You are a Stupid Head!

 You’re a stupid head

I had a friend, well that is the wrong term for him, when I was a child.  I really didn’t like having him around, but he hung around all the time anyway.  He would come over to my house to play and no matter what I wanted to do he managed to ruin it.  My parents would not allow me to be mean, rude or chase him away, so I just tolerated him.  On one occasion he came over and I climbed a tree to the uppermost branches.  He was a little, overweight kid who couldn’t climb a tree.  So, I simply sat at the top of the tree till he left.  Not my most mature moment, but it worked. 

 After a couple of years, he apparently got the hint and told me, “We were not going to be friends anymore.  And I am not going to come over and play anymore.”

I answered, “Okay.”

He got red in the face and said, “You are a stupid head,” and walked away.  He didn’t keep that promise and I saw him often.  He apparently told his mom he really liked coming over and so his mom and my mom decided we should be close friends.  It was an odd relationship; it wasn’t a friendship.  It would neither reconcile and become healthy nor end with any finality.  So, what does this have to do with church history or transitions?

Of all the transitions the church has faced, perhaps the biggest was an internal fight.  If you are not into church history you may have never heard of the “Great Schism”.  It was a major transition within the church and has become a repeating pattern.  If we were to set a date for the Great Schism it would be July 16, 1054, when Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius.  After this point, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox church were no longer in fellowship.  

There is no agreement between the two of them who left the true faith and became a false church.  Nor is there agreement over what was the divisive issue.  Like an ugly divorce, both sides can clearly point to the weaknesses of the other while advocating their own innocence.  

Roman Catholic Church, “You left and you are wrong.”

Eastern Orthodox Church, “No, you left and you are wrong.”

Roman Catholic Church, “No, You left and you are wrong.”

Eastern Orthodox Church, “No, you left and you are wrong.”

Roman Catholic Church, “No, You left and you are wrong”

Eastern Orthodox Church, “No you left and you are wrong.”

Roman Catholic Church, “You left and you are a stupid head.”

Eastern Orthodox Church, “No, you left and you are a stupid head.”

Roman Catholic Church, “I know you are, but what am I?”

Eastern Orthodox Church, “You are a stupid head and no one likes you.”

The arguments between the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church may not have always been this immature, but it has had its moments.  Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church priests have a tradition of brawling at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher around Easter.  You can almost hear a version of the high school football cheer, “We love Jesus, yes, we do. We love Jesus more than you!”  But at least the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church are united within their fellowship, unless you count the covert and sometimes open verbal and even physical hostility within each fellowship.  The fight at the Church of the Nativity between two branches of the Orthodox Church did not produce a “Silent Night”.  The Protestant Reformation has rightly been criticized for its fractured nature.  There are reportedly 65 different Baptist denominations.  We all know how united the United Methodist Church of late has been.  One faith community loosely called “The Restoration Movement” was started for the purpose of “restoring Biblical unity to the church.”  The Restoration Movement is divided into three, some would say five, rival tribes.  

The division of the Great Schism was purported to be about disagreements that are all deeply theological, such as can leaven bread be used for communion; but the real causes of the division are much more carnal.  It is almost always the case that church fights, big and small, have at the root something other than theology and doctrine.  Fighting a “good fight” for the sake of “true doctrine" might give us a sense of justification for our fighting.  But if you look, you will find somewhere at the beginning of the splinter there was one of three or perhaps all three motives.  Sometimes the splinter groups go fully heretical and other times they just have a particular twist on a matter.  But when you see the church split somewhere you will find one or more of these motivations; the desire for more power and control, the desire for more experience, or the desire to be a big shot.  You may have heard them called, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life”, or “the world, the flesh, and the devil”.  From the “worship wars” to the control of the church cemetery fund, the roots are generally the same.

“Maybe we should start a great big unity movement!”  Been tried often and has failed every time, so far.  So, what can we do?  All we can do is shape our own life, spirituality and attitudes.  Thankfully, there is a counter active to the world, the flesh and the devil.  It is “faith, hope and love.”  Faith to live as though we believe what Jesus said is actually true.  Hope to have a preferred vision of the future that God will provide.  Love to deny self for the benefit of others.  I have it on good authority that this last one is the greatest of all.  I can’t change all the churches and cure all the divisions therein, but I can live out faith, hope and love.  

A long time ago in a classroom full of eager freshmen we argued over which was more important, doctrinal purity or unity in the church.  One side said, “Without doctrinal purity the church is not a church, but a prostitute dressing up like the bride of Christ.”  The other side said, “Jesus’ last prayer was for unity among believers; to create a faction is to be fighting against the Lord’s desire, something no Christian can do.”  The argument raged, but got nowhere.  Finally, someone who had said little so far spoke up, “Which is the sign of the true church; unity or purity? Jesus said, ‘By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.’”  Not bad for a college freshman.  Not a bad way to work for unity.