Stephen
Terry, Director
Causes
of Disunity
Commentary
for the October 13, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together
in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the
beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as
if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his
blessing, even life forevermore.” Psalm 133:1-3,
NIV
One of the skills honed from childhood is that of
arguing. At a very young age, we learn how much words can hurt. While sticks
and stones may cause physical damage, we learn from experience that there are
deeper emotional scars that can last a lifetime. The insults of strangers are often
not as damaging as those of friends and family. They know us best, and with
that knowing comes knowledge of our weaknesses and emotional fragilities. In
short, because they know us, they know how to hurt us the most. But even that
may not be the worst. It is the support of friends and family that helps us to
weather the storms the world throws in our path. When they turn against us, we
feel truly alone and abandoned. For this reason, betrayal may be one of the worst
things we can do to one another. Our enemies cannot betray us, only our friends
and family can do that. This can create such emotional pressure that it can
even cause us to do things we know are not right simply to sustain some form of
relationship with a support network, even when that “support” becomes extremely
toxic.
Children growing up struggling to cling to such a
support network are socially malleable. Not only do they quickly adapt dysfunctional
behaviors in order to survive the toxicity, they view those behaviors as normal,
lacking a comparative framework to identify dysfunctionality. Even though there
is pain, if they survive the environment, they may become indifferent or at
least inured to the potential for harm. Then, having normalized the dysfunctionality,
they pass it on to those around them as normative. Worst of all, they teach it
by example to the next generation who will consider it normal even when the
environment does not warrant those types of survival skills. All of this serves
as a conduit from that original poisoned pool to pour its toxins into new areas
and new relationships as its influence grows over time. Perhaps it was in this
way that evil eventually consumed the entire antediluvian world.[i] At that time, no one was
apparently able to stem the tide of toxicity that had spread everywhere. The
Bible tells us that God had to erase the beautiful picture he had drawn and
start over with a new canvas. But rather than create new creatures, he preserved
some of the best from before. The fundamental dysfunctions remained and over
many generations, their influence grew. Like mutations on a strand of DNA, they
continued into future generations and spawned even more mutations creating cumulative
effects that have cost the lives of many millions and damaged the lives of
millions of others.
In the face of so much damage, so much brokenness, how
can we even find our way back to normality? How do we discover what normal is?
Can it still exist? I believe it does, but we must search for it diligently
like an explorer with a relative dying of an apparently incurable disease combing
the globe for a cure they have been told exists, but is extremely rare.[ii] People may already
innately understand this at some level, for many I meet are indeed searching
for answers. Each of us believes we are basically good and desire good things
to happen, but we are puzzled by the prevalence of evil in spite of that and we
search for why that has to be. Perhaps we don’t understand that we too often
conflate our own selfish desires with what we deem to be good. In other words,
we feel that what is good for us must, by extension, be good for everyone else.
However, we may not take the time to consider what they are saying about their
needs and incorporate those needs into our own perspective. Instead, we may be blissfully
going along in our naiveté, believing we are doing good, and then run smack
into the selfish desires of someone else doing the same thing. When that
happens, we may become painfully aware, often through open hostility, how
self-centered we have actually been. When confronted in this manner, it is hard
not to see the other person as the enemy, and if we have indeed developed our dysfunctional
DNA to deal with threats to our survival, those dysfunctionalities kick in and
off we go on that other person. If they, like us, are not accustomed to
validating someone else’s perspective, they may do the same.
At this point, it matters very little what the actual
issue may be, whether religious or secular, theological or political, the
process is the same. If we cannot prevail through single verbal or physical
combat, we begin searching for allies who share our perspective. Over time, these
conflicts can grow to have international or global significance. Like the
Palestinians and the Israelites, who have been at war for generations, with
their long lists of grievances, no one can recall the exact incident where
someone did something to someone else that precipitated the conflict. That
obscure incident has been buried under those mounds of grievances that have accumulated
since. The conflict has become so institutionalized and so many have
manipulated the conflict for their own self-serving ends that it is hard to
step back from the continual game of brinksmanship in order to actually see
what needs to be done to restore sanity. An important first step may be to
recognize that the other we are in conflict with is not our enemy. A desire to
survive is normal. We feel the same. Once we can legitimize that need for
survival for them as we have done for ourselves, we can work together to
sustain that goal for everyone and not just us. Perhaps if we can understand
that a failure to thrive for anyone diminishes us all, we can find our way to
greater unity of purpose.
We struggle with these things within the church as well
as do those who struggle without a pulpit facing them each week. Too often it
is about power and control where we delegitimize others for the sake of our own
gain. When we have by some means secured a measure of that power, we further struggle
to keep from losing it. We demonize those who challenge our right to power and
reward, according to our ability, those who support our power. But it is
perhaps worse when we do this in clerical robes than in the secular arena. The
unique nature of our position tempts us to conflate our own desires with the
will of God. That can become extremely dangerous. We may be enlightened enough to
see how our own personal interests can be adjusted to accommodate the interests
of others, but the manner in which many characterize God can make the religious
position, once adopted, non-negotiable. Worse, when our own desire for power
pollutes the pool of God’s will, we may actually be deeming our own desires
just as non-negotiable as God’s. Then, consumed by such a bias, we will pile up
proof texts from our sacred sources to support that perspective, ignoring those
texts that do not. Ensconced behind parapets of institutional power, we can lob
those texts like cannonballs at our enemies and enlist the willing into our
efforts to destroy any other perspective. As a result we may be placed in the awkward
position of preaching a call for unity while doing all in our power to foment
disunity.
Usually such conflicts occur between those who are in
unequal positions: those who have greater power and want to maintain it, and
those who feel disenfranchised and want to be allotted equal power over their
lives. When such inequalities exist, it is imperative that the ones holding power
do all they can to enfranchise the disenfranchised in order to preserve the
peace and sustain a unity of purpose and effort that can only be achieved when
all are equally yoked together. It is detrimental to unity to allow others to
exist in a state in which they have no hope of ever being seen as equals. We
may be guilty of discriminating against them for any number of reasons: race,
gender, age, disability, etc. But any attempt to do so in order to maintain our
own position of privilege and power at the expense of others is not only
damaging to unity, it is wrong. Those who understand this will always be found speaking
truth to power, and those who do have far more often been the voice of God’s
will than have those who speak with all the earthly power they can muster. None
of the personal kingdoms we construct will endure.[iii] Perhaps it is time we
stopped acting as though they do.
