in one common body. Our gifts are given not for personal power, popularity, or pleasure—they are given for the mutual building up of the communal body of Christ.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

The truth is that such a community depends on us all being responsible enough to die to ourselves in order to serve each other and be humble enough to receive from each other what we are lacking. This is the love by which the body builds itself up. For us to be "communers" we must both labor in love to be "producers" and repent of the pride that might lead us to believe that we don't need to be "consumers" of what others provide.

Just saying’…in love of course!

If A Tree Falls In The Forest...

As a topic prompt, this week we are supposed to respond to our professor's blog post, How Seriously Do We Take Jesus’ Words in John 17:23 On The Need For Christian Unity?

Before we get to this passage in John 17, unity and oneness have been a frequent theme in John’s Gospel (Seeà John 10:16, 38; 11:52; 14:10-11, 20, 23; and 15:4-5). Allow me to quote the last reference,

Grapevine in Israel.
Photo Greg Dueker

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

Now in chapter 17:22-23, we read,

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

I love this prayer. Obviously this unity Jesus speaks of was important to him since it was on his mind right before he went to his death on the cross. Should it be important to us? Of course! However I wonder in what way it should be important.

Should it be important because it is something we are supposed to produce? I have to confess that sounds kind of arrogant and self-important to me, especially since Jesus was actually praying to the Father, not to us.  

Christian unity should be important for another reason—because it is a sign of Christ’s presence in our lives. Unity is made possible by his re-gifting the glory, which the Father had given to him, to us. Unity is made perfect when we respond by giving all the glory back to him through loving and humbly serving others.

Now these verses in John 17 are from Jesus’ High-priestly prayer for his people. His petition to his Father on our behalf was both passionate and profound.

So was Jesus’ prayer not answered? This is a troublingly honest thought to be sure.

Since Jesus never spoke outside of what flowed from the heart of the Father, I will assume that the answer wasn’t “No.” Perhaps some might say that it was answered with an eschatological, “Not yet.” While this makes a little more sense for once sin is completely removed from the world and the Kingdom of God is fully manifested, complete unity is an easy thing for us to picture. However, this might be too convenient for us, excusing us from serious, determined efforts at unity if it can’t truly be achieved until the Millennial Kingdom. My dear friend wrote passionately,

“We can hide behind claims that Christians are invisibly united through faith in Jesus Christ even in the midst of visible disunity. I seriously doubt that Jesus had in mind invisible unity that was somehow divorced from visible unity. Invisible unity must be visible; otherwise, it is illusory.”

Photo by Joe Dudeck on Unsplash

While I think I have come to share "The Metzger’s" passion for unity, I think that his last statement reaches too far. “Illusory” is a word used for things that are not real, that are based on an illusion. Visibility has not been a metric by which reality is measured for a very long time…except in Missouri (the “Show Me” State). Despite believing in many things we cannot see (like air), we live in a culture that too often fails to recognize the reality of the spiritual realm. As Christians, we should not fall into the same error. Invisible is not the same as unreal. If a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it... It still fell.

I contend that we are already one spiritually if we are truly Christ’s…whether we recognize it or not. There is a spiritual unity that may or may not be seen—that flies in the face of such rationalistic statements as “Invisible unity must be visible; otherwise, it is illusory” because they are not relational enough. Is our unity in what we do or in whose we are and whom we depend on for our salvation? When abiding people meet, there is no hiding the unity of the Spirit.

Allow me to wax momentarily metaphorical. This is Portland, so consider a tree… is it one or is it many? It may sound like a stupid question, but the answer may depend on how we are looking at the tree. There are many individual leaves that, while similar, all have their own distinctives and character. Many branches and twigs are leading to those leaves, each with its seemingly random angle, thickness, and length. While each branch, twig, and leaf is separate and unique, when we step back from hugging it and widen our scope to “look larger,” we see that the many elements really form one tree, each part in its place fulfilling its purpose. So are the leaves many or one? Many, if you don’t believe me, look at my front lawn in the fall. Yet in a very real sense, as part of the tree, the many are one. I use this analogy with caution, as an illustration of how we may be looking too small when we look for unity.  

Am I simply making excuses and contending for an invisible unity? Well, that depends on how big we choose to look. Are we focused too closely on what is in our hands to see the unity that actually exists? Has our vision become pixilated like when you stand too close to the huge TVs in Costco? Sometimes you have to step back and look again. Are we individual buildings or a city? Again, I contend for the possibility that the visibility of unity depends upon the scope of our gaze.

Perfect unity exists now in the lives of those who have surrendered from pursuing their own glory and maintaining their own kingdom. It is found in the indwelling of Christ and the Father by the Spirit. It is not something we could ever produce on our own. What I love is meeting another who is united to Christ and sensing immediately the unity of the Spirit. Certainly, this spiritual unity manifests visibly. I think we just need eyes to recognize it.

I recently attended an ecumenical luncheon of sorts arranged by a custodian at our church. He grew up in the Lutheran Church and still is an active Lutheran while working at a Foursquare Church. Somehow, his life was touched by the love of Christ through those he served with, and he wanted to share his gratitude with us by inviting us to eat a great lunch and by allowing us the opportunity to sit in open fellowship with pastors and others from the two Lutheran churches he has attended. Wonderful people, all part of God’s unified plan to touch one man’s life, and also a part of the tapestry of Christian unity.

What are some of the visible signs of the presence of biblical unity that is synonymous with our remaining in Christ? We don’t shrivel up in the heat of circumstances. We are not prone to separate from his purposes. We humbly accept correction and pruning. Our lives produce good fruit in God’s eyes, and a wholesome witness takes place in the eyes of the watching world.  

Psalm 133 

¹ Behold, how good and pleasant it is
    when brothers dwell in unity!
² It is like the precious oil on the head,
    running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
    running down on the collar of his robes!
³ It is like the dew of Hermon,
    which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
    life forevermore.