1/31/21 “A Pastoral Letter to a People Divided” by Nancy E. Petty

Acts 15:36-41

Dear Fellow Christians,

In the year of our Lord 2021, we stand as a people divided. Divided we are on issues of significance that are destroying our common humanity. Fundamental human rights of who deserves to eat and have safe housing and basic healthcare are debated on the stages of political and theological difference. But our divisions are not only represented in questions of basic human compassion and a moral and spiritual responsibility to the common good. Divided we are on issues of insignificance—issues that shine a light on our pettiness and our insatiable need to win at all cost. These differences most often show up in our need to be right, to be more important, to know better, to be the chosen ones. Rooted in false dichotomies, these divisions have us fighting under labels like republican versus democrat, liberal versus conservative, religious versus non-religious, literalist versus non-literalist, citizen versus alien, cis-gender versus gender non-conforming. All false dichotomies that perpetuate division and difference after division and difference.

The truth is that humanity’s divisions and differences over significant and insignificant issues have been a part of our existence from the beginning of time. Our Christian faith is a story of a people divided over their disagreements; and furthermore Christianity is one of society’s institutions that has deepened our divisions and differences throughout the ages. The examples from our faith tradition are numerous. Israel and Judah, northern and southern kingdoms divided over economic wealth and power. Cain and Abel, divided brothers fighting for their father’s blessing. Sarah and Hagar, women divided by a patriarchal system of dominance. Disciples divided over who gets to sit at the right hand of their teacher. First century followers of Jesus falling out, as they say in the South, with each other over differences in dietary rules, marriage laws, and which preacher has more authority than the other just to name a few; and the differences over who was included at the table and who was not went even deeper. We, God’s people today, have carried these divisions and differences into our lives, our churches, our communities, our nation at a cost that has almost deemed our faith irrelevant.

So what are we to do? Where do we go from here? Do we simply keep traveling the road well-trodden fighting with one another with insults and name calling, shouting our differences at each other, calling each other by labels that really don’t define us, making power moves that set up systems that advantage some and disadvantage others, living our lives from a place of scarcity that results in our hoarding rather than from a place of abundance that encourages our sharing with others? Do we simply keep agreeing to disagree with no real commitment to do the work to build authentic relationships with one another? Do we take the false unity detour that leads to nowhere—a road that we are being enticed to go down right now for the common good?

Or, dare we travel a road less traveled? On this road might we do away with the road signs that label us this or that? On this road might we stop and visit the villages along the way that are occupied by people not like us? On this road might we follow the example set for us to wash feet, eat with the outcasts, give one of our two or three or four coats to someone who doesn’t have one, heal the sick, turn over the tables of economic inequality, put the woman or man beaten by the system standing on the side of the road in our car and take them to a safe place? On this road, might we stop and listen, even if we are in a hurry to get to our next appointment, to the young person who is struggling with addiction or gender identity or purpose? Dare we seek to understand the one who looks like an enemy along the road and instead see them as someone who is lonely, afraid, and feeling forgotten instead of simply seeing them as our adversary? Might the unity we seek on this road not be an empty cheap unity—unity simply for the sake of unity. For unity, my fellow Christians, can never be the goal. If, by chance, we reach unity by doing the work set before us then let us be grateful for such unity. But I will say it again, unity can never be the goal. Just like community can never be the goal. We discover unity and experience community in the work of doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God.

We don’t unify around our work for racial justice. We do the work of becoming antiracist and in doing so we discover unity. We don’t unify around our work for ecological justice. We become stewards of our environment and in so doing we find unity. We don’t unify around our vision to fight hunger and homelessness. We work to dismantle systems that keep people hungry and homeless and in doing so we find unity and community. Our unity is not established in a sanctuary. Our unity is established in the streets and hallways and office buildings fighting for equality for all. That work then calls us to worship with one another where we offer our gratitude, our confessions and our prayers to God in whose name we carry forth the light of love.

Sometimes, as we learn from our sacred text, our disagreements—our differences—become so sharp that we must part company just like Paul and Barnabas. And when that happens all we can do is set out on the path of our convictions doing the work before us just like they did. And when those difficult moments of divergence come, may we not focus on right or righteousness, but on the path itself. I do not need another to be wrong in order to be on my own path to God’s justice love. I do not need nor want exclusive rights to the tools of justice and love. I do not need everyone to do it “my way” in order to honor that they, too, seek the kingdom. And I do not need to be the judge. I need only to discern and follow the dictates of my conscience. Unity grows as we grow in God.

And so in closing, my fellow Christians: two roads lay before us as people of faith. One road, the road well-traveled, leads us to more harm and destruction and to deeper divisions and differences. The other one, the one less traveled, puts us on the path to do the work God requires of us. And that road is the road that makes all the difference.

I urge all my fellow Christians to take that road.

Sincerely,

Your fellow traveler