with one who is so worldly,
accepts and serves
at expense of God's own truth?
Leaving that out
which is the most important:
salvation and change,
obedience to God?
How can you love God
and yet accept what's sinful?
How can you just preach
what people want to hear?
How can I agree
to what I see you doing?
I cannot be
of one mind with you.
But if my mind is Christ
and if my heart is love
He opens up my eyes,
I see in you
the same passion for Him.
And as we break this bread
and as we share this cup
we are one body, we
are One in the Lord,
Sisters in Christ.
How can I agree
with one who's so one-sided,
obeying the rules
at expense of those God loves?
Talking so much,
not standing up for justice,
not loving the lost
or the marginalised?
How can you love God
and yet not love your neighbour?
How can you condemn
with words that hurt his soul?
How can I agree
with what I see you doing?
I cannot be
of one mind with you.
But if my mind is Christ
and if my heart is love
He opens up my eyes,
I see in you
the same passion for Him.
And as we break this bread
and as we share this cup
we are one body, we
are One in the Lord,
Sisters in Christ.
He gives us gifts,
He gives us love,
He sends us out
to be His light.
The gifts we have
are different
yet incomplete
when separate.
So may our minds be Christ
and may our hearts be love
and may His Spirit work
through gifts that He
has given to us.
We may be different
yet we are meant to share;
we are one body, we
are One in the Lord,
Sisters in Christ.
___________________________________________
[23. June 2013]
Inspired by an awesome ecumenics course (June 2013). ^^
I suddenly had the idea that this would make a good "duet" - since it's about two people. And the idea is that they go from disagreeing to seeing that Christ unites them. So this turned into a song and yes it has a melody (but due to my music theory being really crappy I have still not written it down 3 years later).
I opposed two viewpoints in this poem; I'm not sure I chose the right positions to pit against each other, but since I had a melody in my head this was what fit the melody... ^^; (Yes melody sort of came first for this one.)
Both of these things are important (loving God and loving one's neighbour) but I get the feeling that certain (mostly theologically conservative) churches put more focus on loving God, sometimes to such an extent that they don't think so much about actually going out and changing the world, or even hurt people in the process of trying to teach them truth, while others (generally more "liberal" / "progressive" churches) put more focus on serving people, sometimes to such an extent that they bend the Bible a little or become selective so as to be more accepting of marginalised groups (e.g. concerning the homosexuality issue).
The Bible makes it clear that Jesus wants both love of God and love of neighbour from us, since He says the greatest commandment is both (Mt 22:36-40). And it's a sad thing that it's so easy to get one-sided and emphasise one thing so much that the other side gets neglected. We need both.
But this poem is not just about "balancing out" the viewpoints or which is "right". It's about church unity. Who are Euodia and Syntyche? They are two co-workers of Paul who disagreed about *something* (doesn't say what), and he exhorted them to be "of one mind" (Phil 4:2). I took them here as examples of disagreement, differences and unity in the church.
Recently I realised the beauty of being brothers and sisters in Christ, about how Jesus actually breaks down boundaries between people (story here). And I think denominational boundaries shouldn't block us from each other either. I sometimes see certain Christians venting against certain other Christians, and I think often the problem is that when we act like that, we fail to see the other person as someone just as passionate for Jesus. Last week I was with people I did not always fully agree with theologically. But I had the impression with most of them that they really have a genuine relationship with Jesus. In the end, only God knows who the "true believers" are - and those are scattered, in my opinion (and Augustine and Luther thought the same haha :D) throughout the different churches of the world (in the universal "invisible church"). We don't need to all think the same way - but we need to recognise others as our brothers and sisters even if we don't always agree with them 100%, and let ourselves and our way of thinking and doing be challenged by theirs. This past week I learnt that each denomination has its strengths which we can learn from. God has given us different gifts, different points of view, different areas of focus - and I believe we're meant to combine all this as one body, to His glory, instead of rejecting one another.
A true Christianity is in the end both positions together (i.e. loving God and loving our neighbour). Because we can't love and serve God without loving and serving our neighbour. I wouldn't compromise at all on that. If people use "serving God" as an excuse to trample on people, they are in the wrong and behaving in a non-Christian manner. Most of the time, though, where churches have a different "focus", we can learn from each other or be reminded by each other of certain aspects we are weaker on. Differences in theological detail do not mean that "something's wrong"; we should be open to working with and learning from other denominations, and recognising in them our brothers and sisters for whom Jesus is just as important as for us! (More here - from ages ago though)
Picture by Théodore Chassériau
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