Repenting Of Disagreements — Foley Beach

Hi, I'm Archbishop Foley Beach, the Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America. On this Ash Wednesday I bring you greetings and a challenge in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Lent's Call to Self-Examination and Repentance

In the Ash Wednesday service we find the following words. The priest will, or the officiant will say this, I invite you therefore in the name of the Church to the observance of the Holy Lent by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on God's Holy Word.

Now we often hear about prayer and Bible study and giving, but we don't hear much about repentance. And so this Lenten season I want to challenge you to consider the following as a possible area of repentance, to examine this area of your life, to work on it, and with the help of the Holy Spirit to bring about repentance.

Repenting in How We Handle Disagreement

What do you do when you disagree with somebody? What do you do when somebody treats you badly? How do you respond when someone does not agree with your point of view about something? The teaching of Jesus runs counter to our natural thinking and the way our society is teaching us to respond.

I would like to focus on how we should react when someone says something we disagree with. This could be a relative, a friend, a leader, your church. This could be about the faith, this could be about politics, this could be about the vaccine, this could be about gossip.

What I'd like to focus on is not whether the content is correct or not, truth or not, or biblical or not, but what is the biblical response when you disagree with somebody? The biblical response is not what we see in our current culture in social settings.

Resisting Cancel Culture and Division

Sadly, discourse and dialogue have been set aside. If you disagree with someone, they write you off, they disassociate with you, they break the bridge. Friends, relatives, work associates block you and defriend you on social media, or their email, or on their phones, just because you disagree with them.

To use the social term, they cancel you. What is most disturbing is we see this behavior invading parts of God's one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic church, and this ought not be. Sure, there have been important doctrinal divisions in the universal church, which have divided us, and through ecumenical discussions, we seek to bridge these chasms.

But as disciples of Jesus, as peacemakers, not associating with someone because they have a different political perspective, or a different view on wearing masks, or a different view on homeschooling, or a different view on the new store going and up the road, this is not the character of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit's Work of Making Christians Like Jesus

The follower of Jesus is different from the unbeliever. When we ask Jesus into our life to be our Lord and Savior, to forgive us of our sins, to take what He did on the cross and make it ours, He gives us forgiveness.

He gives us eternal life, but He also gives us an incredible gift, the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit who comes and indwells us, and the role of the Holy Spirit is to make us more like Jesus, to make us think like Him, to act like Him, to talk like Him.

In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul explains the result of the Holy Spirit living in our lives. In Galatians chapter 5, he says the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of having Him in your life, is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, kindness, and self-control.

Love of God and Neighbor as Christian Obligations

We all know the greatest commandment is what? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And the second great commandment is what? The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Well again, the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what love is. The Lord rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Now these scriptures, these exhortations that the Lord has given us, are not telling us we have to agree with others or even like what they do, but they are telling us what is appropriate behavior toward others.

In the time in which we live, it is heartbreaking to see families torn apart, long-time friendships ruined, just because someone had a different opinion from you. What's wrong with them having an incorrect opinion?

Does it mean that I can't have a relationship with you just because you're wrong? Or taking the humble route, what if they're correct? Brothers and sisters in Christ, you can't do anything about someone canceling you or writing off your relationship.

But you can do something about your response. A few weeks ago, our Sunday reading was from Luke chapter 4. You may remember the story, Jesus was doing some ministry and he goes back to his hometown of Nazareth, and he begins to minister in the local synagogue, and they asked him to read the scripture and he begins to teach, and they did not like what he said.

Responding to Rejection Without Retaliation

The folks in Nazareth were so enraged, the text tells us, so angry that they wanted to kill him. They tried to throw him off the cliff to his death. In a serious way, we are killing friendships, family relationships, and the honor of good people, just because we don't agree with them about something.

Preserving Relationships for the Sake of the Gospel

This ought not be the behavior of the follower of Jesus. Jesus said, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. One other thought. If our mission is to reach others with the gospel of Jesus and to share his message with a hurting and needy world, how can we do this if we disassociate ourselves from others just because we don't like their perspective?

We can't, and we won't. So here again, the reading from the Ash Wednesday service. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the church, to the observance of a holy Lent by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and by reading and meditating on God's holy word.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, amen.