Porcupines In Church

What? You say you’ve never met a porcupine? I’ll bet you have. In fact, you may be one yourself. I’m pretty sure I am.

“The German philosopher Schopenhauer compared the human race to a bunch of porcupines huddling together on a cold winter's night. He said, ‘The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt one another with our sharp quills. And in the lonely night of earth's winter eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness.’”[1]

So, have you been hurt lately? Have you thought you might be better off outside in the cold? Have you hurt one of your fellow porcupines causing them to wander out on their own? How can we stay together as a church when we keep hurting each other?

Excellent question…except most of us already know the answer.

My clients are intellectually delayed adults who live in group homes. Most of them have roommates and they get into the same types of squabbles and disagreements as folks in the 3^rd, 4^th, or 5^th grade might get into. One of the things I help them with, individually, is getting along better with their roommates and housemates. We work hard on learning to apologize to and forgive each other. And I’d be surprised at how hard it is for them, except I know how hard it is for me.

That’s a problem for every one of us, isn’t it? We feel like making an apology is showing weakness. Of course, we’d be happy to forgive them, as long as they apologize first…right?

Think about it, would you rather be right (and out in the cold) or forgiven (and in the warmth with the rest of the porcupines)?

Hang on! Think about your answer…what are you willing to do to back up your choice?

“Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.’ Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark. But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus; but Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.” Acts 15:36-41

Did you get that? “The contention became so sharp that they parted from one another.” Now we know that God used their separation to increase the spread of the gospel, but Paul and Barnabas had to have been really mad at each other.

Wait a minute! Christians don’t get mad at each other, do they? We don’t disagree about anything, right? We certainly don’t ever disagree about how church work should be done.

Ahem…we’d better think about that again.

The big problem is not that we disagree about methodology from time to time, but the way we handle the disagreement. How often do we “agree to disagree” and then go on about our business? What tends to happen more often, is that we get our feelings hurt and instead of going back to that person and talking to them about it, we go to our friends and tell them how rude so-and-so was. So now, all of our friends are upset too. They tell their friends and pretty soon we have factions in the church and long standing feuds. And Satan wins because nobody is spreading the Gospel anymore, we’re all too busy poking each other with our big, puffed out, porcupine quills.

But what’s the answer? How do Christians handle disagreements and differences of opinion?

I’m glad you asked…because Jesus has the answer!

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.” Matthew 18:15-17

Bummer! I guess that means I have to talk to the person and try to settle things first. And the text says “you and him alone.” That does not mean standing in the church parking lot yelling at each other.

I think the trick is to first put off any kind of discussion until both of us have cooled off. Then we can meet privately and discuss, calmly, where things went off the tracks. Then, we can try to figure out how to keep it from happening again. Of course, then we don’t get the satisfaction of hearing our friends commiserate with us over what a terrible person that other person is for disagreeing with us.

We know that Paul and Barnabas and John Mark worked through their issues without splintering the early church. Years later, can you imagine them sitting around reminiscing about the disagreement and laughing at themselves? I can. “Weren’t we silly,” they’d say, shaking their heads. John Mark would laugh and remember how young, homesick and overwhelmed he was. Paul would remember how angry he’d gotten at John Mark and then at Barnabas for defending him. But then John Mark would thank Barnabas for his patience with him as he matured both emotionally and spiritually. He’d thank Paul for giving him a second chance. They’d smile and realize that “… all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Here are some guidelines I’ve come up with for myself. I’m not saying I always use them, but, I have them.

•     Don’t take things too personally. Everybody has bad days and sometimes they just don’t realize how sharply and/or dismissively they’ve spoken.
•       Don’t spread my hurt feeling around. Nobody needs to know except the person who hurt those feelings.
•        It’s not all about me. It’s about Jesus and how best to spread His truth.
•        Apologize often. Relationships are more important that being right.
•        Forgive freely – even when the apology never comes.

“When the laborers have an abiding Christ in their own souls, when all selfishness is dead, when there is no rivalry, no strife for the supremacy, when oneness exists, when they sanctify themselves, so that love for one another is seen and felt, then the showers of the grace of the Holy Spirit will just as surely come upon them as that God’s promise will never fail in one jot or tittle.” (Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, p. 175)

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[1] Wayne Brouwer, Holland, Michigan. Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 2.

Prodigal and Prostitute

“Forgiving the unforgivable is hard. So was the cross: hard words, hard wood, hard nails.”
William S. Stoddard

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8

You probably remember a man named Ted Kaczynski – the Unabomber. He’s the man who used to send mail bombs to people he didn’t like. He’s been in jail now for many years, but this week I read something I hadn’t known before.

After Kaczynski was put in prison, his mother, Wanda was interviewed by someone associated with the Chicago Tribune. She told the reporter that she wrote letters to her son, Ted, every month. She shared her most recent letter at that time with the reporter.

"I want you to know, Ted, that when a child is born, the parents give them the gift of unconditional love for a lifetime. This is true of you. No matter what happens, my love for you will be there for a lifetime. Love, Mother."

It must have been heartbreaking for her to write those letters because Ted had testified during his trial that she was a horrible person. In fact, he refused to even look at her as she sat in the courtroom. In spite of that, Wanda Kaczynski, wrote a letter to him every month telling him that she loved him.  That story reminds me of a couple of other stories.

One of the stories is in the book of Hosea, God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. God gives people of Israel a living object lesson that demonstrates how they are treating God. They repeatedly wander away from God, spiritually, to worship the idols and false gods of the people who live around them. But, like Hosea, God is not only willing to forgive and take His people back over and over again, He’s willing to go and find them and lead them back to their true beliefs over and over again.

Can you imagine how difficulty that must have been for Hosea as he watched the woman he’d married destroying herself – not just once or twice either?

Have you ever know someone who repeatedly hurt themselves? Yes, most of us know someone who smokes or doesn’t exercise or overeats and those are self-destructive behaviors. But I’m talking about something more immediate.

Several of the folks I work with have a problem with picking at or pulling on their skin until they’ve made actual sores that hurt and bleed and potentially could become infected. One man has bitten his hands so many times that he wears braces to protect him from himself. One woman wears gloves all the time because without them she will pick at the skin around her fingernails until every finger is bleeding and sore. Even though these individuals know the pain that will come from their behavior, they continue to do it.

As staff, we often look at these individuals, shake our heads and ask, “Why don’t they just quit doing that? It must hurt. Why don’t they stop?” And then we clean, disinfect and bandage … and try to keep them from hurting themselves again.

When we read the Old Testament, we ask ourselves the same questions about the Israelites. “Why did they keep moving away from God and breaking His rules? Couldn’t they see that they were just going to end up being taken captive again?”

And yet, we very rarely ask those questions about our own behavior. “Why do I keep picking TV over reading my Bible? Why don’t I spend more time with God? Don’t I know that I’m damaging my relationship with God?”

Sin is self-destructive behavior that tears up our hearts and our spirits and separates us from God. But it doesn’t just hurt us. It hurts God, too. Even before we feel the pain of guilt and remorse, our behavior has broken God’s heart.

The other story I thought of was the parable that Jesus told about the prodigal son. Where Hosea chose someone who was already living a self-destructive lifestyle and, as an example of God’s redemption, loved her in spite of her behavior; in the story of the prodigal son, he was at least aware of his father’s love for him whether he chose to accept it or not.

 “… He did not know that the best place in the world is home; for the home atmosphere had become disagreeable to him, because he could not be as independent as he desired. Any place looked better to him than home. Evil companions helped to plunge him deeper and deeper into sin, and a false excitement was kept up, and he imagined that he was happy in being free from all restraint. He had no one now to say: ‘Do not do that; for you will do injury to yourself. Do this, because it is right.’ But when his means failed, and he was obliged to take time to consider, he found himself without the bare necessities of life; and, to make his situation more trying, a famine had come upon the land.
“Starvation stared him in the face, and he joined himself to a citizen of the place. He was sent to do the most menial of work,—to feed the swine. Although this to a Jew was the most disreputable of callings, yet he was willing to do anything, so great was his need. Miserable and suffering, he sat in the fields doing his task. Because he had been unwilling to submit to the restraint of home, he now had the place of the lowest of servants. He had left home for liberty, but his liberty had been turned into the lowest of drudgery. (E.G. White, Signs of the Times, January 29, 1894)

When the prodigal son finally decides he’s had enough and makes up his mind to go home, his father is there waiting for him and welcomes him back even though the son probably still smells like pigs. The father doesn’t care – his son has come home.

The question is, does God love anyone of us any less if we don’t come back to Him? The Israelites, as a nation, ultimately and finally rejected God…did He quit loving them?

In the final verses of Hosea, we read the promises of God through Hosea that confirm His love for not only the Jews, but all of humanity…no matter what.

I will be like the dew to Israel; He shall grow like the lily, And lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread; His beauty shall be like an olive tree, And his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; They shall be revived like grain, And grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.  “Ephraim shall say, ‘What have I to do anymore with idols?’ I have heard and observed him. I am like a green cypress tree; Your fruit is found in Me.
“Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the Lord are right; The righteous walk in them, But transgressors stumble in them.” Hosea 14:5-9 

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:35-39