Day 1019 - Does He Really Mean That - A Reprise

I thought long and hard about the passage in Day 1018, particularly the event described in verses Mark 9:38-41. How often do we find ourselves in that higher and mightier view of self that causes us to dismiss another's faith as errant because they do not see the world our way? 

If you are honest it happens a lot. But what intrigues me is how often some of my ardent Presbyterian friends who are so explicitly committed to Christian justice fall into the same cul de sac.

I saw it in Mississippi when I was working with PDA. My managers, the folks in Louisville as well as the local manager, had a conniption when I suggested teaming with the PCA relief group in Bay St. Louis. They reacted as if I was suggesting we deal with Molech, or worse Satan.

I saw it in the reaction of the Presbyterian Layman, putatively members of PC(USA) who bitterly attacked a local elder in our Presbytery because of his role in an administrative commission concerning a congregation and pastor who sought to divorce itself from the PC(USA).  The PL was patently vituperative in its criticism because it loathes the stand of PC(USA) on several theological issues. 

Then Viola Larsen, a cog in that Presbyterian Layman operation, jumped into the fray and sought to smear both the Presbytery of East Tennessee and two seed ministries seeking to develop a place for the disaffected in the world. (See Day 732 - The Problem of Self-Appointed Defenders of Christian "Orthodoxy", and posts I, II and III of Day 685.) 

I was hard on Ms. Viola and owe her an apology for my own vituperative response, but her criticism of fellow Christians in the context of this passage in Mark chafed too much to ignore. From my point of view, the Presbytery of East Tennessee was making a valiant experiment to find a way out of the spiritual morass and ennui of the modern Presbyterian Church and it was amazing a fellow Christian would seek to stop it.

Then I worked very hard to find a place for one of those new worshipping and advocacy groups that that Ms. Viola felt was so opprobrious. It was a long and difficult process to seat this advocacy/worshipping group not as owners, but as operations managers of a local non-profit here in town.

After we achieved this transition several of the suppportive board members of the non-profit and I met with the the "evangelist" and "co-leader" of the group to discus how to move forward and also seek a more stable financial footing. Managing a 100+ year old church building discovers the true cost of bricks and mortar.

In the deliberation to find a solid footing for the programming and mission of the non-profit, we had the opportunity to select one of two groups. One was the remnant of a neighborhood Baptist church, the other was this "edgy" worshipping group of Presbyterians and "outsider" folks alienated to the Church by their experience with more religiously conservative denominations.

We chose the "edgy" group; however, the Baptist group, regardless of our differing theological perspectives, desired to rent space in the building as do other worshipping groups. This Baptist group had the financial where-with-all to rent space giving both the non-profit and the emerging advocacy group a significant cash flow while supporting another worshipping congregation. This small group was a remnant of a neighborhood congregation whose other part had moved the congregation out to the suburbs. This remnant is an outsider rejected by its brethren. (I do not miss the irony in their predicament.)

When we broached the idea that our new managing partner ought to rent space to the Baptist congregation, the reflexive response of the group's leadership was something like this, "Absolutely not, they are Baptists." They made their objection clear that they felt these worshippers were not fellow Christians.

Now I grew up in the Southern Baptist tradition. It was an intimate part of my childhood experience, and it includes both the positive spiritual support as well as the contradictory hypocrisy of its political positions compared to its theological underpinnings. It also created a heartache for my parents. I do not share many of the theological interpretations of the more theologically conservative Southern Baptists and see the hypocrisy in their positions. I do not doubt their sincerity as Christians. Seeing that hypocrisy reminds me of my own.

Listening to the diatribe by this new worshipping group against this Southern Baptist and PCA congregation and hearing the evangelist reject renting space to a worshipping group was as heartbreaking as my old Southern Baptist life. As I read the opposition by the disciples against outsiders preaching the gospel and working "deeds of power" the disciples could not do themselves in this passage in Mark, I begin to understand how much we are still like the disciples who just do not "get it."

It reinforces my own sensitivity to the bias of insiders. I can only hope that the evangelist who leads this advocacy group contemplates the decision of that day to deny worship space to another Christian congregation has read this lectionary passage, and that his decision to deny space for a worshipping congregation will be a sobering and humiliating wake up call of how closely our hypocrisy colors our own hearts. On that day, his ministry became the insider barring the outsiders to the way to Christ. That denial may well be his ministry's millstone.

Jesus' admonition to the disciples seems well placed for them, and for us today. Being last to be first is a hard road when worldly values of pride and prejudice get in the way.

Grace and peace.