In the New Testament, Paul dedicates a sizable portion of his letters to teaching church folks how to treat each other and how not to treat each other. Why?
It occurs to me that just because Jesus saves my soul doesn’t mean there’s not more “saving” work left to do on my head and heart. Speaking for myself, a lot more work! Just because we go to church doesn’t mean we leave our emotional baggage behind. Even for those who think everyone else has baggage except them, that is their baggage. We all bring it with us, stuffed into our invisible duffle bags, backpacks, and carry-ons.
I suppose that’s the way it should be. If you haven’t noticed, the church is not the place of perfect people, nor is it the place for perfect people. We shouldn’t expect it to be. “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick?” Jesus says somewhere. “I’m here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit.”
But that doesn’t mean the church should be a place where we intentionally inflict hurt. If we’re not careful to handle our emotional baggage (allow God to be our baggage handler?) — that is, if we are not committed to growing in grace and love — as soon as something or someone presses our buttons, the temptation surfaces to unpack it all and dump it out right then and there, potentially harming others and ourselves.
Church folks back in Paul’s day — like now — were quite adept at hurting each other in a variety of ways, behaving badly just like the badly behaving culture around them. Paul challenges them to think differently, live differently, to model Jesus’ way in their relationships.
“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without thinking,” he says. “Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what God wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Rom. 12:2, The Message)
And then he says, “Love from the center of who you are.” In other words, love the way Jesus loves you and has taught you to love others, which includes doing no harm and even doing good to those who harm you.
So, what if we started each day agreeing with God and each other not to participate in anything that causes harm? What would that mean?
Well, for starters, here’s what Reuben Job says. It means that I resolve to “bring healing instead of hurt; wholeness instead of division; and harmony with the ways of Jesus rather than the ways of the world. When I commit myself to this way, I must see each person as a child of God — a recipient of love unearned, unlimited, and undeserved — just like myself. And it is this vision of every other person as the object of God’s love and deep awareness that I too live in that loving Presence that can hold me accountable to my commitment to do no harm.” *
I wonder, what would happen if there existed such a church committed to doing no harm? Good news! One exists. It’s called Park Avenue Church, which has agreed that with God’s help, we will do no harm to ourselves or others. What impact will that have on us and the wider community? I’m looking forward to finding out.
Much love,
Pastor Gregg
*Three Simple Rules that Will Change the World
