Two Bodies, One Disease

In my body, the wiring of my immune system is all awry. The green wire is evidently connected to the black, the white wire is connected to the blue, and the red wire is just left bare and exposed. The result? I have a very, very hard working immune system - but it puts all its energy in the wrong places. Basically, it can't tell friend from foe - so it ends up attacking my own healthy cells as vigorously as it would attack a foreign threat. The way I've explained it to my nieces is to imagine two armies facing off in battle: the invading troops have all their guns pointed at their opponent, but the "home team," with all their guns, turn and aim at one another! What would the result of that war be? Total annihilation of the home team!

Welcome to my body.

So how are autoimmune diseases treated? The most common way is to disable the immune system, or at least to cripple it. (Basically, the guns are taken away from the army. They are left with pocketknives to fight a war.) With different levels of severity, medications are given that shut off the body's ability to fight -- the same medications that are given to organ transplant patients to prevent Graft Vs. Host disease. The good part about that is my body quits attacking healthy cells (OK, so it reduces the amount,) but unfortunately it means I'm also less able to fight off real threats, like the chicken pox and pneumonia that hospitalized me this year.

So it's a lifelong game of walking a balance beam, trying on one hand to minimize the amount of self-attacks, but at the same time leaving some kind of arsenal for my body to fight off the true threats.

But there's another body I have seen that suffers from the same autoimmune disorder.

And that is the body of Christ.

❝For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.❞
--Eph 6:12

Or, at least, we should be.

But what I see happening with startling prevalence is that we do fight flesh and blood -- and to the heartbreak of our Lord, we too often fight one another. We war within the very body of Christ.

We erect a building and we call it a church, and then we hang a painted sign over the door with a name that we feel designates us to be the right ones of God. Or we meet in a living room and feel spiritually superior to those who don't. And heaven help those who meet under a different umbrella!!! We grab onto a piece of doctrine and claim that those who don't subscribe to our brand of doctrine (which of course is THE right doctrine) are not as close to God as we are.

But this isn't new.

Jesus scolded his disciples about this very thing. Once, 'The Twelve' told Jesus about something they had done, undoubtedly proud of it and expecting kudos from the Lord. "Teacher," they said, "We saw a man using Your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he isn't one of our group." Can you hear the pride in that statement? He isn't one of our group. Can you see the Twelve fist-bumping each other for their brilliant move and holding out their fists to Jesus, expecting Him to fist-bump them back? But He rebuked them.  "Don't stop him!" Jesus said. [Imagine the shock on the disciples' faces right about now.] "Anyone who is not against us is for us." [BAM.] Jesus then went on to say that it would be better for anyone who causes someone to lose their faith in Him if they'd had a 130-lb rock tied to their neck and they were thrown in the sea. Wow! Can't you see the disciples' egos deflating like an untied helium balloon?

Ever since the beginning, followers of Jesus have had to fight the temptation to view the world in terms of "us" and "them." Instead of berating disciples for doing something differently, might Jesus want us to encourage them for following the Lord?

We put being right above being loving.

But this isn't new.

Two thousand years ago, Paul of Tarsus had to deal with believers in Galatia who were being nasty to each other. He encouraged these believers to "serve one another through love," reminding them that the entire Law and every prophet's message could be distilled down to one thing: Love. "But," he warned them, "If instead of showing love among yourselves you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another." So we should live according to our new life in the Holy Spirit!

"What horrible people those were way back then! I'm glad we're not like that today," we say.

HA! OK, so what does autoimmune disease in the body of Christ look like today? As I said above, one major symptom is the sign hung above the door of the building some call churches. Within 5 minutes of meeting another believer, I can almost guarantee the question, "Where do you go to church?" will be asked. There is only one purpose of these titles and names: To divide ourselves. What is a denomination, other than a portion being denominated (divided) from the whole? Oddly enough, there are even certain groups who say that they are not a denomination. (If that's not an oxymoron, I don't know what is!) They come up with definitions of a denomination with only the traits they don't possess; for example, a common one I've heard is that you're not a denomination if you don't have a central governing body (such as the regional, national and international chains of command). But having a hierarchy outside a local group is not the definition of a denomination. Being divided from the whole is the definition of a denomination!

Other ways we see spiritual autoimmunity is in spreading gossip about one another, by not helping one another when we have the means to help, by not becoming invested in one another's lives - you know, being a true community and family! Instead, we go about our everyday lives without connecting with each other in meaningful and sacrificial ways. The picture of the earliest church is an astoundingly beautiful one, but unfortunately it is all too uncommon in our day.

It is long past time that we drop all the walls of division among believers. What would happen if we truly took seriously Jesus' prayer in the garden before His arrest? Imagine you are God made flesh, standing on the earth for the last time as a free man, before your arrest and execution. You have only a short amount of time to talk to your Father in heaven. Don't you think that what that prayer includes would be some mighty important stuff? I do! And that's why the fact that Jesus uses this time to pray that the people who believe in Him would be united in the truth by the Spirit is no small thing. Yet it seems like we are continually inventing new ways to divide from one another and attack each other!

Jesus showed no partiality when He walked the earth 2,000 years ago. He loved, served, and taught those within His circle and those outside of it. By example and by word, He taught His disciples to do the same thing - and then He told those disciples to teach & show others how to do the same. At every turn, Jesus and His apostles tried to nip division in the bud -- yet it flourishes today.

Jesus said, "Love each other. Just as I have loved you, love each other. Your love for each other will prove that you are My disciples."

Yet Gandhi said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ."

Read that quote again, and let it break your heart.

If we, as those who bear the name of Jesus Christ, cannot truly love each other, how can we love unbelievers? How can we even claim to love God?

If we cannot stop biting and devouring one another, how can we expect to have anything appealing to offer the world?

We must remember that other believers - yes, even those who think differently - are not the enemy. ("He who is not against Me.....") If we are not a source of healing & love for the other members of the same body we are a part of, how could we ever help heal others? We also need to remember that the enemy is not the people outside of the church. Because we are a priesthood, our job is to intercede to God on behalf of those people! (Think of Abraham & Moses who pleaded that God would not destroy the people because of their disobedience.)

So as I will be doing, I would highly encourage you to go before our Advocate, Jesus Christ, and ask Him to reveal the ways in which you & I could improve in the way we show love for one another. Not in word, but in action. In the kind of way that would rock the foundation of our society, because love like this cannot come from any natural source. A love like this is truly supernatural, and I believe the world would sit up and take notice if they saw this kind of love in action. Instead of adding fuel to the enemy's fire, let us kindle a holy love between one another that would spark into the hearts of others.

Our God in heaven is the Great Physician, and He has the power to heal this spiritual autoimmune disease that is running rampant in the body of His Son. What is the treatment? An overflowing and constant dose of LOVE. Love for Jesus, love for His Body (which is Jesus in the flesh, a.k.a. the church), and love for others. Are we willing to submit to this treatment? (There is no danger of overdose!) My final thought for you is from 1st John (which is an excellent source of encouragement in this area):

❝Let us love one another, for love is of God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God ... if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another ... if we love one another, God abides in us ... God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God ... If someone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar.❞

What are some practical things we can each change in our own lives (with the emphasis on introspection, not  jumping right back in the U.S.S Criticize-Your-Brother ship) that will help heal this systemic disease and repair the damage?

One Sentence that Could Change the World

Once upon a time a group of highly religious people callously threw a woman, guilty of sexual sin, in the dust at the feet of Jesus. She had knowingly acted in a way that was against God's design. According to the design of God - according to the very nature of God, who by nature cannot be in the presence of sin - the wages of her sin was a death sentence. And the crowd who had brought her to the feet of Jesus - who claimed to speak for God Himself - was chomping at the bit to have that sentence carried out right then and there; they held the weapons in their hands that would be used to execute the woman. This moment was an incredibly combustible face-off between two of the most powerful forces of the day: in one corner stood the religious elite - the people who held the title of God's chosen race and holy nation, the people whose charge it was to represent the great I Am to a world outside of that covenant and who did not know God; what the world knew about God was what they learned through observing this holy nation of chosen people. And in the other corner stood Jesus, who claimed to be the very Son of God Himself. Not only did He speak exclusively for God, but He was God.

They asked Jesus again and again and demanded an answer.

But Jesus just sat down and started doodling in the dirt.

As you can imagine, this didn't make the mob happy. Finally, after much pestering, Jesus stood up and faced the angry mob of the religious elite. He looked them in the eye and instructed the woman to be stoned -- as long as the stoning began by the person in the crowd who had no sin throwing the first rock.

One by one, oldest to youngest, every single person in the angry crowd left. Soon only Jesus and the woman remained.

Upon noting that no one was left to condemn the woman, Jesus told the woman one single sentence - one that just might change the world. "Neither do I condemn you," Jesus said. "Now go your way and sin no more." 

The woman walked in expecting to be executed - and she walked away a free woman. After one meeting with Jesus, her life was forever changed.

There's four things about this event that I believe are absolutely pivotal.

◆ Jesus refused to get caught up in the emotion of the moment. He wouldn't jump on the bandwagon of hate and condemnation towards the woman, and yet He didn't act hateful towards the self-righteous either. He kept His cool.

◆ Jesus reminded the religious elite what they had evidently forgotten: that they too had fallen far short of the glory of God. They had no room to treat the woman as if they embodied God's law perfectly -- regardless of whether or not they had ever committed the same sin that this woman stood condemned for, they had nonetheless sinned. And if you were guilty of breaking one part of the law, you were guilty of the weight of the whole law.

◆ The fact that these people were guilty of sin did not excuse the behavior of the woman. Jesus then addressed her - but He did so in love and with compassion; He did not demean her or belittle her. In fact, He forgave her. He did the unthinkable and said that He did not condemn her.

◆ Far from excusing what she had done and the gravity of the situation, Jesus addressed her sinful life head-on. After forgiving her and wiping her slate clean, he told her to "go and sin no more." He recognized that what she had done was sin, and that she should never do this again. Because of the love she received from Him, He expects her life to look differently. She had been given a charge by the Son of God to change her life -- and I would think that being given the chance to walk away from death row would emblazon that on her heart in a way that made her think long & hard about that advice and her choice of lifestyles.

So why is this so important? Because frankly, in most conversations about sin I hear (and worse, what I see in the media), people ignore #1, have forgotten #2, refuse #3 and skip over #4. If we act like #3 and #4 are an either/or buffet; we either focus on excusing people of their sin, or we take it upon ourselves to campaign for everyone else to "go and sin no more." Typically that involves a lot of finger pointing and quoting our favorite "clobber verses." God's Word should be used as a healing balm, and not as a way to cauterize an open wound we just inflicted.

If we emphasize only #3 (Jesus' statement that He did not condemn the woman in sin) while neglecting #4 (the second half of Jesus' sentence warning her not to sin any more), we have perverted Jesus' message and are in danger of endorsing what has been called "cheap grace." But the flip side of that coin is just as dangerous! If all we talk about are the laws and "Thou Shalt Not's," then God becomes nothing more than a supernatural bully who is eagerly waiting for each of us to trip up so He can strike us with lightning and the full power of His wrath. That is not the God I know! That is not the God of the Bible! That is not Jesus!

I recently read an interesting blog post about some disturbing trends among Christendom today, and I thought the author made one especially poignant observation. Even though 80% of youth will leave "church" by the time they hit 30, the reasons they give for leaving - such as the experience of Christianity being shallow, or the church being antagonistic to unbelievers - "[U]pon heavy scrutiny [of their reasons for leaving], none of this remotely sounded like Jesus, so He wasn't the problem, which was a relief because when having a faith crisis, you don't want to discover your Main Character is a fraud. As far as I can tell, Jesus is still the easiest sell on earth, because if you don't love a guy who healed lepers and pulled children onto His lap and silenced the religious elite and ate and drank with sinners, then you just don't know Him."

The GOOD NEWS is that when we are humbly at the feet of Jesus, He will not condemn us. He will help us to our feet and dust us off. When Jesus encounters a person caught up in sin, He doesn't jump on the bandwagon of those who ignore their own sin while accusing others'. Instead, He extends love to the person, and He then adjures that person to change their life.

Is that what happens when you or I encounter a person caught up in sin?

God is love, so the only way we can accurately represent Him is by loving others.

"By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another." 
--Jesus