Struggling with Differences in the Name of a Shared Purpose

Dan Hotchkiss, a long-time church consultant, tells of gathering with a group of rabbis to for a workshop. This group was "the most diverse and ecumenical" group he had ever worked with -- everything from ultra-orthodox to ultra-liberal. He prepared three days worth of material on growth and decline, strategic planning and accountability.

Suddenly, all his plans went out the window. One rabbi requested that a minyan (a quorum of 10) be formed to say kaddish (prayers for the dead) on the anniversary of his brother's death. A simple request, but in that group, one that put the cats among the pigeons. The orthodox rabbis wouldn't pray with the female members of the group, who in turn angrily refused to be excluded.

Dan tells how his role changed from facilitator to spectator as he watched in wonder as this impossibly diverse group worked through their differences.

(Here's the link to his blog if you want to read it for yourself. http://danhotchkiss.com/rabbis/  )

We pay a lot of lip service to diversity and inclusivity. But the truth is, our tolerance for difference -- real difference -- is declining. The United Church is a much less diverse denomination than it was when I was ordained 33 years ago. Then, you could find everything from charismatic to post-Christian congregations. Not so much anymore.  

Someone I know who holds opinions outside the mainstream of the United Church was browsing on the Wondercafe, the United Church's chat room. She was surprised to find a discussion thread about her, where people said things like, "I can't believe there are people like this in the United Church!" or, "Don't you think everyone in the United Church should have the same theology?"

It's a lot easier these days to simply bail than to stay and put up with people with whom we disagree

profoundly. What Dan Hotchkiss observed among that group of rabbis -- a common purpose that in the end was able to transcend difference -- seems to be in short supply. And maybe that's why so we seem so lost at times, so unable to deal with the realities that face us. We're not sure what that common purpose is that lies beneath our differences. So, all we can see are the differences.

Former pastor and motivational speaker John C. Maxwell says that the test of an authentic relationship is not so much compatibility as the "ability to deal with incompatibility."  Long-term marriages aren't usually based so much on the similarity of the partners as on their willingess to deal with their differences. We grow, not from being with people who are like us, but from learning to live with people are different from us.

The Christian church was founded on that principle of discovering the shared purpose that is able to overcome differences. People who would never have dreamt of sitting down at the same table -- Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, clean and unclean, slave and free, male and female -- found a meeting place at the table of the Lord, the One who gave his life for them. The power of the early church's witness was the power of Christ to break down the "dividing wall of hostility," to forge communion in spite of human all-too-human differences. Am I being pessimistic in thinking that we have lost sight of that power?

And yet that impetus is still in our DNA and we need to rediscover it. After a church meeting where it seems impossible to reach agreement on the simplest of problems, I marvel at the working of the Spirit that forged unity between three denominations.

Today, there seems to be a new kind of puritanism in the air, in which people are unwilling to confront those who are profoundly different from them lest they be contaminated. And then we wonder why we are so powerless to speak to the pain and brokenness of our world.

In these challenging and stressful times, we need more than ever to recover that ability to deal with our differences -- our real, profound, deep differences of opinion, conviction, culture, and lifestyle -- in the interests of a shared purpose that is bigger than any of us.