Ps 85:8-13 & Ja 4:1-6

16 July 2006

“Birds of a Feather…”

            The tired old slogan that “birds of a feather flock together” is increasingly being proved true in America today.

            A couple of weeks ago, I happened to catch an episode of 20/20.  (It’s the first time I’ve watched it for ages.)  They were doing a special report entitled, “A Country Divided:  The State of Our Union.”  Honestly, it was rather depressing.

            They spoke of “the big sort,” a phrase used by Bill Bishop, reporter for the American-Statesman, which is the newspaper in Austin, Texas.  He and “statistician Bob Cushing reached back over the last 14 presidential election cycles and counted Republican and Democratic votes in all 3,100 American counties.  The research yielded some startling information.  ‘There’s a steady trend line from ‘76 to 2004 of the country…pulling apart, becoming more politically segregated.  We began to see this pattern that we eventually end up calling “The Big Sort,”’ said Bishop.”[1]

            It’s not so much at the state level; it’s at the community level.  More and more, Americans are selecting communities of people that look, act, and think like themselves.  According to their research, areas that, not so long ago, were about split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans are becoming increasingly lopsided in favor of one or the other.

            Then 20/20 reported on experiments that were conducted.  In one experiment, people were placed in rooms and given topics for discussion.  In the rooms that had like-minded people, there seemed to be a push toward more extreme positions.

            Another experiment was carried out to show the effects of so-called “shout TV.”  You know what that is—programs with two (or more) participants who talk at each other, but not with each other.  And often, I might add, at very high volume!  Plenty of heat gets generated, but not much light.

            Diana Mutz, from the University of Pennsylvania, “shows that viewers are very likely to misunderstand those who disagree with them when they watch people shouting at each other.  And the ongoing civilized debate that is a cornerstone of American democracy can be lost in the process.  All of this is accelerated by the internet.  About eight million people log on to…partisan web journals every day, creating [like-minded] communities…who demonize each other.”[2]

            In the experiment, volunteers were hooked up with wires while they watched these very enlightening programs.  Their body chemistry and pulse rate seemed to indicate that they were really getting into what they were seeing.  But when asked afterward about the content of the alleged “discussion,” the viewers couldn’t say very much about what the people on TV really believe.  So…not much knowledge was imparted, but buddy, it sure was fun!

            When we only listen to people with whom we already agree, we insulate ourselves from new and challenging ideas.  That is, if we listen at all!  Remember that point about listening; I’ll come back to it.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the phenomenon of birds of a feather flocking together is seen in church life, as well.  In fact, it’s worse in the church than in society at large.  Christians especially seem to want to be around those who look, act, and think the way they do.

Why do we split up into these hostile camps?  Why do we divide ourselves into warring factions?  The epistle of James gives a rather stern diagnosis.  “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?  Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?” (4:1).  If you want to know the source of the struggle, James says, “Look in the mirror.  It comes from inside.”

He continues in verse 2, “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder.  And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”

We might react by saying, “Hey, I don’t commit murder!”  I won’t explore the ways in which our economic choices do lead to the deaths of people all over the globe.  Right now, I’ll just say that when we let our hearts grow cold toward someone, we do indeed commit murder.  In Matthew 5, Jesus says that even insulting someone is a form of murder (vv. 21-22).

In his paraphrase, The Message, Eugene Peterson continues the thought:  “You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you?  And why not?  Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to.  You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way” (vv. 2b-3).

I’ve often thought, besides the sheer brutality of it, how incredibly immature it is when we resort to violence and war.  We become no more than children with very dangerous toys.  We show a real lack of wisdom and creativity.

Anyway, James seems to say that unfulfilled desire is basically the cause of our conflict and self-imposed segregation.  If that’s true, then what’s the solution?

Psalm 85 offers an answer:  “Let me hear what God the Lord will speak” (v. 8).  I will listen to what God says.  (I told you I’d get back to listening!)  David Buschart says, “Into our cultural cacophony of endless noise,” this is “a piece of radical wisdom.”[3]

He quotes the Swiss Christian psychiatrist Paul Tournier, who soon before he died in 1986, said this, “People lack silence.  They no longer lead their own lives; they are dragged along by events.  It is a race against the clock.  I think that what so many people come to see me for is to find a quiet, peaceful person who knows how to listen and who isn’t thinking all the time about what he has to do next.  If your life is chock-full already, there won’t be room for anything else.  Even God can’t get anything else in.  So it becomes essential to cut something out.”[4]

If we are driven, if we are “dragged along by events,” it’s no wonder that we can’t listen.  And if we insulate ourselves with like-minded people, in a way, it’s really only to listen to ourselves.

The report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church to the General Assembly in Birmingham last month represents an attempt to listen.  This is the result of a decision by the General Assembly in 2001 to establish a task force composed of twenty Presbyterians from various walks of life.  To put it simply, their task was that of “discovering ways that the church can live more faithfully in the face of deep disagreements” (15-16).[5]

Here’s another way of putting it.  They explored one of the questions asked of everyone ordained as a deacon, elder, or minister of word and sacrament.  And it’s this:  do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?

I won’t go into great detail about the report.  For those interested, I have copies on book and CD, and it’s also available online at pcusa.org.  There are some things I want to mention, though.  During the past five years, the task force members found that they “shared a tendency that is widespread in the church:  to blame others, especially those with whom we disagree, for the church’s troubles” (307-308).

They like to use the word “alienating” in describing the result of this self-reflection.  (In case you aren’t intimately familiar with that word, to “alienate” someone is to treat him like a stranger, to keep her at arm’s length.)  Anyway, here’s a sample:

“Those of us who identify our views as liberal came to understand how alienating it is for conservatives and evangelicals when their passionate commitment to holy living and upright conduct are labeled rigid and judgmental.

“Those of us who identify our views as conservative came to understand how alienating it is for liberals when their passionate commitment to justice and compassion are labeled unbiblical.

“Those of us who identify our views as moderate came to understand how alienating it is when those with passionate concerns on either end of the theological spectrum are labeled extreme and divisive (320-328).”

It sounds like a lot of us have been alienating a lot of other people!  They admit, “There were edgy interchanges among us and moments of tension and misunderstanding…Nor did we overcome all our differences and reach agreement on all the issues about which the church continues to disagree…We still hold most of the views and perspectives we brought to the task force” (363-364, 370-372).

Sounds to me like they didn’t get jack squat done!  But maybe it’s not all gloom and doom.  Their report continues, “it is a fact that all of us have been greatly enriched and changed by our work together…Our experience of Christian faith and life has been extended and expanded…As a result, our hopes for the future of the church have been confirmed” (376-378, 382).

For them—and for us—to have that kind of hope, someone else must have been involved!  And it’s true:  “we affirmed the peace, unity, and purity of the church that are God’s gift in Christ” (383-384).  I knew it!

In our gospel reading, Jesus prays for “the church of the future,” “that they may all be one” (1362; Jn 17:21).  What can that mean, if not that we should all be the same?  How can we be one, if we disagree?

It’s important to remember that Jesus always acts with love.  When he says elsewhere in John’s gospel that “the Father and I are one,” he doesn’t mean that they’re the same (10:30).  Among other things, he means that they act as one.

The Persons of the Trinity—one God—don’t have the divisions we do.  They exist in perfect love.  But Jesus prays for us, that we will increasingly share in that love.  “At a time when people readily kill one another over their differences,” the report says, “a church that lives and works for that kind of witness will capture the attention of a polarized world.  What besides the mystery of divine love could give us the capacity to love those whose goals and views differ from, even contradict, our own?” (1376-1380).

The moral of the story is:  we have to stay engaged, not retreat to “birds of a feather” land.  That represents a false unity, one that excludes those we don’t like.  True unity is based in love—the love to which Christ calls us.

How do we do that?  Stay for Sunday school, and we’ll continue the conversation.  We’re looking at Adele Ahlberg Calhoun’s Spiritual Disciplines Handbook:  Practices that Transform Us.[6]  For now, I’ll leave you with a couple of questions she poses:  “Are there fellow believers you would rather prove wrong than accept as brother or sister?  What does that tell you about your heart?”[7]

We don’t have to be the same to belong to Christ.  We don’t have to be the same to love each other.  That’s where the power is.