“And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he
had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed
in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard
this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given
even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.””
-
Acts 11:16-18
I
cringed when I first saw the big German Shepherd standing on his owner’s lawn,
noticing he wasn’t leashed—I had hoped for a leisurely run around the
neighborhood and now I worried I was about to be chased back to my car instead.
But contrary to my expectations, he didn’t come rushing toward me—in fact, he
didn’t move at all. I stared at him and he just stared right back at me, silent
and stock-still.
I
cautiously jogged toward his lawn, and while his eyes never left me, he
remained motionless as I approached. Finally, I arrived in front of his lawn
and crossed the invisible line in the sidewalk that put me in his territory. It
was at that moment, and not a second sooner, that he started frantically running
around the front lawn in a circle, barking loud enough to wake people three
streets down. Startled, my jog turned into a sprint and I zoomed past his lawn,
and when I passed the fence line of his house, the barking suddenly stopped.
Still running, I looked back and saw him, just like before, glaring at me silently…daring
me to walk in his territory again.
That’s
the natural, impulsive response when someone unfamiliar enters a space you
thought was yours—make a lot of noise, run yourself ragged, do whatever it
takes to get them back where they belong. Whether a family tradition, a room in
the house, or the makeup of a club, all of us have those things in life that
are ours, things that we will not
allow to be changed without our permission. We defend them with a kind of territorial,
even tribal, zeal, ready to protect their sanctity at any cost. You can look,
we seem to tell others, but you can’t touch.
That
attitude has infiltrated the church since the first century, with well-meaning
believers showing more concern for the church’s defense than its growth. Too
often, new believers and their ideas are greeted not with love and hospitality,
but suspicion and resentment. They are unfamiliar, after all, and until they
prove themselves, they bear more resemblance to invaders than family.
Acts
11 offers a correction to that mentality. Fellow believers, no matter how
different from you in belief or practice, are your brothers and sisters in
Christ, servants of the same Lord as you. The tie that binds us together is not
a creed or a tradition, but the Holy Spirit which God gives every person who declares
Jesus as Lord.
In
an age of division and strife, there is an ever-present temptation to lash out
at those whom you feel are threatening your faith—even when it is their faith
too. Instead, following Jesus’s example at Gethsemane, God’s people should be concerned
not with creating wounds, but healing them, with reaching out in kindness
instead of lashing out in fear. Rather than giving in to the pull of
polarization, may you respond to your fellow believers, even those with whom
you disagree, with the love of Christ.
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