You know how much I love sports. Baseball
particularly is my favorite, although I like lots of other sports, too. I
was never any good at playing any of them, but I’ve always loved to watch them,
ever since I can remember.
One of the things I love about sports is that sports are
very black-and-white. There are two things, and everything is either one
or the other. There’s your team and
there’s the other team. A team either wins or it loses. A pitch is either a ball or a strike. A runner is either safe or he’s out. In football, a pass is either complete or
incomplete. In basketball, either a basket is good or it’s not. It’s one thing or the other, period.
Now that works well for sports. It does not work as
well when we put it into other areas of life. We see it in our politics
today. It seems like everyone’s on one
side or the other side, with no thought of trying to work together to
compromise. We even see it in our communities, sometimes, too, when
something happens and it seems like everyone takes sides. It’s not really a good thing in those
contexts. Dividing into two sides, with each side insisting that it needs
to win, can keep us from working together and moving forward.
It happens in the church, too, sometimes. And it was
happening nearly two thousand years ago, in the time of the Apostle Paul.
It was happening when he wrote his letter to the Galatians, which we read part
of tonight.
There were two sides in the church then, too. There
were the Christian Jews, the Jews who had accepted Jesus as the Savior, and
there were the Christian Gentiles, who in this context were basically anyone
who was not Jewish but had accepted Jesus as the Savior. And those two
sides did not always get along. The
Christian Jews--some of them, anyway--believed that the Savior had come
specifically to save them. And they did
not want to accept non-Jewish people into their group.
Paul says that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
Paul says there are not and should not be two groups of Christians. There
is one group. And he describes who they
are.
He says that all of us used to follow the ways of the
world. All of us followed our own selfish desires and thoughts. And all of us were deserving of God’s anger
and God’s punishment because of all the things we did. That’s the one
group Paul sees--sinners. Sinners who
were deserved punishment from God.
But Paul goes on to say that God is not going to give them
that punishment. God, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, has saved them from that punishment. Paul goes out of his way to
emphasize that this is a gift from God.
It’s not because of anything that anyone did. It’s not something
that anyone earns or deserves. No person
could ever be worthy of receiving salvation and eternal life. But God
offers it to us anyway, because God loves us that much. It is God’s grace and love, and our
acceptance of Jesus as the Savior, that saves us. Nothing else.
This one group--sinners in need of salvation--is what the
church is. And yet, we still have divisions in the church. When you think about it, it’s because of what
that one group is that we have divisions in the church. That one group is
sinners. Our churches are made up of
imperfect, human, sinful people. And so,
even though we should be and are united in our faith in Jesus Christ, we still
have these things that divide us.
And sometimes those things get in the way of making
disciples of Jesus Christ. One of the reasons people leave the church, or
never come in the first place, is because of the disagreements we sometimes see
in the church. Now, I’m not saying that our United Methodist church here
in Gettysburg is worse than any other church about those things. But we’re only fooling ourselves if we think
we’re immune from it. This church is certainly better than some I’ve
seen, but we’re still subject to having large disagreements over small
matters. It’s not because we’re bad
people. It’s because we’re people, and
when people get together in groups, these things can happen.
But what can we do about it? Is there anything we can
do about it? Are we fated to always have division, not just in the church
but in every aspect of human life, just because we’re people? Or is there
something we can do to bring about unity and peace?
Paul gives us the answer, and the answer is Jesus Christ.
Listen to what Paul says about Jesus:
He himself is our peace, who has made the two
groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility...His
purpose was to create one new humanity out of two, thus making peace, and in
one body to reconcile both of them to God...He came and preached peace to you
who were far away and peace to those who are near. For through him we
both have access to the Father by one Spirit...In him the whole building is
joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together
to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Where there is division within the church, Jesus can be our
peace. Where there is division in the world, Jesus can be our peace. And where there is division in our own
personal lives, Jesus can be our peace. The peace of Jesus Christ can
rule in our hearts and in our lives. And
that peace can do away with all the divisions that we have to deal with.
Now, does that mean that there will never be any more
disagreements about anything? No.
We’re never going to all agree on everything all the time. That’s true in the country, that’s true in
our community, that’s true in our family. And it’s true in the church,
too.
And that’s okay. In fact, that’s a good thing.
It’s been said that if everyone’s thinking alike, someone’s not thinking.
No one has all the good ideas and all the right answers. Many times it’s through the process of
talking about things, and yes, sometimes disagreeing about things, that we find
better ideas and better answers.
And it’s also true that there are times when things cannot
be compromised, when we have to make a decision to do one thing or
another. When the subject of building the addition to the church came up,
we had to make a decision to either build it or not build it. We could discuss and compromise on how to
build it and how to raise the money for it and how much to spend, but we could
not just kind of build an addition to the church. At some point, we had
to decide that we were going to do it or we were not. There was no way we could compromise that
decision.
But even in the disagreement, and even in the times when
decisions have to be made, we don’t have to allow those disagreements and
decisions to divide us. We can still move forward as one united
body. If we do one thing. If we allow the peace of Jesus Christ to rule
our hearts and our lives.
That peace of Jesus Christ acts in a few different
ways. For one thing, it helps us remember that the people we disagree
with are not terrible, evil people. They’re not stupid, ignorant people,
either. They’re people who’ve looked at
the same situation we’re looking at and have come to a different
conclusion.
They may come to that
conclusion for a variety of reasons. They may have had different
influences on their lives that make them look at everything differently.
They may have knowledge and information that we don’t have, or we may have
knowledge and information that we don’t have. They may have had
experiences that color that way they look at things. All kinds of things affect our lives and our
opinions about things.
But what the peace of Christ
does for us is to help us remember that even in our disagreements, we are all
on the same team. The people who disagree with us, for the most part,
want the same things we do. They have
the same goals. They just disagree with
us on the best way to achieve those goals. If we keep the peace of Christ
in our hearts, we’ll remember that. And
we’ll be able to disagree respectfully and with open minds. And we won’t let that disagreement lead to
division.
And the peace of Christ also helps us remember what the
Apostle Paul wrote in Romans Chapter Eight: God can work all things for
the good of those who love him.
Remembering that will help keep us from insisting we have to have our
way and believing that everything will fall apart if we don’t. Even if
we’re fully convinced that we’re right, and even if in fact we are right, if
the decision is made the other way, we can still handle it. We will know that God will work the decision
that was made for good, even if it does not look like it at first.
In sports, one team wins and the other team loses.
But in the church, we’re all on the same team.
We’re all sinners in need of salvation. And when we receive that
salvation, when we feel the peace of Christ in our hearts, we can see
that. The divisions can go away, and the peace of Christ can prevail.
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