A Powerful Relinquishment
February 3, 2008
Jeff Taylor
Text:
Proverbs 3:3, 5-6
I don’t like change. Ask anyone who has lived with me how much I like a sudden change of plans. I can’t manage to change my socks without whining if it hasn’t been on my calendar for a week. Aren’t we all a little like that? Change is unsettling, isn’t it? Frightening? When we don’t know what will happen next we can become anxious – knocked off balance by our loss of control, our poverty of power. In the absence of assured outcomes, our capacity for trust in each other and God is tapped to the max.
Power — not a very comfortable Anabaptist word is it? But, we all do want control; we do want power, right? We want to secure our own future and the welfare of those we love — that requires power. We want to do something memorable, to make our mark: we want to do some good in this world — that requires power. I have heard it said by more than a few that we have many gifted institution builders at TUMC. Building the institution of the church – doesn’t that require power?
In order to manage the institution of the church, to have power over it, don’t we need to manage the individual members of that church? I’m sorry, I meant to say, “wouldn’t it be nice if we could have some modest level of “influence” with each other?” Say it any way you like, but we are gravely tempted to try to exercise power over each other. We are political animals: the only question is what is our policy, or polity towards others? Are we “polite” with one another? Do we wish to “police” each other? How do we operate in the polis, the gathering place, of God?
In his book, “Dancing Though Thistles in Bare Feet,” Gary Harder writes, “Our impulse is to guard the church and its core values, identity, and beliefs. At its worst, this impulse is to protect our political power, to be judgmental of other people’s sins, and to cling to the fantasy that only we know what it means to follow Jesus.” “One danger we fear in opening our spiritual home is that we will change when new people enter. . . . we won’t be fully in control of our group identity anymore. Maybe some of our convictions will be challenged, and the church will feel less manageable, neat, and tidy.” (p. 89-90)
How will we manage change at TUMC? “Trust, and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus . . .” Sure, we need to trust God. In fact just trust Jesus and you’ll be happy – “there’s no other way.” No, sorry, we aren’t going to get off that “easy” — as if trusting God didn’t already require enough of a stretch of the imagination, we’re going to have to do more than that: we must trust each other!
I have a confession to make: I haven’t always trusted you; not as much as I now wish I could say I had. In the aftermath of our difficult process around deciding how to relate to Shannon Neufeldt, I was unhappy and somewhat angry with my church: believe it or not, not because we made a decision to declare ourselves welcoming of non-heterosexuals or because we couldn’t agree about same-sex unions. I’d been through that process a decade earlier at Pasadena Mennonite and have long had dear friends with whom I have variously differed on that issue. What really upset me was that we hadn’t even been able agree on when a “lifelong covenant” begins; which I took to mean that I couldn’t be sure what my church would teach my children about premarital sex. That was bitter for me.
Anyway, at some point during that time, I became involved in the launching of a new Mennonite church in the KW area. A bible college roommate and lifelong friend, Jim Loepp-Thiessen was planting a seeker-friendly (MCEC) church there, and despite some reservations about the term “seeker friendly,” I became a key member of the launch preparation team for a year and then, after launch, served as worship coordinator and trainer for another six months. I don’t know if I ever really thought our family could become fully engaged in a KW church, living in the east end of Oakville; but I found great healing in doing church, at least for a season, in a very different way with very different issues at hand. They met Sunday evenings, BTW so we continued to attend here regularly.
I tell you this not so much to say that I was exhausted and discouraged about TUMC, but to tell you how I left that option behind to return to a fuller engagement and commitment to TUMC. It wasn’t my doing really. I suppose it was God’s ultimately; but it was also very definitely a decision of trust from some TUMC people who, most unexpectedly, asked me to serve on the team to search for a Pastor of Youth Ministries. Maybe it is worth saying that the specific people whose task it was to find an additional member for that search team were people with whom I had disagreed in our sexuality conversations. Whether they felt anxiety about charging me with this task I don’t know, but the important thing is that they acted in trust. And in spite of my very mixed feelings, I did the same. Even more improbably, just 2 months later the same people found themselves asking me to serve as, of all things, the board secretary. (We were having a hard time getting people to agree to serve in those days — just 3 years ago.) What matters here is that my church took action to trust me, and I did the most important thing any of us can do to grow trust: I showed up. So here I am again, reporting for duty. These few years working with now two wonderful search teams and a fantastic, revitalized board have been healing for me in ways I could never have anticipated and had zero power to manage. Whatever suspicions I had of those with whom I have disagreed, about all sorts of things, have been lifted, along with (to the best of my awareness) any residual anger as well as my exhaustion and lethargy. I feel energized and confident in God and TUMC.
I trust you. I trust you with my family; I trust you with my children who so many of you, and especially their mentors, teachers, youth sponsors and those wonderful pastors that committee discovered, have continued to care for so very well. We can’t just sit around waiting for the Spirit to instill a feeling of trust in each other; we usually have to take action towards trust. Step one is just showing up: to say “yes” to the expressions of trust offered by others and to offer trust ourselves in the first place. If we are to help Christ build his church, we must practice the power of relinquishment of power over one another and act in trust instead.
As a collective of Christ, we must also practice relinquishment of power over God’s church. Goes without saying? We are easily seduced into trying to over-manage Christ’s church. We at TUMC have been entrusted with so many gifts — so much power: the power of a disproportionate amount of the world’s wealth, the power of education and information, the power of health, of friends, of good reputations, of tremendous knowledge and understanding — we’re an incredibly smart bunch of people. Surely we aught to be able to figure out where we want to go as a church and what sort of pastor to hire.
We do indeed have an embarrassment of gifts for “doing church.” But . . . I don’t think we will secure a healthy future for TUMC with our multivariate gifts. I don’t believe that the prosperity of TUMC will be founded upon our generosity, industry, or ingenuity. I’m sorry if this makes us feel powerless, but I don’t believe our ability to perceive the direction of the current of the Spirit will depend on our intelligence. None of our virtues can secure the welfare of our congregation – not alone.
As the one of the smartest Christians ever put it, “Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Even now, we see at best a vague reflection of reality: only in the presence of the perfect one will things become perfectly clear, just as it will become perfectly clear who we are.”
We dare not lean not on our own understanding. When it comes to the life of the church organic – the “body” of Christ, there is an equilibrium, an economy and ecology that only the very mind of God can create and sustain. Yes, we are to render our gifts, our power, available for the work of God in this world. Paul tells Timothy, “Stir up your gift to flame again, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.” Bring your gifts, your power to this common place [gesturing to the cross] – to this place where our God’s wisdom renders ours but foolishness. Where God, in mercy, will use our poverty of power to do a great new thing. For this is the power of God:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love takes no delight when bad things happen to others, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. . . .” (1 Cor. 13)
On the occasion of our celebration of the completion of Gary and Lydia’s ministry to us, speaking for us all, I gave them – we gave them — this assurance: “Know that, when you have moved on to a new experience of service, we will remind each other that God is with us, even in your absence. We will not dishonour God’s ministry through you by giving in to fear, mistrust, anxiety, or lethargy. In quietness and confidence is our strength.”
Blessed be the body of Christ. Amen.