Richard Small, Executive Member, New Zealand Lay Preachers Association. by Web Master

Compassionate disagreement

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In our Epiphany and Lenten journey this year we are dipping into Paul’s letter/s to the Corinthians. Beneath all the “do’s” and “don’ts,” run two deep threads: The logic of the cross and reciprocal love.

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthian 8.1)

Aroha mai, aroha atu. Love / compassion received, love / compassion returned.

The Corinthians

1 Corinthians 8 deals with meat offered to idols. Even before there were buildings and assets, the early house churches still had disputes! Refraining from meat offered to idols was a condition for the Gentile converts from the Apostolic Council (Acts 15:20). As the church spread beyond Palestine, the Jewish temple and its meat supply, this became unworkable.

We have only snippets of the full correspondence. The “strong” (knowledgeable) saw the temple idols as nothing. The “weak” (less knowledgeable) were confronted by this.

Was it:

  • A head issue: (The knowledgeable knew their rights)
  • A heart issue: (The weak but aren’t they holding back the rest of us?)
  • An authority issue: (The apostles said so! The majority say so!) or
  • A non-issue (Sort it out yourself. We have other fish to fry).

Paul engages with both groups. He demeans neither of them. He isn’t too busy to care.

He challenges all these categories. The strong were “right” in their knowledge, but not in their lack of compassion. All things are “free to me,” they would go on to say. Paul would respond “but not all things are beneficial” and most of all, in dealing with church disputes, not all things “build up the body of Christ” (chapter 10). Paul will not eat meat if that would cause others to fall. The weaker members are indispensable. All bear the image of Christ.

Our story

This is food for thought for us.

Most of our supermarket meat seems to be offered to greed, rather than idols. However there have been other disagreements in the life of the church, around alcohol, sexuality, women in leadership, forms of worship, resources. The list is endless.

Traditions are an essential starting point. Without them we have nowhere to begin but we don’t have an instant “Siri” answer to every new question. “The weak” taking offence should not lead to paralysis but neither do we “bulldoze” our way to a durable solution. There are core issues of faith and identity that we all want to hang onto but how do we do this without making disagreement a battle for control?

Paul says love is a verb, more than a noun. A doing word. Known by its behaviour, not by words or good intentions.

Ignorance is not bliss but knowledge without love is a banging gong, missing the authentic voice of Christ. Any tradition, habit or argument that does not grow in the soil of love is not In-Christ and should be weeded out.

It is not easy to maintain love if we don’t think it’s reciprocated. But the good news is that this love is not only being demanded of us, but it is also being promised to us and poured out for us.

God’s love song

Imagine if our life together as a church family was a song? The words are important but love is the tune that makes it all flow together. No matter how good the words are, the tune needs to be sing-able.

Imagine if our genuinely held differences strived to be different verses of this one-song? I am not talking about “Biden” and “Trump” verses. Heaven forbid. Not all differences are that extreme. Even then, sometimes we may need two, or more, waiata. Listened to respectfully.

In choir practice, one thing everyone wants to avoid is hiva loi - singing out of tune. Here the perfect pitch, the only pitch, is love. In the life of the church we need a tune-up from time to time. The wonderful thing is no matter how bad a note we have just sounded the conductor and source of the music, our loving God always leads us in a new song.

How we disagree matters. Do we need more singing at church meetings? More compassionate disagreement? Not forced unity, or uniformity, but mutual respect and power sharing. “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?”

Charles Wesley’s hymn, “Christ from whom all blessings flow,” speaks strongly of this music of love. I first remember singing it as a student at Aotea Chapel. A “weak” congregation with small numbers and yet strongly overflowing with love. The last verse of this hymn has never left me in 30 years:

Love, like death, hath all destroyed,
Rendered all distinctions void;
Names, and sects, and parties fall:
Thou, O Christ, art all in all.

‘Ofa Atu