Peace Beyond The Marshmallows
Hettie Brittz is an author and speaker in the fields of family, leadership, and spiritual growth. Her ministry motto is “Know your design; live your purpose.” She loves to see people embrace their God-given personalities and those of the people they live and work with, so that relationships can deepen and the Body of Christ can be more effective. Hettie’s website is https://www.hettiebrittz.com
PEACE BEYOND THE MARSHMALLOWS
Adapted from her latest book, “Don’t change them; grow them.”
Sometimes people ask me if I do personality profiles to label people. Sometimes I want to answer, “No, I do it to bring world peace.” But I don’t say that because it takes too long to explain and sounds like a delusion of grandeur.
I truly want the kind of peace Jesus had in mind. Though.
For some people unity and peace may be a Kumbaya song around a campfire with like-minded, look-alike people and s’mores in their bellies. This is just an escapist version of true unity. I believe God wants to give us so much more. His peace is powerful, robust, and courageous enough to bind together the very groups of people who would never gather around the same fire, let alone roast their marshmallows together.
In New Testament times they were men and women, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free citizens. For today, we can fill in anyone who has their backs to each other more often than their faces. It takes little more than clashing temperaments to create “us” and “them.”
Paul in Romans 15 sketches a vision of an intimate get-together of at-odds people and calls this gathering a harmonizing choir. He paints a picture of divine shalom where nothing is broken or missing because – thanks to Jesus – everyone has gotten over themselves enough to come together with anyone who is made in the image of God.
We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification… Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God. (NKJV)
What an ambitious idea! Paul thankfully tells us how to get the dissonant voices to harmonize: We have to “please our neighbor for his good, leading to edification” and “receive each other, just as Christ also received us.”
To receive and please our neighbor, we probably need three steps:
- Notice our neighbor
- Humbly believe that our neighbor is worth knowing
- Get to know our neighbor well enough to know what would please and edify him
But scruples get in the way.
Are you also tickled by the word scruples? In other translations it reads “infirmities, sensitivities, weaknesses, failings, and doubts.” It’s all kinds of uncomfortable. Scruples make church ladies clutch their pearls and elders clear their throats. It puts people on a prayer list, a gossip list, and often both. It also is what brings people through our counseling, therapy, coaching, and pastoring doors, isn’t it?
Romans 15 tells us what to do when we’re dealing with people’s issues (my translation for scruples). We are to learn how to stop gasping and grabbing exorcizing manuals. We ought to find the evergreen hope Paul speaks of in verse 13 which believes that even the weak can be edified and even the very weird (by our standards) belong in the choir.
How do we get past the scruples? We remove the tinted lenses of our own personality and life view.
A series of recent bestsellers speak of being “surrounded by idiots, psychopaths, or narcissists.” If one reads beyond the offensive titles, one discovers that those who are different from us always seem a little suspicious, or very much so!
The pathway I see to peace that is sweeter than melted marshmallows but less soppy is understanding that “those people” usually aren’t idiots, narcissists, or psychopaths; they are merely different. And they are different for a purpose, rather than on purpose!
Jesus created a stoning-free zone around the woman caught in adultery. He got rid of those who wanted her dead, and reassured her that He wasn’t hiding a rock behind his back either. When it was just the two of them left standing there, after she knew and felt that she was truly seen, He told her not to sin anymore.
What if we could look at every unique human with the same attitude? Receive them, get to know them, learn what they need to be edified, keep the stone-throwers away, and encourage them to find their part in the music. Only when we have connected and sung together – in harmony with people who are nothing like us – is there truly enough equity in the relationship that we can say to each other, “Hey, I see some scruples. Do you want to work on them together towards freedom and healing?”
Where Christians have not obeyed Romans 15 by edifying and welcoming diverse people, but have implemented a subtle or sometimes forceful culturally informed cloning program in church (worship like this, dress like this, testify like this, parent like this, make your s’mores like this) many precious souls have failed at fitting in. They assumed they were the problem, left at least that church, often the Church, and sometimes the faith altogether. All that truly happened is that some leaders turned their own temperament into theology.
As a counteracting force, I do personality profiles. What would take years, can be achieved in only 8 minutes: finding out what helps and hurts my neighor, how to speak to edify him, what his best part in the music could be, and where his scruples may hurt his growth. Wouldn’t that be true peace? Wouldn’t the unity be indestructible if everyone knew how to bring their true self into community, the best of themselves to every task and relationship, and the worst of themselves to the cross for redemption?
At the very least it helps put together the kind of choir that makes better music precisely because people sing different notes. And it is okay if they sing seemingly soppy songs like “Bind us together, Lord,” because such a choir knows what a miracle it is when He does exactly that.
