P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

THE FASTEST FENCE-MENDERS IN TOWN

You’ve heard the old line about burying the hatchet . . . but leaving the handle sticking out of the ground so you can get at it again. When the Bible preaches unity - and there’s that certain person with whom you absolutely do NOT have unity - what are you to do about it?

It was just about the neatest thing going at church — Emily’s Thursday evening study group. There were about five church members who went almost every week, and often two or three neighbors who lived nearby. So sometimes you’d have as many as eight people sitting around the kitchen table, sipping on their coffee, Bibles and study sheets and little doodling notes spread out all over the place. Pastor Williams, with his busy schedule, couldn’t pop in more than about once a month, but he was always pleased with how this little group of Christians from his church were digging into God’s Word so faithfully. It made the program at church much better too, of course, as these believers were growing in their maturity.

Then, one day . . . disaster. As she was talking with the pastor about something she wanted included in the bulletin, Emily mentioned to him: “Pastor, I’m worried about Rebecca. Something’s bothering her, and I don’t know what. But last Thursday she didn’t come to study group, and the week before, I just got a bad feeling. Something’s wrong. And if it’s something I did, or if I offended her in some way, I’d feel just terrible. But I really have no idea.”

Well, Pastor Williams lost no time in calling Rebecca. And the minute she heard his voice, she burst into tears. “I’m dropping out of the group,” she told him, her voice a mixture of sadness and anger.

And he really was flabbergasted. “Why? I thought things were going great; I thought you loved it. What’s gone wrong?” She described how, the previous Thursday evening, Emily had been trying to make a point, and had asked her, Rebecca, several very personal questions. “And pastor, she hurt my feelings,” Becky said, trying to regain control of her voice. “I felt so embarrassed.”

Pastor Williams tried to smooth the waters. “I’m sure she didn’t intend to,” he said. “She’s always so thoughtful, very careful. We’ve used her in our children’s division for years, and she’s usually very diplomatic and nice.”

“Well, I heard what I heard,” Rebecca said, her voice still trembling. “Plus . . .” She hesitated for a minute.

“Go ahead,” Pastor Williams told her. “May as well get it out on the table.”

And the younger woman haltingly told how she was having a hard time in the study group because they were studying some difficult Old Testament passages in what Emily called the “minor prophets.” “And pastor, it’s just a little too hard for some of us,” Becky said. “So it’s not much of a discussion. I feel like I could contribute something to the group, but they keep passing me by. Especially in this hard material . . . I don’t really know what’s going on.”

Well, friend, let’s pause the videotape right there and — speaking of hard Bible verses — read one or two ourselves. But have you ever found yourself in a situation where the lines of communication had just plain broken between you and a fellow believer? It happens a lot within the Body of Christ, and the amazing thing is that God’s Word speaks directly to that very point! We’re just moving into Ephesians 4 here, and we discovered yesterday that this is the “walk the walk” part of Paul’s epistle. “Once you leave prayer meeting,” he almost says, “it’s time to put what you heard there into practice.” Okay, so what are the marching orders here in verse two? Paul tells us:

“With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.”

That’s four tough words right there — lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearance. But before I tell you the rest of this fractured-Bible-study-group story, let’s hear verse two from the very expressive Message paraphrase by Eugene Peterson. Here it is:

“Mark that you do this,” he writes — speaking of walking on the right path — “with humility and discipline — not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.”

Isn’t that a powerful picture? How many of us exhibit both humility and discipline . . . and do it like this: steadily, purposefully, as a matter of daily life? Without “fits and starts”? Isn’t it true that most of our humility comes in little blips between great, relentless waves of pride? But Paul’s last line is sobering: “alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.” Let me tell you the rest of this Thursday evening story . . . and just so you’ll know, this anecdote is absolutely true. Only the names have been changed to protect the participants.
By the way, all three players in this drama — Pastor Williams, Emily, and Rebecca — belonged to a small Christian church. It was a warm, friendly, vibrant body of believers, and there weren’t any divisions or schisms to be found. It was a nice, unified group. Until now, that is. But this Thursday evening rumble was threatening to undo everything.

Pastor Williams, who had now heard both sides of the story over the phone, said to Rebecca: “Let me ask you this, Becky. What do you want me to do? Should I talk to Emily, tell her how you feel?” She didn’t say anything, and after allowing a quiet moment for reflection, he said to her, very calmly: “You know, it would be so much better if the two of you would simply get together and work this out.”

“How can I do that?” Becky wanted to know.

“Just tell her what you told me,” the pastor explained. “She already senses that something is wrong. She WANTS to know what it is.” He took a deep breath and then said to the young parishioner: “You know, Becky, Emily cares about you very much. She loves you. She admires you. I’ve heard her say so. And it would be absolutely strengthening to this church if the two of you would just sit down, put your arms around each other, pray about it, and then get all these cards on the table. Work it out to the glory of God.”

Well — long story short — that’s exactly what they did. The following weekend, after church, Becky got up her courage and had a conversation with the study group leader. And right away, Emily was willing to make herself vulnerable. “Becky, I’m so sorry,” she confessed. “I would never have hurt you on purpose, but what I said came out wrong. Please forgive me.” Of course, Rebecca was glad to do that. And then Emily took an additional step: “Becky,” she said, “I’m not a perfect teacher. I know that. I’m trying, but it’s hard. Every Thursday evening, at 6:50, before the doorbell rings, I’m scared to death.”

“What?!” Becky couldn’t believe it. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Yes, I am,” the older woman said. And then she said: “Becky, HELP ME. Help me be a better teacher. Give me suggestions.” And they had a marvelous half-hour visit, followed by prayer, and a promise that the Thursday evening Bible study group would carry on, better than ever.

Well, friend, that’s a true story — and just weeks old, by the way. I just heard it the other day. But going back to the apostle Paul’s list of four things, let’s take our last two minutes here and just think about the final one: forbearance. “Forbearing one another in love,” he writes. “Forbearance,” by the way, means to endure, to refrain, hold back — from revenge, obviously — “to be patient or self-controlled when subject to annoyance or provocation,” according to Webster’s. Of course, in our story today we had both “holding back” (of anger) and “holding FORTH” (of feelings and emotions and the necessary confronting.) That’s a delicate balance, isn’t it?

And let’s return for a moment to the valuable resource we’ve been using in this Ephesians series: the Tyndale New Testament Commentary. Author Francis Foulkes quotes from T. K. Abbott, a turn-of-the-century Bible scholar, with this quote:

“Forbearance . . . is also a divine quality. It is the practical outworking of longsuffering. ‘It involves bearing with one another’s weaknesses, not ceasing to love one’s neighbors or friends because of those faults in them which perhaps offend or displease us.’”

I think we’ll spend tomorrow dissecting these four character traits more fully: lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, and forbearance. For today let’s just notice that these two Christian women were willing to leave the lofty heights of THEORY, of DOCTRINE . . . and actually look each other in the eye and practice what we sometimes call “muscular Christianity.” Was there more at stake than hurt feelings? Was there more riding on this than just the success of that little Thursday night fellowship group? You bet there was! Listen, friend, the Church itself is hanging in the balance here! Are we in unity? And when we are NOT in unity, are we willing to do the hard things, have the hard conversations, give and take, discuss and dialogue, confront and confess? Are we willing to say, “By God’s grace, I’m not going to climb into my own bed tonight and go to sleep until I’ve talked to Becky . . . or to Fred . . . or to my husband . . . or to the pastor . . . or to the teenager I insulted at church last week . . . and make things right”?

We always say that heaven rejoices when one sinner comes home. Could we equally say that heaven REALLY parties when two SAVED sinners come home together?