It Pays to Sweat the Small Stuff
Galatians 6:1-10
July 8, 2005
Our son Chris was about 15 years old when he came stumbling in the house one summer day with his face screwed up in pain. He was holding his right arm tight to his chest and all he could gasp was, “I fell off my bike.”
We got his shirt off and immediately saw his collarbone jutting up about an inch high under his skin. We headed off for the emergency room and after x-rays; the doctor came out to tell us that he had dislocated his collarbone. The doctor had popped it back into place, but said that it was going to be really sore for a while. When we looked at it, we saw that it was swollen and was several interesting shades of purple. It was quite a while before Chris was jumping his bike over obstacles again.
Toni went skydiving a few years ago and dislocated her ankle when she landed. I remember being in the emergency room when the doctor said that he was going to pop it back into place. I asked him to let me know when he did it so I could leave the room. That wasn’t something I wanted to hang around for. I remember asking Toni if she thought I was a wimp. She said no. In fact, she said, if it were you laying here, I probably wouldn’t stay either.
Alan Kimber is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Lodi, California and he says that dissension and conflict among church people can be just as painful as a dislocation. He says that perhaps that is why churches oftentimes prefer an amputation to a dislocation. That way, when we are facing dissension or conflict, we can cut the problem out without having to deal with the long term consequences or the underlying causes.
One of my classmates when I was over at Ashland was a pastor (I don’t remember the denomination) from Cheyenne, Wyoming. He and I were so different. Our personalities were like night and day. Our leadership styles are miles apart. He did things in his church that I would never try (or for that matter be allowed to do by the Discipline of the United Methodist Church).
One day during a break in classes, he told me that he had just removed two people from the rolls of the church he was serving for some sort of breach of church discipline. I pushed him on it a little bit. Surely he didn’t mean that he did it all by himself. Surely there were some lay people involved. But no, he decided that they weren’t the sort of people who should be members of that church (I don’t remember the reasons) so he removed them.
I realize that church polity is different from church to church and denomination to denomination and pastors are given different levels of authority in each. I know that he was acting according to his own conscience. I also realize that I didn’t know the whole story. I know that my friend is a good pastor. But I remember thinking that it was a little sad that such a drastic action was taken without significant effort at effecting reconciliation.
Every United Methodist pastor in the world can tell you a story of one very difficult appointment. Sometimes pastors and churches, for whatever reason, just struggle to get along. I have my own story. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I realize that at this particular appointment I mishandled some issues. I was a fairly young pastor and was a little unprepared for an assignment like the one I had been given.
On the other hand, again with the luxury of hindsight, the church has to share some of the blame for our difficult relationship. That is the way it always is. There are always enough mistakes on both sides of a controversy to go around.
I met with a couple of district superintendents to try to figure out a way forward. Together we decided that it would do no good to, in the words of one DS, “move the furniture.” In other words, changing pastors in the midst of the controversy wouldn’t really solve the underlying problems that had existed for quite some time. So it was decided to bring in a mediator to work with both pastor and congregation to address the root causes of the conflict.
I always chuckle when I hear some folks say that they quit going to church because the church is full of hypocrites. When I am feeling like a smart-alick, I say, “There’s always room for one more.” Of course the church is full of hypocrites because it’s full of people like me…and you. We’re not always easy to get along with. We don’t always react to each other out of love. We don’t always think before we speak. We don’t always rise above the temptation to be petty. We don’t always give each other the benefit of the doubt. We aren’t always able to put our own egos in check. We are not always able to rise above our own agendas. Sometimes it hurts to be the church because the church is full of sinners.
We sometimes have trouble practicing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. One of my favorite phrases, and you have heard me say it on more than one occasion, is that if Jesus had meant the church to be perfect, he would have left angels in charge. I think instead that he expects us to work out the details of living with each other so that the Kingdom can be advanced. I think that Jesus chose not to remove all our problems from us so that we can learn to get along, solve our own problems, and grow in grace and maturity.
Conflict, dissension, and questions of church discipline are not contemporary inventions. They started right on the heels of Pentecost as the new church began to develop and grow. It wasn’t long before the Apostle Paul felt a need to address them in his letter to the Galatians.
This letter is written in three parts; four if you count the concluding postscript in which Paul took over the writing duties from his scribe and penned the final words in his own handwriting.
The first section lays out the theological case for the letter, which is the authority and priority of the gospel. “For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin: for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ (1:11-12).
The second section discusses the status of the Law now that Christ has come. Paul tells them that they are not subject to the law anymore, but have been given freedom from that Law.
In the third section, out of which the lesson for this morning comes, we find Paul telling his readers the best way to exercise their new found freedom. He tells them that there is a way to exercise their freedom in a responsible way so that they can be witnesses to the love of Christ. And then he tackles the problem of how to handle a person who has fallen into sin.
Paul was so very interested in training up the young church and her new Christians in the ways to actually act like the church ought to act. One of our former district superintendents liked to say, “People are people and sin is sin.” What he meant was that, people being who and what we are, will not always use our common sense and will not always be on our best behavior. Paul knew that, and was concerned about those members of the congregation who fell off the good behavior wagon.
He could be talking about any one of us because everyone of us has at times not lived up to our high calling in Christ Jesus. Sometimes we get estranged from each other and it makes more sense to heal the relationship than to give up and junk it.
There are four steps according to Paul, in the process of restoring relationships that have been damaged or broken. First of all, he says, “If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him.” The NRSV says, “…restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” You will remember that gentleness is one of the fruit of the Spirit which he just finished listing at the end of chapter 5. This then, is a practical application of that fruit.
It has always amazed me that when church folks get mad at each other, it can be so very hard to heal the relationship. If anyone shuld be able to forgive easily, it ought to be us. Often we are harsh and uncaring toward others when they have offended us. Brokenness is not always as easy to heal as a quick snap of a bone back into place. So we have to be extremely gentle with each other.
The second step in the process of restoration one who has offended the Body of Christ is to go out of the way to be cautious. Paul says, “If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out.” You see, the danger is that the healer might fall into the same sin as the patient. Or perhaps even more dangerous, it is possible to get caught up in the sin of pride when we come to believe that we are superior in some way to the person who has originally sinned. The temptation to arrogance is always there.
So be careful when making judgments about someone else because you too just might fall into the same trouble. Watch your motives. Are you judging someone with the aim of true reconciliation and bringing him or her back into the life of faith, or just to feel superior? Be careful because we all suffer from the same disease of sin.
Paul says, “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given…” In other words, the third step in helping to restore people who have drifted away is to always hold yourself up to self-examination and evaluation. Again, don’t be afraid to ask yourself the same hard questions you ask of others. Realize that when you are pointing a finger, you are looking in a mirror.
And finally, the fourth step is to have compassion. I have recently had the opportunity to talk with several people who are still recovering from the church many years after being hurt. The church sometimes has the tendency to judge and condemn people because of their lifestyle. These folks are never given the opportunity to be introduced to a life-giving faith in Jesus.
Gay people, divorced people, co-habiting people, people who have not been baptized in a particular manner, people who are not able to offer a convincing testimony, young people, charismatic people, liberal people, agnostic people, and many others have received condemnation from the church. Such folks never have the opportunity to live and grow in faith. We are too often more concerned about being “right” than we are about being loving and just.
Paul says, “What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others – ignoring God – harvests a crop of weeds.” The truth is that we are all broken people. If we desire compassion, we have the obligation to offer it to others.
I read this paragraph this week and I thought it was so good that I want to give it to you just as I read it. “The truth is that transforming people’s lives under the power of God’s Spirit is a long, detailed, and sometimes tedious process. It is easy to give up on people who don’t respond to the gospel or who refuse to see how sin has hurt them and those around them. Yet, says Paul, we should never ‘grow weary in doing what is right.’ Healing can only happen when the whole church team is focused on doing ‘work for the good of all.’”
We need to be a community focused on grace. Goodness knows there is enough condemnation to go around. We can begin to become such a community of grace if we utilize four steps. These are not easy steps. They are only steps. They continually have to be repeated. But here they are. When we confront brokenness in the church, let’s strive for gentleness, caution, evaluation, and compassion.
These may be small steps. They may be small stuff. But it pays to sweat the small stuff. The result will be a strengthened Body of Christ. That is good for all of us who desire to become a new creation.
