If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. Matthew, ch.18

For better or worse, the church has often considered itself to be above the petty squabbling of everyday life.  We presume that church folks are sufficiently refined so as to keep disagreements — let alone big battles — out of public view.

But such is not the case, of course, as anyone who’s ever been to church can surely attest.  Our pews and pulpits are full of real people with real issues and real work to do on ourselves.  And, again — for better or worse — we depend on each other to be held accountable not just to standards of human decency, but also to the higher calling of spiritual kinship.

We are, in fact, our brother’s and sister’s keeper, called not to keep the “peace” at all costs, but to learn how to speak the truth to each other in love — bearing each others sins and risking the danger of shining the light into the darkness.

It’s a key component in the Church’s vocation to be a community of people who practice living in this tension between real intimacy and real honesty.  It matters, then, how we think of ourselves — how we gauge “success,” or “health,” or “vitality.”  Is it better to have more difficult conversations in a year?  Or less?

A recent article in the Seattle PI suggests that maintaining familial peace at all costs might, in fact, keep the church from fulfilling it’s basic vocation, which is to be a place of personal and corporate transformation.

So here’s to speaking the truth in love — trusting that, indeed, the Truth will set you and me free.