Pursuing Veritas

This post originally served as a message at Arise Church

Who enjoys talking on the phone? Not me. I avoid talking on the phone as much as possible. Maybe that’s because of some bad customer service training for a previous job. Maybe it’s because I had some less-than-fun experiences cold calling people in the past. Maybe it’s because my mom made me practice my phone etiquette too much as a child. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I don’t like talking on the phone. With one exception: when talking to friends. 

For most of my life, I haven’t enjoyed talking to people on the phone. But after I graduated high school, that all changed. You see, after high school, I attended a gap year program called Summit Semester in the mountains of Colorado. Located in a ski lodge perched on a mountain, Semester was my first extended experience away from my family—and it was my first real experience in forming a community that was my own. And it was a glorious time, filled with learning and laughter and friendship.

After Semester ended and I had to travel back to the dreary winter of Michigan, I felt something I’d never really experienced before: the desire to talk to some of those friends on the phone. That might be second nature to you, but for me, that was weird. So I’d do this weird thing: I’d pick up my cell phone and call people on it.

As the years went by and technology improved, some of these calls have been replaced by Facetime or Zoom, but even still, there are some friends from Summit who I’ll call on the phone. Why? Because I love my friends. I enjoy hearing from them. I want to know what’s going on in their lives. I want to continue to share life together even though we don’t see each other in person anymore. It’s literally been years since I’ve seen many of these friends in person—but I still want to share life with them.

Now, sharing life has been colored by the pandemic for the past couple years, but don’t miss the forest for the trees. Even if you can’t stand hearing “we’re in this together” one more time while shopping at Schnucks, the fact is that we are on the journey of life together with our friends and loved ones. And calling our friends is one way to continue to share life together, even in those times when we can’t be together.

Now, maybe you don’t have many friends that you call—or text or Marco Polo or Zoom or write letters to or check in with on social media. But I guarantee that you have friends who you could call, and many of us actually do. We have those friendships that we’ve maintained despite time and distance. Whether they’re friends we only see occasionally, or friends that we haven’t seen in years but keep up with, calling our friends can be a particularly important part of our liturgy of the ordinary.

The Liturgy of the Ordinary is just that: intentionally making our “everyday moments” moments with God, turning the habits and practices of our daily life—things like waking up, brushing our teeth, checking email, and sitting in traffic—into moments of grace for ourselves and for our relationship with God. And today, we’re exploring the liturgy of calling a friend—a liturgy of doing life together with others.

Now, I need to let you in on a little secret: phones and phone calls are a relatively new invention. Phones of any sort have only been around about 150 years, so in the grand scheme of history, calling a friend is a relatively new practice. So if we’re going to look to the Bible for wisdom on what a liturgy of calling a friend might look like, we need to be aware that we’re not going to see Jesus using AT&T or Paul scheduling a Zoom meeting with his friends in Rome. That’s just not how things could have worked in the first century. But Scripture still speaks to the importance of calling our friends. Let me explain.

Since very early in the history of Christianity, people following Jesus have prioritized sharing the good news of His death and resurrection. The news that God has come to earth in order to save us from what’s wrong with the world is a pretty big deal, after all. And so unsurprisingly, Christians wanted to share this news far and wide.

Now today if we want to communicate news over a long distance, we have all kinds of technology to help with that. We have the internet, television, radio, texts, and (of course) phone calls. So news travels really fast. But in the ancient world, none of these technologies existed, so people had to literally get up and walk to wherever they wanted news to be shared. And so very quickly, Christians began to travel throughout the world bringing the good news of Jesus to people who had not yet heard about it.

One such person was a guy named Paul. Paul travelled all over the ancient Roman empire sharing the good news of Jesus. In fact, he was so good at sharing the news of Jesus that he established dozens of new churches across hundreds of miles. Now, after Paul started a church and then moved on to start other churches, he would often keep in touch with his previous churches. Not by calling them, of course, but through the ancient equivalent: letter writing. Paul wrote dozens of letters, about thirteen of which are now included in the New Testament portion of your Bible. That’s what big chunks of your Bible are: one side of the conversations between Paul and the churches he helped begin.

And in one of these letters, Paul shares some wisdom that is, I think, helpful for us as we think about communicating with and staying in community with our friends. In this letter, Paul urges the Church to stay focused on loving God and loving people in spite of whatever disagreements they might have with one another. In other words, Paul thinks that communicating with one another and sharing life together—even over distance—means living in a certain way. So listen to what he says here in his letter to the Ephesians:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4.29-32 ESV)

Now, remember that this letter is only Paul’s side of the conversation here. As he talks with the Ephesians, what is he emphasizing? He’s saying, “hey, as you do life together, as you talk with each other, you have a standard that you should follow.” And what is that standard? It’s kind conversation and real reconciliation. For Paul, that’s the key to sharing life together in Ephesus: kind conversation and real reconciliation. Only say things that are good for building up and give grace to those who hear, Paul says. Stay away from words that are bitter, angry, or full of malice. Have kind conversations. And when those conversations aren’t kind, forgive one another, pursue real reconciliation rather than stewing on what was said.

And what Paul is saying to the Ephesians here is also true for us today. Life together requires kind conversation and real reconciliation. You’re made to be in relationship with other people. At every stage of our development, we need other people. Even the introverts among us need some level of human interaction. Back during the first weeks of the pandemic, during the lockdown phase, this was crystal clear. Lockdown happened and all the extraverts began struggling immediately. But then, even after a couple weeks, I began to hear from my introverted friends that they were missing people too. Because we aren’t designed to be apart from other people—we’re meant to be doing life together.

In the words of Tish Harrison Warren, “We profoundly need each other. We are immersed in the Christian life together. There is no merely private faith—everything we are and do as individuals affects the church community.” (LitOrd, 120) And Paul says that those relationships require kind conversation and real reconciliation.

Think about these things with me. First, what does it mean that life together requires kind conversation? Listen again to verse 29:  Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4.29 ESV) Watch the way you talk. Don’t tear people down with your conversations, build them up.

I think Christians can be really bad at this, actually. (None of you, of course, just some other Christians I know.) Sometimes, we talk as if we have all the answers. As if our views on a certain theological subject are all that people need to hear in order to be convinced of the capital-t truth. Or that our political views are the real cure to all that ails the world. Sometimes, Christians talk as if our experiences are the way everyone goes through life. As if our positive or negative encounters are normative. As if our experiences with grief, trauma, or loss are everyone else’s too.

Instead of being quick to listen and slow to speak like James reminds us, I know far too many Christians who are quick to speak and slow to listen. And far too often that leads to unkind conversations. Listen again to Paul in verse 29: speak only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion…. The context of your conversations matter. Not every conversation needs to be about you. You don’t always need to share your experience. You don’t always need to share your opinion. Sometimes you should. But before speaking should come the question, is what I’m saying kind? Is it going to bring grace?

Christians are called to life together: to share faith, to share experience, to share burdens, to share joys. We’re called to worship, learn, and commune together. But for that to happen, the Church needs to be a place of kind conversation. Arise needs to be a place of kind conversation, a place where we listen to and learn from one another before speaking our peace. So let me ask you: where do you need to be pursuing kind conversation?

Maybe you need to work on the conversation part of this question. Maybe you’ve gotten so used to relationships that are a mile wide and an inch deep that you don’t feel like you have anyone that you can really talk to or share life with. Maybe you’re used to church just being a place to run into, hear some occasionally inspiring things, and then run out of. Maybe you need to commit to having real, meaningful conversations with people about things that matter. Maybe you need to consider joining a small group or participating in some of the conversations that we have here at Arise about faith and life. Maybe you need to call up that old friend who you haven’t spoken to in years and rekindle that friendship. Maybe you need to walk away today ready to pursue meaningful conversation.

Or maybe you’re pretty good at conversing, but it’s the kindness part that’s hard for you. Maybe you’ve got a history with harsh words—your loved ones spoke with anger toward you and so that’s all you know. Maybe it’s easy to tear others down, to complain, or to deflect when you talk so that you don’t have to think about your own mistakes or insecurities. Maybe you’re told yourself that you’re just naturally negative or critical or discerning and that’s just who you are. Maybe you need to walk away today ready to pursue kindness in your conversations. Where do you need to be pursuing kind conversations as you do life together with your family, your friends, your coworkers, and your neighbors?

Second, what does it mean that life together requires real reconciliation? To reconcile is fundamentally to restore relationships, to bring together that which has been apart. Reconciliation is necessary because life together causes hurts and wounds. No one hear or watching today is perfect. We all screw up. No one always says or does the right thing. We’re all broken and we all break things. And because of that, our relationships require reconciliation.

In early 2020, we had a trivia night fundraiser to help support the launching of Arise. And during what was a fun but stressful night, I messed up. Pastor Kelsey was leading the scorekeeping for the evening and at one point in the evening, I came in and bulled her over and said some unkind and unhelpful things. I upset her and hurt her. And so I had to pursue reconciliation. I had to stop and apologize to her for what I said and did and aim to make things right. Because I messed up and I needed to seek reconciliation. Life together involves apologies and forgiveness, because all of us make mistakes and hurt people that we love. Sometimes, that hurt comes from people in our life. And sometimes, that hurt even comes from the Church.

When we were preparing to launch Arise, we had some meetings with people who were interested in becoming elders. At Arise, elders are the men and women who provide leadership and oversight of the entire church. So this was a pretty involved process. And with several people, we got to the point where I needed to say, “hey, thanks for considering this, but we don’t think that you’re ready right now.” Because we were making these decisions in the heart of the pandemic, I communicated that information through an email and offered to follow up in person if they wanted to talk more about it. But with one person, I never sent the email. So they went from hearing that we were maybe going to ask them to be an elder to hearing that they weren’t an elder candidate—without hearing from me about it. And that really hurt them, so much so that they stopped talking to me for a while. If you’re here today and you’ve been hurt by the Church—by a pastor, leader, friend, ministry—whoever and whatever has caused you pain, let me apologize to you. I’m so sorry that a place of reconciliation has become a place of pain. And I hope that you can forgive us.

The Church is made of imperfect people, chief among them being me. But when we’re hurt by other people, Jesus asks us to respond—with forgiveness and reconciliation. Listen to what Jesus says about this in the gospel of Matthew: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18.15-17 ESV)

If someone sins against you, Jesus says, go and talk to them about it—no matter what the sin is. Go seek reconciliation—go regain your brother. If that conversation doesn’t work, don’t give up—keep pursuing reconciliation. Take a mediator with you that conversation. And if that doesn’t work, involve the community in your reconciliation attempts. Only after that entire process has been undertaken should you even think about walking away (and even then, you should treat them like someone loved by God). That’s the model for reconciliation relationships that Jesus gives us.

Fortunately for me, the person who I hurt by not communicating about eldering followed this process. After a few weeks, they came to me and said, “hey Jacob, you really hurt me by not telling me this.” They gave me an opportunity to own my mistake—and own it I did. And that person and I were able to be reconciled to one another. They were able to forgive me and our relationship was able to continue, just like Jesus wants.

What about you. Where do you need to seek reconciliation? Who do you need to forgive—or ask for forgiveness? Where do you need to find real reconciliation with your family, friends, coworkers, or neighbors? Don’t ignore that fractured relationship. Don’t act like nothing happened. Go, make things right. Make that phone call and get that relationship back on track.

Now, I need to get nuanced for a moment here. Reconciliation is a two-way street. If there’s no desire by the other person involved to do the right thing, then there are some limits here. If someone isn’t going to allow a mediator to attend a meeting, there’s only so much you can do. Real reconciliation with a narcissist or abuser is extremely difficult. God asks us to forgive such people in our hearts, but real reconciliation remains beyond our reach so long as they continue on their path. You can seek to forgive and pray for the transformation of their heart. But real reconciliation isn’t going to happen.

But for all the rest of us, we need to seek real reconciliation. Who from your past or present do you need to call this week and pursue reconciliation with? Where do you need to seek reconciliation? Life together requires kind conversation and real reconciliation. Those can be hard practices to undertake. But at the end of the day, they’re worth it. Because we were made for life together. We were made for calling friends.

And that’s it—that’s what a liturgy of calling a friend can look like. Taking one normal part of our lives and being purposefully intentional with how we pursue life together. God loves you and He’s always with you. And sometimes all we need to do in order to recognize His presence is to take note of the grace He offers us in the little, daily things of life—like calling a friend. God is forming you into a new people—and the place of that formation is in the small moments of your life. Are you ready to journey into the ordinary with Him?