Journal entries in response to our Virginia Baptist division
Romans 13: 8-10 (NIRV) says, “Pay everything you owe. But you can never pay back all the love you owe each other. Those who love others have done everything the law requires. Here are some commandments to think about. ‘Do not commit adultery.’ ‘Do not commit murder.’ ‘Do not steal.’ ‘Do not want what belongs to others.’ These and other commandments are all included in one rule. Here’s what it is: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ Love does not harm its neighbor. So love does everything the law requires.”
It is with these verses in mind that I tread into the conversation about the unfolding history of Virginia Baptists. Much may be lost if we cannot hold to the truth found in these verses along with the tenets of our Baptist identity.
Anna Miller
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One of our congregations has been asked to leave the Baptist General Association of Virginia due to its ordination of an openly gay man, who serves in a vocational ministry to disabled individuals. Upon believing God was leading this one to serve, and in a measure of blessing, Ginter Park Baptist Church offered the ministry of ordination. As the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s executive committee became aware of it and, I presume, believing it to be incompatible with New Testament principles, it voted to ask the church to withdraw its membership.
I would like to believe that both of these groups are functioning with the best of intentions. Even so, it seems as though everyone loses. When I first heard, my mind kept saying, “This is a no-win situation,” because there is such a wide chasm between perspectives, without grounds for compromise. Then it occurred to me that there is one possible “win.” The “win” is what Jesus has done for us, uniting us in our need and in his victory accomplished through his death and resurrection.
Imagine with me that you are on a long and difficult journey. It’s not a big stretch for the imagination of Jesus followers. There are others on this narrow road, with its boulders and pits to navigate. All are aiming for the same destination and goal, which is to be with Jesus and learn to love and follow most fully as they know how and are able. This direction could be called “aiming for home.” Regardless of how well or poorly you think someone else is doing or traveling, you know the road to be uncertain and grave, and absolutely no path to travel on without support!
Occasionally you encounter another traveler along the way who does not walk like you, speak like you or find connections in the same ways you do. Even so, they are walking, trying, aiming their heart in the general direction of home. This is seen through their love for God and love for others, which is what the law requires, acted out in servanthood, worship and generosity. The law does not command that individuals fix others when they do not understand them. The fixing is God’s job, in every person.
We, therefore, face a traveling question. Am I willing to walk the same path and offer whatever I can to other travelers? (Remember the Good Samaritan) Will I refuse to aid them on their journey, denying compassion to them — the same compassion I so desperately need from every other fellow traveler?
The one who neglects or rejects others somehow feels like they hold and possess the truth, when we will all discover someday that we only captured a small sliver of it. Scriptures call it “seeing in a glass dimly.” Even slivers that we do see clearly and understand are due to God’s goodness, grace and provision alone.
Can we allow God to be good and gracious and give some sliver of provision to anyone and everyone God so chooses? And then can we trust God to work with them as they work out their salvation with trembling and fear? In our Baptist doctrine, this is called soul competency on an individual level and autonomy of the local church on a congregational level. We must confess that the understandings and truths we possess are but a dim reflection of God’s heart and mind. Then we must allow for all churches and individuals to stand before the Lord in their response.
Why is it so difficult to help a brother or sister or congregation along if they are not like me or mine? Despite our words that say there is, why is there not truly room for everyone at the table? The real table is one that is not ours, but one at which Christ is the host, which means the invitation is his to make. Yet, we, although merely guests ourselves, feel we can extend or retract the invitation? How so? How is it that I got invited to this big table with lots of room?
What is good in me? Am I holy enough? Righteous enough? Right enough?
Only Jesus is; not me. I’m only as right and good and righteous as God has remade me. And I need fellow travelers to see me as the well-intentioned, Jesus-bound, broken refugee that I am. So does every other journeyman, journeywoman and congregation. Please, let us receive from one another what light we have to offer.
Let us spur one another on, even when we think the other to be wrong — especially when we think that — because we desire that all be made whole, well and fully alive in Christ, if indeed we do hope and pray to this end.
The most important consideration, I believe, lies in the prayer of our Lord and Savior. On the last night in his earthly body, Jesus prayed that his followers would be united. Typically what someone advises on his or her last known day of living is only instruction of the greatest importance. Words offered on this occasion are those things one needs others to remember at all costs, words that are lasting.
Jesus was doing just that when he prayed for our unity. He said that by our oneness others would see and know we belong to God. That must be one of the most important pieces of truth to which Jesus’ followers are to devote themselves. When followed, the two greatest commands given by Christ keep us in union.
O that the world would see Christ’s church and know!
May we have the courage to speak our confessions. Yes, I have lain down on the bench so there is not room next to me for a weary walker, because I simply could not see their place at the table. How unkind, un-Christlike — and maybe well-intentioned.
But God is bigger than my understanding. And, thankfully, I just THINK I kept someone from sitting at the table. The table is bigger than I know and they might sit elsewhere, if indeed the invitation is issued and the cost paid for by Christ.
Christ has given us the instruction to live so we “win”; and most importantly it will honor and glorify God. The answer is our unity and love (John 17) The ONLY win is if we can dwell together in the midst of division or disagreement, to REMAIN in God together. For now it does not look like a “win” because of divided understanding and beliefs. While we grip personal beliefs over our commitment to unity, we forfeit, sadly, our witness before the world that shows love at a cost.
But thanks to God there is more than what we see. God continues to move us forward to maturity one gracious step at a time. Redemption is on the horizon and God is not finished with us yet. My prayer is that this will be seen sooner than later.
We are people of another Kingdom, belonging to God. Yes, we long for the day when salvation is realized in its fullness, but we are not waiting for that someday. We live in the eternal kingdom that is already breaking in around, in and through us. We pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” May we live this prayer from the center of our beings.
In The Message translation of Scriptures, 1 Corinthians 13: 13 is worded in such a way that acknowledges the reality of God’s kingdom coming, even now, unto final victory. It says, “But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.”
Fellow traveler, I extend my hand to help you over the pit and offer a lift to boost you over the next boulder, longing for your successful journey, while praying and trusting that Christ will do his saving work in you, even as he does in me. And I’ll be looking for your hand, your boost as well, in my time of need.
That said, I urge us towards prayer for such unity.
In a recent devotional time, centered around the work of Kathleen Norris, the meaning of salvation was being fleshed out. She discussed the Hebrew word for salvation, which is “to make wide” or “make sufficient” and in the Greek, “to make well.”
Therefore, God is the wide and sufficient way, and God is making us well.
In Matthew 9: 27-30, there are blind men who are crying loudly for mercy and sight. Jesus asks them, “Do you believe I can do this?” They proclaim their belief. Jesus touches them and as he does so, he rests the results of his touch, their healing, on their faith. And it works! They are healed because of both their genuine faith and Jesus’ touch.
In Mark 2: 3-5, four friends bring a fifth friend on a mat to Jesus for healing, because he cannot walk there on his own. The friends have so much hope and trust in Jesus and what he can do, that they go to great lengths and expense to take their friend.
If God honors faith through touching and healing …. If God honors the faith of friends ….
What if? What if I care so much for Virginia Baptists that I ask God to heal us?
What if I beg the Lord for unity among his followers? What if you join me and we create a wall of prayers around this body of believers?
My prayers are being offered on behalf of Virginia Baptists and that we will be healed from division. Maybe then we will not make sacrifices of one another in order to prove ourselves right. Maybe then we will believe with our actions that each person is responsible before the Lord, while trusting in the continuing work of God unto the wide and sufficient way of salvation, where we are all made well.
Offer up your prayers, all whose hearts are broken by our disunity. There are many who are praying already. May God work wonders according to the work of the Holy Spirit.
O that the world may see us, the living church, and know that you are for us, O God. Receive our thanks for your merciful invitation to the table, to the journey.
Anna Miller ([email protected]) is pastor of Westhunt Baptist Church in Richmond.