Calvin Synod Herald, 2003 (104. évfolyam, 3-12. szám)

2003-11-01 / 11-12. szám

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD

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ing just plain nasty. One day a little girl came to school with clean white mittens and he grabbed them and threw them in the mud. Their teacher immediately intervened to punish the young boy. But the little girl picked up her mittens, brushed them off and said to her teacher in a very responsible manner, “I’ll have to take time to tell him about God someday.” That little girl showed a great deal more self-restraint than we would have shown. But she understood what the problem was. She wasn’t thinking of punishing. She was thinking of helping. “I’ll have to take time to tell him about God someday.” It takes a lot of love to respond to poor treatment in this way.

But that is the secret of many people’s lives. In each of OUR lives, there was someone who loved us and understood us and gave us a feeling of confidence and security. All children should always know they have such parents.

When parents provide their children sympathetic understanding, at the same time they provide their children a lifelong foundation of strength, which will be with them in every time of difficulty. They offer their children a sense of security and confidence throughout their lives. And they enable them to ‘Interpret by love” even those actions which are not loving in their intent: the actions of persons who are striking out at everyone and everything in life, like that mean little kid who threw the mittens into the mud. The fact is that such behavior has as it’s cause, some very serious problem in the personal life of that individual, and he is hurting others around him from the darkness of his own soul. Someone needs to tell such persons about God someday in a way that touches their hearts.

This is really OUR task in the local church, and in our greater trans-local church, which is the Calvin Synod and the United Church of Christ. Is there any place where this message of Christ is more appropriate, more necessary, than in the Church? - in the living body of Christ? Yet why is it that within our Church we often experience the opposite?

Calvin Synod’s Biblical reminders to the greater United Church of Christ are often ridiculed: Within our own Calvin Synod, words are often spoken which are NOT recognizable as belonging in a fellowship of Christians: In our local congregations, differences of views escalate into totally un-Christian conflicts! Each of these results in great damage to our Christian fellowship, and as a result to what we should be doing in the name of Christ!

I know of one local congregation where in one year five families left, mother, father and children, not to go to another church, but just to leave the church of their own parents, because they didn’t want their own children to be exposed to the un-Christian, hateful bickering which dominated the congregation’s life.

Paul was very correct in his statement in 1 Corinthians 10, verses 23 and 24 when he said,

All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful, but not all things build up.

Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”

I went to a fast-food restaurant once which had the name “Stake and Shake”: I went in, all set to have a great steak sandwich. I was very disappointed when I discovered it was just “ground beef.” But there was a sign there that said: “Why do we

call it steak? Because we can!” “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”

Earlier, in 1 Corinthians 8, verses 1 thru 3, Paul said:

“We all know that all of us possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

But if one loves God, one is known by him.”

So how is it that within the Church we have such situations? Well, the truth be told, the Church has always had such problems. If you look at Paul’s letters, he was always communicating with congregations full of problems. Think of the church of Philippi - a very troublesome situation to Paul. Paul called them “saints,” but it has been said that they were rather “unruly saints.” They were able to continue as a “Church” because they had that one important ingredient - love - which is necessary in every Christian fellowship.

The charge has been made that the church is full of hypocrites and sinners - and, unfortunately, this is not off the mark. Very correctly, the Church has been characterized as a “hospital for sinners.” And who are those that go to doctors and hospitals. People who recognize that they have an illness with which they need help! So “Who goes to Church”? People who recognize that they have a powerful illness, SIN, which they cannot defeat on their own. The world is full of people who do not seek medical assistance because they think they do not need it: The world is full of people who do not associate with a Christian fellowship because they don’t think they need it!

But this still leaves us with the problem of un-Christian attitudes within the Church. WHY? Obviously, the lack of love. But how can this be within the Church?

A 1960’s folk singer named Judy Collins sand a love song called “Suzanne” which had in its second verse some of these lyrics:

“Jesus was a sailor, when he walked upon the water... and he spent a long time watching, from his wooden tower and... he knew for certain only drowning men could see him...” and that verse ends with the words: “and he sank beneath your wisdom.”

Two interesting observations, which are theologically correct: FIRST, that “only drowning men could see him...” True, isn’t it, that those for whom Christ is the strongest in life are those who know that they can NOT make it on their own! And they turn to him to be saved.

But unfortunately, there is another observation in this song: “he sank beneath your wisdom”: Many of us who go to the doctor for help, we eagerly purchase the prescribed medication. But in spite of the fact that the prescription says we should “take it all,” or perhaps even “take for the rest of our lives.” When we feel better we stop taking it. For some illnesses, we now develop a more dangerous form of the illness, one for which this particular medication will no longer be effective, as it has developed a resistance to the medication.

As Christians, we do the same thing. WE eventually begin to think that our relationship with the Church and our tremendous skill and knowledge negates the very most basic tenant of (continued on page 8)