Last week Justin and I took a walk along the beach with our new friend Jo. She asked us about what we’d left behind to come to England, what we missed and what we didn’t. She asked about our church and our denomination and what it was like to not be ministers after a lifetime of ministry. After we talked for a while she said, “It seems like you had some things you needed to put down.”
We hadn’t realized we did until we did and life was lighter.
As I listened to Justin answer Jo’s questions and as I listened to myself, I realized Justin and I didn’t so much mind the normal burdens of ministry: the long hours, the lack of privacy, the difficulty of making and maintaining deep friendships, the high expectations, and the constant exposure to people’s suffering and sin. We’d learned over the years how to deal with all of it. All jobs are hard in their own way.
What we found ourselves telling Jo was about how divided the American church is, about how people are so critical of one another, so quick to disagree about every little thing, so quick to let their disagreement spill out and separate them. We talked about how we’d get caught up in it too, seeing flaws in everything, constantly feeling guilty about what we weren’t yet getting right. We talked about the abundance of choice—how in America you can pick whatever church matches your taste and if you stop liking that one you can drive two blocks and find another kind (about how hard it is to be the person who stays when others leave and how hard it is to figure out how to stay well when you disagree).
Justin and I didn’t leave ministry in the American church because of the division and grace-less quarreling or the arduous task of maintaining unity while simultaneously pursuing sanctification. But I can’t lie, it feels wonderful to put it down for a little while.
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What I wanted to say in this essay isn’t what I’ll actually say, because I can’t figure out how to say what I want to say in a way that’s always true.
I want to say that we can disagree and still be peacefully united, and of course you can see that sentence is in fact true (very true if truth exists on a continuum) but also sometimes false. And I worry that it’s in that ragged, foggy sometimes—the surf between true and untrue—where we’d spend all our energy wrestling.
I am trying to avoid contentious wrestling. And all I can imagine happening should I say, “Stop letting your disagreements divide you,” is disagreement and division over which disagreements demand division.
I am working on a better sentence. I will try stories…
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Five years ago my husband and I arrived at a disagreement we could not sort through. He wanted to sell our house and build another, and I wanted to stay in our house and make improvements. At first we each suspected we could convince the other to switch sides. After a year of arguing we realized we were, alas, entrenched.
At first it was an argument about a house. Soon we realized it was an argument about everything—priorities, security, the kind of life each of us wanted to live. I cried as I told Justin how safe I felt with our tiny mortgage, how nervous I was take on something more. I told him I felt holier in a small, somewhat busted house (both in good and bad ways). And I cried tears of sympathy as my husband said he was tired of living in a house that always needed repair, tired of unexpected bills, tired of the doorknob falling off the front door. I said, Let’s fix it. He said, Let’s start over.
I thought he was wrong. He thought I was wrong. And there we sat in our full-sized bed, our backs against the headboard, two inches between our shoulders (but under the covers our legs intermingled) knowing there was no way forward together and no way but together.
In the end we built a new house, a house that felt at first like a beautiful burden and eventually like home. And then we decided to list the house on Airbnb and move across the ocean.
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I have a friend who I love who doesn’t always feel loved by me. He and I disagree about one particular detail in our walk with God. It’s something I think is sinful, and he thinks is not. We’ve prayed and studied and here we are in disagreement.
I love him. I eat pizza with him and take hikes with him. We have long conversations full of laughter. And sometimes he can forget that I think he’s sinning. And sometimes he can’t. And maybe that’s best case.
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A few years ago my husband sat down to talk to one of our elders about worship at our church. At the time, Justin was the lead minister, and I was temporarily leading the worship planning team. The team had recently suggested we do something in worship that the elders weren’t sure was wise, and so here Justin was talking through it on the team’s behalf. This happened often (as it does in most churches). It’s not easy for a whole church to march in the same direction. Conversations like these make growth and unity possible. They enable the whole church to benefit from the whole church’s wisdom.
I don’t know what all they talked about in that meeting. I do know it was like most conversations with our elders—thoughtful, gracious, measured. I also know (because Justin told me later) that in the middle of considering options, the elder asked, “So if you could wave a magic wand, is this what you’d do in worship?” He assumed it was.
Justin smiled, “Oh—not at all. But this is something good I think we can all agree on.”
Evidently this was something of a revelation—the idea that you could be the happy, content lead minister at a church that wasn’t just exactly the church you’d choose.
Justin and I realized a long time ago, some things aren’t for choosing. Or choosing against.
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I saw a meme the other day that said something about not sitting at tables Jesus would have flipped, and I couldn’t think of a single dinner table Jesus flipped. As far as I can tell, Jesus never refused an invitation. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Jesus ate with everyone.
Jesus disagreed with a lot of people. His disagreement was holier than mine because His was always right and mine is often wrong.
He disagreed with the tax collectors, oppressing those with less to pad their own already bulging pockets. He disagreed with the Samaritans who’d prioritized convenience over true worship, building their own altars closer to home. He disagreed with zealots who thought the kingdom of God would come by force. He disagreed with the pharisees who abused their power and cloaked their sin in piety.
And yet, he called a tax collector and a zealot to be his followers. He ate dinner with “tax collectors and sinners” and with the judgmental pharisee Simon. He sat and talked with a divorced Samaritan woman (scandalously one-on-one). He met Nicodemus, the Pharisee, for a long talk about faith (Nicodemus who would eventually help Joseph of Arimethea bury Jesus’ body—both men served on the Sanhedrin, the governing body that sentenced Jesus to death).
It’s true Jesus flipped the money changers’ table. It’s also true that he ate dinner with the men who oversaw that table.
Why?
Though Jesus disagreed with people, Jesus never gave up on people.
He’s “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…”
One day Jesus will judge humanity (He’s waiting and waiting, hoping we’ll choose Him, stalling the inevitable separation). But until then, Jesus sits at all the tables who’ll have Him. Because tables are for conversation, for trying to understand, for coming together as best we can, even when we’re not together.
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What I wanted to say in this essay isn’t what I’ve actually said (there’s a difference between unity and sitting at tables), but maybe unity’s a bit ambitious for right now and maybe sitting at tables is a good first step.
What tables are you wanting to flip? What would it look like to be like your Lord, always up for a dinner invitation—merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love?
-JL
I didn’t have time this week to get to your questions, but keep asking them! They help so much as I try to figure out what to share here.
One piece of news: Our summer parenting workshop The Storied Family is just about scheduled. You can check out cities and dates on my website. Tickets go on sale May 1st, and we expect a few locations to fill up fast so don’t dawdle! See you soon!
Disagreeing isn't the problem.
The apostle Paul said that some circumstances demand that we not sit at the table with someone (1 Corinthians 5).
Thank you so much for these thoughts. Church is family and sometimes family disagree. I like that you stand behind family. I'm often very disturbed by those who walk away from church and throw stones back at it. Thank you for your positives on disagreement. May the Lord bless your family in this new walk.