Live in Peace (2 Corinthians 13:11)

A group of Chapel Hill clergy met in the prayer garden at University Baptist one week after the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. We began our prayer service at exactly 11:33, the time the horror began. Leaders from different churches and faith traditions were invited to have roles in the prayer service. I was assigned the benediction.

            I read the final verses of 2 Corinthians. It says, “Put things in order, … agree with one another, live in peace.” Then in the next verse Paul tells the Corinthians to “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (13:12). COVID 19 has greatly deterred this practice. I wonder what the world would look like if Christ followers were as concerned about greeting one another with love and affection as they are about getting their point across in arguments.

            While we aren’t kissing each other right now, we can strive for agreement, or at least mutual respect. COVID or no COVID, we can commit to working for peace. As tragic as what happened in Uvalde is, it has not brought people together. Advocates for restrictions on gun ownership are in a full fury, and gun-rights proponents are not giving an inch. Everyone is doubling down, staking their position. Compassion is not breaking through.

            It won’t. Tragedy does not make us more loving, more Christlike. The world is fallen. The loudest voices insisting that the proliferation of guns is what causes gun violence cannot help themselves from speaking in tired, politicized imperatives that leave no room for those who disagree with them. Those who love their guns are tone-deaf to the cries of the departed. Tragedy increases our animosity and gives our sinful nature an avenue of expression.

            In Christ though, we aren’t under sin. In Christ, seeking agreement and promoting peace and giving out buckets of compassion are all more important to us than winning an argument. We Christians should participate in the national conversation, but when we do, we need to remember who we are. We are His possession. The Holy Spirit speaks through us. So, we seek peace. We see Christ in the red-faced anger of those shouting their positions whatever their stand might be. We strive to love in Jesus’ name, and COVID be darned, we give the kiss of peace.

 

Where I want to be Wrong

 

            This really happened. I was 25. I was a seminary student eager to learn as much as I could, and then go pastor a church. I was in church history class and the professor was detailing all the schisms Baptists have endured over the centuries. This was 1995. At that time, in America, there were over 30 different Baptist groups.  Given our propensity to split over the smallest thing and given that 27 years have passed, I wonder how many distinct Baptist groups there are now.

            Our tendency to split over trivial matters. Our professor told us about a group of backwoods Baptists who were committed to simplicity in their expression of faith; this meant no adornments, no instrumentation with the hymns, and no artwork in the small clapboard church buildings. Then that church called a pastor who, out of necessity, nailed a peg in one of the walls. He needed a place to hang his coat. This was seen as an adornment and half the people left the church and started a new one. The other half loved the pastor enough to allow this extravagance, and they stayed. Those who started a new church came to be known as the “No-Peg” Baptists. Writing this, I wonder if our church history professor was bored one day and told the story just to see how gullible we were. There were no questions about the “No-Peg” Baptists on the final exam.

            Churches have split over whether the members should dance or not. In my most recent sermon, I mentioned occasionally having a beer with congregation members. Churches have split over alcohol consumption. And the place of divorced persons. None of these issues, dancing, drinking, or peg-hanging are found anywhere in the New Testament as marks of faith or indicators of the lack of faith. Yet, churches split over these and other second (or third or fourth) level matters.

            I always thought that if we were united on our need for God’s grace and our faith in the crucified, resurrected Lord Jesus, we could withstand all other divisions. United in the declaration that “Jesus is Lord,” other matters fade to lesser importance. I have been wrong! I have seen Christians who agree in their faith in Christ divide over lesser matters.

I am not above this. It would be hard for me to participate in a church that limited the leadership opportunities for women. I would absolutely not be in a church that practiced any kind of racism regardless of what they claimed about Jesus. I don’t believe someone can truly s submit to the Lordship of Christ and at the same be a racist.

Even so, I continue to hold onto the unity we have in Christ. I continue to insist if we meet one another at the cross and at the empty tomb, we can overcome any difference. Maybe our politics stay antagonistic; maybe our stances on certain issues continue to be at odds; maybe our tolerance for difference is sorely tested; regardless, I believe the unity in the crucified, resurrected Lord Jesus is more important that division over lesser matters. I have been wrong about this before and will gladly be wrong again if it means I come down on the side of believing in the unity Jesus gives. Jesus Christ crucified-resurrected matters more than any stance on any issue. There’s nothing bigger than this truth.