Church is a Bagel

Pastors are asked a lot of different questions, but most questions are variations of categories of questions.

• There are questions in the “belief category” - “what does your church believe?”

• There are questions in the “vision category"” - '“what is the vision of your church?”

• There are the questions in the “tenure category” - “how long are you going to remain the pastor here?”

• There are the questions in the “ministry category” - “does your church have ‘X’ ministry?”

While there are dozens of categories and endless variations of questions, the vast majority of questions have the same underlying assumption that suggests what is most important. The assumption is that there is some thing that holds the groups together. That “some thing” could be a doctrine, vision statement, pastor, ministry, or some other thing. But the assumption is that there is something and that something is important to know.

And it makes sense to ask that question, because that is what just about every other organization would have. However, the church is not an organization but an organism, it is not a community but a communion.

As such, the thing that makes the Church the Church is not what it has, but what it lacks.

Christianity confesses that everyone is a sinner, everyone falls short, everyone is broken, everyone has some lack. Ironically it is that shared lack of “some thing” is what unites a Church. It is like what unites an AA group. It is their lack that unites the group - their lack of consuming alcohol or their lack of control or some other lack. What makes a bagel a bagel is not what it has but what it lacks. It lacks the center, there is a hole in the bagel If you were to fill the center then it would become a bun or something other than a bagel.

It is tempting to create, start and build a church that defined by what it has. Being a part of a group because of what you all have can feel powerful and it is even appropriate at time. But it is not appropriate for the Church because when we do this, we are no longer a church. It becomes something else (such as a ‘community’ or a ‘market’ or a ‘mob’). The defining feature of the church is that it is a communion of people who confess a lack. We lack the answers. We lack sight. We lack compassion. We lack perfection. We lack control.

The Church confesses that it needs a savior because it lacks the ability to save itself.

Many people in the world will try to point out your lack and then try to sell you something to fill that lack. The Church is the only place that I know of that confesses a lack as a feature not as a bug to be corrected.

A Like Minded Church Plays Footsie with The Law of Group Polarization

There are some churches and church pastors who genuinely believe that the most faithful expression of their faith is to be with “like minded people”. Who does not like to be with others who are like minded? I love to be with people who remind me of my favorite person (myself)! Beyond the comfort of being with others who do not challenge us beyond what where we are willing to be challenged, those advocating for a like minded church assume that the church would somehow be better.

It is argued that a like minded church would be more “faithful” or more “efficient”. This assumes that if a group of people could stop arguing about the same issues or people THEN (and only then) could we get to the “business” of making disciples. The like minded church dream assumes that revisiting the same matters is somehow unfaithful. It is as though the like minded church would rather stop wrestling with the same person for so long and walk away with two good hips. The like minded church is suspicious of limping and cannot imagine that there is any blessing in wrestling.

In addition to these basic theological concerns, we ought to have with a like minded church we also should be concerned about the harsh and empirically proven Law of Group Polarization. And what is this law?

Cass R. Sunstein’s paper described like this (bold added):

In a striking empirical regularity, deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point in the direction indicated by their own predeliberation judgments. For example, people who are opposed to the minimum wage are likely, after talking to each other, to be still more opposed; people who tend to support gun control are likely, after discussion, to support gun control with considerable enthusiasm; people who believe that global warming is a serious problem are likely, after discussion, to insist on severe measures to prevent global warming. This general phenomenon -- group polarization -has many implications for economic, political, and legal institutions.

You read this right. After being with a like minded group that discusses an issue, you will become more extreme after the discussion than you were before the discussion.

And so here is the great irony, those who advocate for being a church of “like minded people” as a haven against undesired change are playing footsie with the law of group polarization. To put this more plainly, being with others who are like minded will change you and your views - you will become more extreme.

This is the law of group polarization. The temptation to create a like minded church (or country) is powerful, but it is to be rejected for what it is. A pathway to justifying our self-righteousness. And I think we all have read how Jesus feels about self-righteousness.

"Paint the Beauty We Split"

Some may argue that the fracturing, splintering and breaking up of the church is as old as civilization and therefore is some sort of proof that those who uphold unity as misguided at best. It is not lost on me that the current United Methodist Church is a break away from the Church of England which itself is a break away from the Catholic Church which was a split with the Eastern Church which split from the Jerusalem Council. I understand the human tradition of splitting. But it is also true the United Methodist Church is also a church that was birth at the union of at least two churches (the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren). Additionally, Jesus prayed in John that those who follow him might be made one. So for as many examples we can point to that splitting is God’s desire, there are just as many examples we can point to which suggests that unity is God’s desire.

This argument is boring and tiresome, but more, it distracts. It distracts from the larger human tradition captured in the following lines from In all Carlo Carretto’s book, The God Who Comes.

How baffling you are, oh Church, and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is. I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more beautiful. How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face, and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms. No, I cannot free myself from you, because I am you, though not completely. And besides, where would I go? Would I establish another? I would not be able to establish it without the same faults, for they are the same faults I carry in me. And if I did establish another, it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ. I am old enough to know that I am no better than anyone else.

The current splintering of the United Methodist Church is an example of the Church failing to understand our tendency to make Church reflect us and not Christ. We hear this in the way the Church is talking about if some should leave or stay. We hear that we should follow our convictions and that we ought to be able to let those who believe differently a gracious exit. The underlying assumption is that the personal conviction and beliefs are paramount, that those are what should drive what denomination a local church should be. Some will try to argue that it is less about personal conviction and more about adhering to some Biblical or creedal standard. But when the Bible and creeds never are in conflict with your convictions and beliefs it begs the question if we are just making “my Church” and not the “Church of Christ”. It is weird, is it not, that God always seems to have the same beliefs and convictions you have?

The truth is that I need the very people that I disagree with to walk with me. And the truth is, those who disagree with me need me in their lives too. I do not have all the answers and if you think that you do, then heck, I want you in my life! And if you have all the answers, then don’t you want to help those who, like me, do not have the answers?

To put this another way, I need you to show me how odd I am so that I can come to see that I am, as Carretto said, “am no better than anyone else”. When those who took the same vows that I took, decide to disaffiliate, then I believe all of our discipleship creates the conditions for all of us to become less faithful.

There is a song on the “Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast called “Sticks and Stones”. Recently the producers talked with the lead singer of the song and asked about the lyric that says, “Paint the beauty we split.” The songwriter said that his take on this lyric is that it is a plea and prayer to God. That God may make beautiful (paint) the church (the beauty) that we are tearing apart (we split).

Lord in your mercy, hear this prayer.