Previous Post – What Is The Church? Exploring Body Politics

The terms “discernment” and “discipline” can seem daunting- especially the latter of the two.  However, I believe that these challenges are not largely due to the nature of these practices themselves, but due to the way they are used within Christian contexts that utilize systems of coercion and authoritarianism typical of Christendom expressions.  Therefore, if we can try to somewhat extricate ourselves from those dynamics, what would these dynamic disciplines look like?

Yoder brings these two together through use of Matthew 18:15-20, which reads:

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

In this text we see the connection between correction within the Body of Christ and practice of community discernment, namely that the community is called to discern together the will and way of following Christ, even (and perhaps especially) with respect to sin in the community.

First, we must recognize that the primary posture of correction in this text is one of resolution, restoration and reconciliation.  While this might seem an obvious emphasis, in practice the church all too commonly allows punitive values to become primary in the purpose and process of discipline.  While punishment is valid and often necessary, even it should be practiced with the design and intent to bring restoration to both the wrong-doer, the recipients of their wrong and the community as a whole.

The mutuality of the process means that, unlike the systems of justice we see in the world, we do not isolate the wrong doer from either the process of correction or as a means of punishment (except as last resort). While we rightly seek to protect the victims, the pattern of reconciliation manifested in Christ’s death and resurrection calls for the radical participation of everyone in the healing process.  This must be done with great care, compassion and wisdom.  This is a guiding understanding, not a rule.  There are certainly exceptions to how it is exercised.  However, when it possible, the humility and grace displayed in the context of community stands as a powerful beckon of hope to a watching world.  This is, in part, what makes Alcoholics Anonymous so widely respected.

However, even more fundamental in this text is the presupposed politic of the people of God.  When the intervention of others was necessary in the process of restorative correction, Jesus taught to widen the circle to include others in the community, then further to include the whole community.  While we will get into the pragmatics of how this works, we must not miss the implications: no hierarchy or formal leadership was pursued in this process of discipline.  Or rather, the authority that it was brought to was the authority Christ intended, the discerning community.

At Little Flowers Community, we seek to make decision together as a community.  For us, this often means resisting two impulses.  On the one side, we resist the urge to expediate these processes through either retreating into democracy, instead working through the difficult process of consensus through discernment.  On the other, we resist the urge to relegate our responsibility by leaving it in the hands of a hierarchical authority structure.  This does not mean that there are not leaders.  We often often submit (through discernment) to the authority of those whose gifting best equips them to help us navigate a given situation.  Their authority is never absolute and it is not positional.  Therefore, my role as pastor in the community gives me more authority only insofar as my gifting is being expressed within the context of the larger community of differently gifted, yet equal leaders.

Further, the level of trust and commitment in our church means that many of us also submit to the wisdom of the discerning community even when making important personal decisions.  We recognize that the mutuality discussed above extends to the whole of our lives.  This flies in the face of the individualism and “rights” mentalities of our culture (which we wrestle with as much as anyone else), but has also produced a way of sharing life together- in essence, living Christ together in the fullness of who we are.

How is church discipline handled in your church community?  Is it primarily punitive or restorative?

How does your community make decisions

UPDATE: Here are a couple of quotes by Yoder that I think flesh this out a bit more:

“There is no distinction between major offenses and minor ones: Any offense is forgivable, but none is trivial”

While this might sound obvious, the fact is that we often screen out issues of reconciliation through a grid in which we dismiss smaller issues as unimportant.  However, in the guise of being quietly forgiving, we are simply avoiding the discomfort of participating in the mundane work of redemption.

“The intention is not to protect the church’s reputation or to teach onlookers the seriousness of sin, but only to serve the offender’s own well-being by restoring her or him to the community.”

These are all too often the primary motivations for church discipline.  The inverse of the above quote is that, towards the end of the offenders restoration, the community must be willing to sully it’s perceived reputation and to suffer the misunderstanding and indignation of the “older brother” Christians within the community.

Tags: Community, discernment, discipline

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2011 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Community, Leadership, church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.