God’s success is our problem. But it’s a good problem. From these thoughts of Tom Yoder Neufeld came a catch phrase of MennoCon19: “The church is a mess. Thanks be to God!”
A professor emeritus of religious studies at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ont., Yoder Neufeld led 495 Mennonite Church U.S.A. delegates in Bible studies on unity and diversity in Ephesians from July 3 to 5 at the Kansas City Convention Center.
The sessions featured verses like Ephesians 4:3: “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
“Let’s put the ceaseless struggle for unity at the core of our understanding of discipleship,” Yoder Neufeld said.
Of his theme, “Gathered into one,” he said, “This is a oneness that defies our imagination. It is nothing less than participating in the unity of God.”
Because God is a successful gatherer, God’s unity is full of diversity. “It takes every ounce of skill, patience and especially love to cope with the success of God’s gathering,” he said. “Unity is hard work. Blame it on God!”
Although “our world is torn by fear of what or who is strange or different,” he said, “let’s not point the finger too quickly at the world,” because Anabaptists also participate in a culture of suspicion, shaming or shunning those whose views or behaviours we disdain.
Children of the wind
Emphasizing the definitions of Spirit as “wind” and “breath,” he described God as bringing “unsettling, wind-driven” unity to the church. “What if we thought of the church as the children of the wind?” he asked. “One thing you can’t do with wind is control it. . . .
“The unity of the Spirit is this turbulent storm within God’s embrace. That’s what peace looks like until we all see God face to face together. If Jesus is God’s peace, then the peace we know today is the peace that is constantly being unsettled by its generosity toward enemies and strangers.”
Yoder Neufeld encouraged the delegates to “rejoice in our awkwardness” as the body of Christ. “The body of Christ will never walk elegantly, but it will walk gracefully,” he said. “That is its perfection.”
Referring to the biblical image of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, he asked, What building materials would we use to build a home for God? He said the walls of God’s temple are made up of things people have thrown away.
This can be a difficult idea for those in the Anabaptist tradition who want a disciplined community “without spot or wrinkle.”
“We have a hard time following Jesus out to the garbage heap to find building materials, because that would unsettle the niceness of our building,” he said, adding, “We should test whether we are a peace church by the hospitality we have toward each other.”
Chain gang of peace
Yoder Neufeld compared the church to a chain gang.
“The body of Christ is not made up of those who are fleet of foot,” he said. “It has some who want to run fast, but the problem is they are shackled to those of us who can’t run very well. They have to put others’ needs before their own.”
He suggested thinking of unity as the starting point rather than the goal. “That will help us reframe many of the struggles we have with each other,” he said.
Delegates asked if unity has limits. One cited Ephesians 5:11: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness.”
“The unity of the Spirit is intended to be a transformative one,” Yoder Neufeld answered. “When we are brought into the body of Christ, we are not simply included, we are included for transformation.”
Reprinted with permission of Mennonite World Review.
‘It takes every ounce of . . . love to cope with the success of God’s gathering,’ Tom Yoder Neufeld told delegates at this year’s MC U.S.A. conference in Kansas City, Mo. (Photo by Vada Snider)
Comments
It's time to call out this false teaching for what it is. For literally years now we have been hearing about maintaining the "unity of the Spirit." That sounds marvelous, however, the problem is that it is taken horribly out of context with what Paul is saying to the Ephesians as a whole.
Our leaders claim that maintaining unity is all about tolerating diverse voices when it comes to human sexuality, yet they fail to mention that throughout Ephesians Paul is vigorously calling the church to forsake tolerance of such things: "I... implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called" (Eph. 4:1).
And what 'manner' is that? Read on a few verses and one sees. "So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind" (v.17), which has everything to do with "having become callous," thus "given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness" (v.19).
Does this not describe the current state of the denomination? Our leaders have promoted a false unity in order that we might endorse an Ephesian-style pagan culture within the church, when in actuality unity in the Holy Spirit means forsaking such things. Those same leaders also fail to mention in their endless quoting of Ephesians 4:3 that only a few verses later the same writer also says, "immorality or any impurity or greed should not even be named among you" (Eph. 5:2). Instead, Paul reminds them that such people have no inheritance in the kingdom of God (v.5) and that believers should not even be partakers with them (v.7).
Folks, a proper interpretation shows us that true unity in the Holy Spirit means having nothing to do with those who preach counterfeit grace, thus endorsing and practicing immorality in the church.
Thanks, Tom Y.N., for reminding us that New Testament unity is not a product of sameness and conformity, but that it's the flagship of a committed church—a church that lives in the muddy street of human reality. Did I get that right?
What an unfortunate use of words. Those who are shackled: are they not prisoners?
If it requires shackles to create unity, is that not the means and method of totalitarianism? I give myself to God, to my family, to the Church as a human being whose dignity is guarded by God, that I might seek the unity of New Jerusalem of my free will.
If you shackle me, then I am enslaved and yearn for freedom from you.
It appears from Steve Hoeppner's response to the report on Tom Yoder Neufeld's presentation at the Mennonite Church USA delegate session (Vol. 23 No. 15) that "unity in the spirit" is a false teaching of the Mennonite Church. I don't see any reference to human sexuality in the article, as Hoeppner seems to suggest, although we don't have the benefit of having the complete presentation in print. How is it that discussion on unity gets narrowed down to the one issue of homosexuality rather than accepting the challenge Jesus puts before us to participate in the work of God to extend God's love to all people? Does "such things" as referenced by Hoeppner also include judging others?
You are right that Yoder-Neufeld's article does not explicitly mention sexuality, however, anyone who's been observing the downward trajectory of the denomination in the last number of years can see that Ephesians 4:3 has strategically been used to justify sexual perversion in the church. I might remind readers that this exact verse was the same one used as a key text of the BFC ("Being a Faithful Church"), which affectively opened the door to the destruction of our Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Are we to believe now that this is a mere coincidence? Given the deception over this issue, are we to simply and gullibly believe that we should now all just "go along to get along," while an entire generation of Mennonite young people are taught to despise the commandments of God? Is it not time to open our eyes and see that at the highest levels of our leadership there has been a orchestrated effort to undermine the Christian family structure? Or is it all just a mere coincidence that Ephesians 4:3 is the text of choice?
And to answer the question about being judgmental: if naming sin makes me judgmental then I gladly own that label as a badge of honour. The same biblical standard of righteousness to which I am calling the church is the same one to which I call myself. In actuality, this is not "judging others," this is called loving others. Love risks being disliked by others for telling them the truth when they don't want to hear it. Love does not wish for any to perish in eternal damnation, which is exactly what many of our leaders are leading Mennonites toward with their perverse teaching on sexuality. If one knows this to be the situation, is not warning others the very most loving thing one can do?
If that makes me judgmental... so be it. God's love means doing the best for another person, even if that means telling them they're on the wrong path. I wonder where we would be as a church if more of our leaders had the courage to demonstrate love that way, instead of promoting the feel-good, politically-correct doctrine of false unity so that we can all get along. This is precisely what the Lord spoke to me in a dream (and which I wrote about in 2015 in the Canadian Mennonite) regarding the book of Jude. The message from the Lord in that dream was, and is, that the leadership of the Mennonite Church are those Jude prophetically wrote about long ago:
"For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord." (Jude 4)
Since 2015 God's prophetic warnings (in dreams) have only come with greater frequency and intensity. I will say this yet again so that none can say they were not warned: God is preparing to judge the body of Christ, including the Mennonite Church for perverting God's grace as a way to normalize sexual immorality. This coming judgment is not years, but months, away from now. To all who have strayed from the Truth I plead with you (in a spirit of love) to repent of this wickedness before Jesus disciplines you sternly. Sadly, for those who refuse to repent, you will not be able to say you were not warned.
Well said, Steve. Both of your posts here are spot on and a timely message for the church today.
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