We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:14-16
Over the years of being in pastoral ministry I have not been able to overcome the sort of autonomic cringe I experience when I get a call from the church receptionist telling me that there is someone on the line or someone at the front desk who has asked to speak to “a pastor.” In most cases it is someone who either wants to sell me something that would be of “supreme benefit to my people” or someone who needs assistance that I know we usually cannot easily provide. I suppose the cringe is about having to divert my attention from the things on my to do list in order to give space to someone with whom I am not, and following the phone call or encounter, probably will not be, in a continuing relationship. But occasionally, I learn from these interactions. They become God’s gift to me even if I do not build a lasting relationship with the person on the other end of line.
Not long after I came to University Presbyterian in Seattle I had one such unplanned appointment. A man had come to our welcome desk and asked to see a pastor. I happened to be the one who the receptionist called and so I sat down with the man to talk awhile. The man’s first question to me was: “Are you a Promise Keeper?” I thought it an odd question. Although I knew what he meant. He was asking if I had attended the Promise Keeper men’s conference that had been held at the Kingdome in Seattle in the mid 90’s. He was African American and wanted to be sure I was someone who had made a commitment to racial reconciliation, one of the seven promises that a Promise Keeper was asked to make. Well I had attended the conference and I had made the promises so we were off to a good start. But in talking with him it became apparent that he had some needs that could best be addressed with another person on our staff who worked both with the homeless and with mental health support groups and resources. So I connected him with my colleague and pretty much left it at that. I handed him off and could get back to my list.
Not so fast. A few weeks later he came back. This time he asked for me by name at the reception desk. We connected and he let me know immediately that he was not happy about the referral. He didn’t want to work with my colleague. He said, almost spitting the words at me as he uttered them, “That man is an activist. I don’t trust him or people like him.” I’m not sure I fully understood what he meant, but whatever activist meant to him, it was in his mind not even close to the meaning of the other label he had previously used with me: Promise Keeper. Promise Keepers were trustworthy, Activists were not.
Both were ideological labels. These kinds of labels act as filters or lenses that become the evaluative criteria by which we judge the possibility of viable relationship with another. They are the means by which we cut to the chase and make early decisions about whether an encounter is worth our time. Why should I talk to her she voted for Trump? I can’t read his book, he’s a socialist? He’s a right wing nut job. She’s a fuzzy headed leftist radical. Fascist. Antifa. Whatever the category is, the net effect of naming it is to release us from any responsibility of having to engage with this other with whom we cannot agree.
Integrity requires me to admit that this man’s evaluative labels were not that much different than the conclusions I made about those anonymous requests to speak to a pastor. In the end we were both like dogs in a dog park quickly sniffing out who was and who was not a potential member of our pack. It’s actually a pretty normal practice. It’s not always harmful. But often it is. History is full of the details of how the assignment of these labels often gets us into trouble. The Church has been a full participant in this activity of making the label more important than the person. In the name of purity we have tried to eradicate those who threaten the existence of the “right” way of believing. Sniffing out the smoke and snuffing out the fires of heresy, we take our eyes off our leader, cut ourselves off from the one who is our head, and focus on and belong to things that do not build up but only tear down. Ideology becomes our idol and our tenacious grip on what we claim to be the “right” idea often leads us into unrighteous and destructive actions.
Jesus says it well, “It shall not be so among you (Mk 10:43).” Among those of us who claim to follow Jesus, truth is not a thing; Truth is a Person. We are not called to an ideology. We are called into a relationship. To answer Jesus’ call to follow him does not require us to sign a creedal statement or don a particular ideological label in order to embark on the journey. Ours is not a faith that primarily describes itself in terms of the tenets of what we think or believe. At its foundation it is a walk of faithfulness with a Lord whose mind we are called to share. And the mind of Jesus Christ, the mind of this person we are called to follow, is a mind that is willing to look beyond its own interests and in humility to regard others as better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3-4). Start here and ideology takes its proper place because we start walking with a living Lord and begin that journey on which we “grow up in every way into him who is our head.” This is the identity that knits us together into one body. This is the means by which we are built up in love.
David Rohrer
09/01/2020