Reading Between the Lines in Colossae.

I like to read between the lines. Something as simple as a no parking sign has a message between the lines: somebody once tried to park here and it wasn’t a good idea. You yourself may want to park here. It may seem natural and right to park here, but there is a reason you shouldn’t. The reason is so good that we hung up a sign and we may give you a ticket if you park here.

Paul wrote to the Colossian Christians about their church life. The church in Colossae is not thought of as a particularly cantankerous bunch of Christians. Paul was never there, and he doesn’t bring up specific situations. In the first chapter he seems to compliment them for their love for all the saints (1.4), but consider chapter 3.8-15. Among the many exhortations in the verses are to put off anger, wrath, malice, to quit lying to one another and to put on the new man which will demote social distinctions formally held very important: Greeks, Scythians, Jews, etc. Having told them what to put off, he tells them what to put on: kindness and humility. Bear with one another, forgive even as Christ forgave you.

Now read between the lines. What on earth must church life have been like? What did Epaphras tell Paul? Did believers from a variety of backgrounds really have to forgive complaints against one another? Was it so bad that they were tempted to anger and malice? Was it easier to tell convenient lies to one another rather than face certain controversy? Of course they were tempted in these ways, and so is your church to some degree. The issues would be harder to hide in a first generation church that mixed together a wide variety of people. I suppose that the Scythians thought that it would all be much easier if the church would just agree to do things the right way, the Scythian way.

Reading even deeper between the lines I would say church wasn’t meant to be easy. The easier it is, the more suspicious it ought to be. I will venture the opinion that an easy church is a weak church. Whoever said it should be otherwise? Our fantasies about church poison us. Our fantasies say church should be easy, automatic and by and large consist of people who are very similar. We should understand each other perfectly. We’ll laugh at each other’s jokes, enjoy one another’s cooking, agree on matters of taste in dress, entertainment and decorating. We will all be on the same page with regard to how to raise and educate our children. How to worship will never be a question. Our own ideas will always be reinforced.

While we’re dreaming we conclude that a healthy church will also be big, so we can safely ensconce ourselves in Sunday School classes and small groups of people who are the same age and have a similar approach to life. Occassionally a different kind of person will show up, but they will be loved into submission so they can be just like us, or learn to admire us.

Reality is very different, or as I see it, it ought to be. Some believers attend little churches in challenging environments. Depending on the setting, they may be forced to share a church with people they don’t understand very well. Maybe this church struggles to fill roles. Church social activities mean mixing across age, education and the lines of class and cultural differences that can make conversation hard to start and harder to maintain. They have to explain their jokes, and when they do sometimes no one laughs. They’re not overly fond of the food at fellowship meals. There is little common ground in musical tastes. There is a mutual opinion that others are making unwise parenting choices. How to run this church has to be hammered out by people with very different ideas. Just exactly what Christian fellowship between Sundays should look like is not immediately understood.

In my opinion, some tension is the reality of a church that is actually bringing people together from the east and west and from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. How could it be otherwise? There are many appropriate Bible passages that tell us how to get along in Church but I feel in this case the Holy Spirit has something to say to us in one short verse, “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us.” (Romans 15:7).

Could such a church thrive? Many experts would say no, but I think they’re wrong. The reality for Mennonite churches will be less and less cultural homogeneity. It will be glorious, but it won’t be easy. The temptation to retreat will be strong. As a pastor in a city far from the Mennonite centers, I was aware of that stream of believers investigating churches all over town every Sunday. There were Mennonites swimming in that stream. Their quest: a room full of people just like their own idealized version of themselves. Often those who had just moved sought a church like the one back home. The new church rarely was. They often found churches that would bring them together with people very different than what they were used to. Sunday started with a search, ended with frustration and the cycle was repeated with alarming frequency. They might occasionally find what they thought was the right church where they could fit in, with the right music, the right pastor, the right attitude, the right environment for their children, the church of people they could really understand but it never lasted. Even these churches had a funny way of eventually forcing them to live with people who had their own ideas.

The search is rooted in a fantasy. This quest is not usually about doctrines and integrity, it is about style, opinion and social comfort. Often the search is dressed up in the language of exalted spiritual goals, but I have my doubts. Is this tiring quest really about any serious matter of belief, or are narrow-mindedness, fear and discomfort the only doctrines at stake? When we find ourselves in new places, most new churches ultimately put us in awkward situations. Should we just leave?

Modern Americans move frequently and more of us will find ourselves away from home. Where to go to church simply wasn’t a question for many believers 100 years ago. It is a common question now. How to run the church also wasn’t really a question many people would have asked or been asked 100 years ago. The weight of tradition, the influence of family and those they considered authorities made those decisions. To this day strong family and social ties anchor many Mennonite Christians to specific churches, but this will change. Many, though not all, communities where Mennonites found themselves in the past were naturally less diverse. For many Mennonites going to church meant going to church with people who held ideas very similar to their own.

Frequent moving isn’t the only issue we face in the 21^st century. As our society becomes better educated and more individualistic, the average person is going to have more opinions and desire to make more decisions. People will expect to be able to pursue and apply their own way of doing things within a church. In the 21^st century can we have opinions about matters of style and applications of Scriptural truth without being opinionated? Can we build a church that holds fast to its doctrines but agrees to demote those matters which can only be described as one of many possible ways to do things? Can we stay under the same roof with those who hopefully believe the same things but have different ideas about how to apply those beliefs? The answer is yes, but not without trying. There will be a considerable temptation to shop for an easy church--a church of people similar to ourselves—who do it our way. I don’t think this is what the Lord intends for us at all.

I would like to recommend a harder church, where you feel out of place some of the time-- a Colossian church, if you will. I would like to recommend people who occasionally annoy, music that sometimes grates, child rearing that seems counter-intuitive to you. I would heartily recommend a place where you don’t get your way all the time. Figuring out your place there may take longer, but it also may be exciting and spiritual. I recommend a church that has Scythians and Greeks and Barbarians.

In a church like that you learn to love and cherish your brothers and sisters, because they are brothers and sisters in Christ, not because they are mirror images of yourself. Maybe this is what Paul perceived in the Colossians. May I suggest that your children will be safe and happy there? You will cooperate with God’s Spirit in ways that stretch you. You will learn that being “like-minded” isn’t about style and taste , and certainly isn’t an invitation for you to run someone else’s life so they can be more like you. Perhaps most thrilling in that church is that only rarely will you have the suspicion that church is happening for human reasons, by human energy and through human initiative. You will dismiss that suspicion as unworthy in light of the evidence all around you. Only God could bring me here. Only God could bring this group of people together. Only God could keep them together.