How will we be known?

Lutheran, The, Mar 2004 by Miller, David L

Our life together too often denies who God is and what God is doing

By their works you will know them, and Christ will be known-or not.

Christ is surely known in a letter from Hillsdale, Mich., that The Lutheran received last week. It read: "We at Trinity Lutheran Church know God calls us to serve and bear witness to God's love and to support and encourage others in that effort. Our prayer ministry group and our congregation are praying for you this month. We hope this letter reflects God's love and our intent to bond in the Spirit with your efforts to bear light in an often dark world."

We rarely receive such notes. And there's a temptation to say, "That's nice," then set it aside and go back to work. But the letter is more than "nice." It carries a central element of Christian identity that is all too rare in today's church. The letter reflects a oneness, a unity with the other parts of the body of Christ that is the essence of who God is and what God is doing in the church and in the entire cosmos.

On his way to the lions and martyrdom at Rome, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch (35-107) wrote to churches along the way, always urging believers to unity with each other and with their pastors and bishops. Such "unity ... is the essence of Himself," that is, of God, he wrote.

So it is: The unity of the Christian community is an effective sign, making present the mercy of God and the mystery of what God is doing. For God is drawing the world's division and chaos into the oneness of the all-surpassing love of Christ, the one hope to which all are called (Ephesians 1:9-10; 2:11-22; 4:1-6).

Trinity's letter is a taste of "the essence of God," an experience of the unity amid diversity that reveals God's passion and purpose.

And it stands in sharp contrast to the Religion Newswriters Association's list of 25 top religion stories for 2003, which also crossed my desk last week. The vast majority of the top stories included the word "fight."

Episcopalians and Presbyterians fought over sexuality. Various religious groups fought over the Iraqi war. Southern Baptists fought over their new creed. Missouri Synod Lutherans fought over when you could pray and with whom. Groups like Promise Keepers fought over new leadership. Internationally, Jews fought with Muslims, and Muslims with Hindus, and so on. Three, perhaps four, "peaceful" stories made the top 25.

The RNA list makes me shiver for what it suggests about the nature of Christian life and the church. We are more known by our fights than by the unity of faith, hope and love that Ignatius said reveals the essence of God.

Certainly there are things worth fighting for-mercy for the needy, justice for those denied it, the right to proclaim God's gracious gospel. But most of our fights in congregations and denominations are a scandal, revealing again what a cynical world suspects: There is no balm, no wisdom, no healing in the church.

With Lent coming on, some of the most important repenting we can do is to turn from the ways we too often think about and treat others within the family of faith. Sins, indeed, verbal violence, against the body of Christ may be the most common of all in our culture.

We tend to think of ourselves as free, separate, disconnected individuals unless we choose to become connected out of mutual attraction or benefit. But that's a lie. We aren't separate. all of life is connected and interdependent, whether we choose it or not.

As Christians, such connection is intensified. We are members of a common body, members of Christ and of each other. What happens to one happens to the whole. What we do-and say-to each other, we do to Christ.

With cutting words amid our divisions, we wound and reject the body of which we are a part-and the Truth whom Christ is. Yet, as we bless, seeking understanding amid difference and unity in service, we experience the love that is the true life of the body. The unity of the body of Christ reveals the love that heals the broken connections among all things.

The choice is ours: To bless, love and humbly seek the unity that reveals the blessed heart of God-or be known by our violence.