Crossing the Great Divide

Deacon Terry Brennan’s article last week addressed the problem of division in Gonzales. As a follow-up, I’d like to offer some faith perspectives that will hopefully provide some helpful insight. Division isn’t new to any of us, is it? It all starts in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve disobey God, lose paradise, and learn about the alienation of blame, shame and guilt.
Their DNA is passed on throughout history. Here’s just a handful of biblical illustrations. Cain kills Abel out of jealousy, and is exiled. Sin’s disease so affects the world that God decides to start over. He separates Noah and his family as the remnant. After the flood, Noah gets drunk and passes out naked. The son who makes fun of him is cursed and becomes the nation of Canaan, the idolatrous enemy of the Israelites. 
Then there’s the twins. Jacob (mama’s boy) cheats his brother Esau (daddy’s boy) out of his birthright, resulting in division. Later Jacob has a dozen sons who, motivated by jealousy, sell their brother Joseph to a traveling caravan, and he becomes an Egyptian slave. David’s household crumbles around him with division due to his son Absalom’s insurrection. When Solomon dies, the kingdom is divided into two separate kingdoms.
Much of the New Testament addresses church division, such as the division between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, and the division of 1st and 2nd class Christians based on the spiritual gifts they’re given. Wow, even Jesus utters divisive words: “Don’t think that I’ve come to bring peace to the earth. I haven’t come to bring peace, but a sword. For I’ve come to set a son against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”
Jesus, who promotes unity most of the time, here implies that our love for him may separate us from those we love most. Makes me wonder...Is it possible to view division in a positive light as a sometimes necessary learning tool that helps us grow closer to the truth, as a means to discover God’s will, grace and love?
For hundreds of years, the Church has been splintered into hundreds of pieces. Yet in reality, there’s only one Church in terms of the mystical Body of Christ. The vast majority of denominations share one Lord, one faith, one baptism, the differences often being one of emphasis. And yet we’re greatly divided. Is this good or bad? 
Jesus knows our propensity for division. He prays for the unity of his disciples, that we’ll be one as he and the Father are one. But it appears that Christian unity isn’t very likely in terms of institutional unity, although if we dare to perceive the larger vision of the Church, we may have a chance of overcoming some of our petty divisions.
People of faith know about division. It’s found everywhere: in congregations, families, marriages, the workplace, and especially in individuals — since division originates in the human heart.  Everyone knows how destructive division can be. But maybe, if channeled properly, it’s possible that the passion that creates such division can actually be made beneficial.  Most division is caused by passionate anger. Having said that, FEAR is the more powerful emotion commonly found hiding behind anger. Something about the presenting issue that angers us, also threatens us. Our anger may not be totally connected with the obvious at all. Everyone carries emotional baggage from our own personal history. Sometimes an event or person triggers other factors inside of us that have little to do with our point of attack. That is, many conflicts that end in division aren’t really all about what we say they’re about.  The place where the anger and blame is directed is often motivated by that which remains hidden in the fear of our hearts.
A very high level of fear-induced anxiety exists on many levels in today’s society: financial security, homeland security, job market, health-care options, political and cultural polarizations, as well as relational stresses. Where there’s high anxiety, it just takes a spark to start a forest fire. With two entrenched, irreconcilable positions, it’s rare that there’s ever a clear right and wrong. Life isn’t usually that black and white. Gray is a much more common shade in conflict leading to division.
If we have eyes to see and are truly willing to seek the truth, the gray area might actually lead to reconciliation. It allows us to consider a middle way,  not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth, because unity based on anything other than truth is false unity.  Searching to find at least a grain of truth in the position of those we disagree with, creates common ground. This doesn’t require us to change our mind, but it does open us up to new possibilities.  It doesn’t help to worry about why people are fearful because we’re all afraid! But it may help for us to wonder together about what it is that we all need to feel confident about the future. This moves us from fear to confidence to solidarity. It’s better to try to find out how to tap into the wisdom of negative folks rather than to try to change them. We can be so attuned to seeds of conflict, that we miss the many ways that cooperation can happen. The problem isn’t usually too much conflict and division; it’s not enough cooperation. Walls need to come down and be replaced with movable and negotiable fences. Let’s use our God-given passion constructively for the good of all, not just our personal druthers.
All Christians are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation, not conflict management. Reconciliation needs to happen on so many levels, beginning with our relationship with the one true God of all, as Deacon Terry wrote last week. Next we focus, by God’s grace, on interpersonal reconciliation. The Episcopal Church has a saying that’s helped us work through many divisive issues over the centuries: “Always unity in essentials, diversity in the non-essentials, and most importantly, charity in all.”  May it be so for our great town of Gonzales.