Committed in Relationship

I am blessed to have friendships that have lasted since I was a young child. Through different stages of life, difficulties, even disagreements, we still count one another as our closest relationships.

How different this is than what I often see in the church. If you have been a part of the church scene for a while, you no doubt, have witnessed what I have; ego, hurt, confusion, pride, stubbornness, lack of grace, and more. Things that have torn the fabric of our interconnections.

I have been saddened through the years to see both congregants and pastors struggle through deep hurt and have myself, experienced it. Yet, I also recognize it all as...well...normal. 

What has been the largest crime against the purposes of the church of Jesus is not that we struggle with such things in our relationships with one another, but rather, that we allow these things to tear us apart from what should be life-long connections.

The New Testament church was severe in its relational dysfunction. The reason Paul wrote letters like he did to the church in Corinth and others, was to correct their screwy theology and remind them the importance of loving one another. Read your New Testament and you will see that the new church was filled with the problems of man's ego, confusion, false doctrines, immorality, self centerdness, and hurt. Read your Old Testament and you will even see more problems. The Bible was never about a perfect humanity. If it was, we would be left looking at man. Instead, we are left looking at a perfect God in the midst of a very imperfect people.

Why then, are we still so surprised by the level of relational problems that exist in the church? The church is God's grace, mercy, and presence actively involved among a dysfunctional humanity. God is the point. We never where. The "community" that so many aspire to can only be authentic when it is not the goal. We can only learn how to be the church when we seek to learn who Jesus is and the reality He has made possible for us.

On the night before Jesus was murdered, He prays to God that His followers will be one as He and His father are one (John 17). Right before that prayer, He breaks one loaf of bread and tells His disciples to eat as a symbol of taking in and being a part of the ONE body of Jesus that was about to be broken. Through the cross, the prayer of Jesus has become reality. All who believe in Him and turn to follow Him are spiritually made one with one another (Ephesians 2:13-22, Ephesians 4:3-5, Galatians 3:26-29). 

This means, in essence, we are stuck with one another.

The easy thing to do is to pack up and leave when we are hurt or when things don't get our way. This though, is only an illusion of control. In reality, you are tied to the people in which you experience tension in an eternal, unbreakable bond.

It is only when we really get this that the teachings of Jesus & Paul concerning how we are to live with & love one another seem relevant. Once we truly understand we are stuck with one another forever, we are forced to learn how to deal with the tensions of personalities that are very different from our own. I would even venture to say that one of the greatest tools that Jesus uses to shape us to be more like Himself, is the most difficult of relationships.

For too long, the church has sacrificed relational commitment for an ideal of happy, hand-holding safe people that meet our personal needs and satisfy our individual prefernces. RCC aims to foster, not an optimal desire for friendships, but an understanding of the reality that Christ has made for us all. We are one. That is forever. By deciding to be "committed in relationship," with one another, we are giving up the illusion of our control for the sake of Christ's reality and in that place, learning what it means to love another.