BY ROSA T. BANKS

The following is the condensation of a devotional presented during the Annual Council of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in October 2003.--Editors.

HIS IS A BIG OLD SHIP. SHE CREAKS, SHE ROCKS, SHE ROLLS, and at times she makes you want to throw up. But she gets where she's going. Always has, always will, until the end of time. With or without us" (J. F. Powers, Wheat That Springeth Green).

This morning I have a responsibility to discharge that is one of the greatest duties that I can have as a human relations professional, and that is to somehow convey to you the impact of our relationship to one another at this time in the church's history.

Our devotional comes from the story of the rich young ruler, found in Matthew 19. I submit to you this morning that it's much more than an inspirational Bible story. It's Christ modeling for God's children down through the ages how we must treat one another if His church is to speak a convincing and redeeming word.

Jesus was traveling to Judea from Galilee, and, as was often the case, He was followed by a vast multitude of diverse people groups. He taught those who came along for instruction. He healed the sick and people with disabilities. He answered the local Pharisees concerning the volatile first-century issue of divorce.

Up to this point every group with whom our Lord interacted had been well received and fully accepted without hesitation by the disciples. However, it was quite a different story when the mothers brought their children to be blessed.

"Get away from the Master!" they told the mothers. "Can't you see He has no time for your insignificant requests. Get along now! Take the children and move on!" And get this: Those leaders actually thought they were protecting Jesus from annoyance.

Mark says that Jesus was much displeased at the peremptory action of the disciples (Mark 10:14). He could have waited until later to deal with the problem privately; after all, they had come from different backgrounds and possibly needed a little more time to understand this new way of doing church. But Jesus nipped their poor behavior in the bud right then and there. "Don't you stop these mothers!" He told them. "Let the children come to Me. They are what the kingdom of heaven is all about." Then He reached down and picked up one little toddler after another, and He didn't stop until He had blessed every one of them.

We marvel even today at Christ's ability to speak simultaneously to wealthy and educated professionals, to street people, and to people with no education at all. And we must remember, too, that this was a phenomenon to the young man, because most religions during his day did not welcome everybody. Greeks excluded slaves from nonsocial groupings. Jewish temples separated worshipers by race and gender. Rome had mostly a male aristocracy.

But here was one leader who was different, and He captured the attention of this young man. Of all the significant events that the ruler may have seen, he was most impressed, Ellen G. White observes, with the way Jesus treated the children. She says that when the young man "saw the love that Christ manifested toward the children . . . his heart kindled with love for the Saviour. He felt a desire to be His disciple."¹ This is gospel, is it not? People making decisions for Christ by watching us!

Kindle is an old Norse word for candle, meaning that his heart started burning, caught fire, called forth emotions and a response. That is why the man came running to the altar, as it were, and fell down before the preacher, Jesus, to entrust Him with the most important question: "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

Three Things to Learn
1. Just as the rich young ruler was watching Jesus, people are all around us, watching us.

They are watching Christians in general and Seventh-day Adventist Christians in particular, as individuals and as a corporate church. What is it that they expect to see? From the diversity perspective, they expect to see fellowship in the fellowship.

A fellowship is an organized community of believers who share a common experience of Christ. Fellowship in the fellowship occurs when there is an organic relationship of the parts of the whole, i.e., the believers are united in love, faith, and loyalty to God and to one another, their common bond being their faith in Jesus Christ.

Fellowship in the fellowship requires that the believers have a double fellowship experience--an ideal relationship with God (realizing that all who are not on the Lord's side are against Him--Matt. 12:30) and a practical relationship with one another. And something else is required; the believers must meet this single condition--they must walk in the light. John says "if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ does, then we have wonderful fellowship and joy with each other" (1 John 1:7, TLB).

People who are watching Adventist Christians are not looking for perfection. Neither are they expecting us to be quiet little church mice who never rock the boat. Most understand that oneness is not blandness, and peace is not always silence. Instead, they're looking to see fellowship in our fellowship, that we individually and corporately walk the talk! If they can see Christian virtues in us rather than vices, we will win more people to this church by accident than we now win to Christ on purpose.

Many times in my work in human relations I have had occasion to doubt that Christian unity would ever exist throughout the worldwide church. Let me explain.

In certain divisions we seem to be on different cultural pages in relationship to certain challenges that we face. Various cultures go their separate ways with hardly a conversation with some of the others. Groups within the same culture have no common ground for communication. Priority is not placed on transforming our fellowship into one new humanity in Christ. I sometimes wonder what the future holds for us.

Then I remember that God has a very large investment at stake in our not being divided; the idea of oneness, or wholeness, is a part of the very character of God. This means that everything God is and does is on the side of our church members worldwide functioning as brothers and sisters in Him. On occasions like this, when we are discussing unity, I get encouraged all over again.

2. This world of ungrace must see Seventh-day Adventists communicate grace through "mutuality."

Let me get right to the point. I believe that Jesus Christ wants us to grow and mature and accomplish something for Him that we have not yet done. What is it?

There could be many specific possibilities, but in general I believe that it is time for us to show the communities around us to a greater extent that we are Christ's disciples; that we do love one another; and that by that love we are drawing people to Jesus Christ.

They will know the difference, because our world of ungrace (as Philip Yancey calls it in Church: Why Bother?) embraces a strictly hierarchical relationship model--one in which there are positions of power and rule and people lording that power and rule over others. Christians get caught up in this too!

The disciples' behavior toward the mothers and their children was consistent with society's model. However, it was in sharp contrast with the relationship model that Christ embraces and teaches. The young man saw Jesus communicate grace to a multitude engaged in competition, judgment, and ranking. His is the nonhierarchical community model, not based on power and rule and lording power, but on mutuality.

The Greek word for mutuality is allelon (Ah-LAY-lon), meaning one-anotherness. In the context of John 17, allelon is God asking us to be His one-another people--that special fellowship that represents Him on this earth. Mutuality tells us that all of us are a part of one another. Like conjoined twins, we should be so attached to one another that we cannot be separated, but must work together for our own survival. Yet what you hear in most churches is about authority and submission to authority and obedience to authority, not one-anotherness. But when we read the New Testament, the foundational concept of mutuality among believers jumps right out at us.

To stimulate our thinking, let me repeat a few texts in question form. Do you, do we:

Accept one another? (Rom. 14:1)
Bear one another's burdens? (Gal. 6:2)
Comfort one another? (1 Thess. 4:18)
Not speak evil of one another? (James 4:11)
Encourage one another? (Heb. 3:13)
Forgive one another? (Eph. 4:32)
Greet one another with a holy kiss? (1 Cor. 16:20)
Have compassion for one another? (Eph. 4:32)
Intricately involve ourselves with one another? (Rom. 12:5)
Judge not one another? (James 4:12)
Kindly show affection to one another? (Rom. 12:10)
Live in peace with one another?
(1 Thess. 5:13)
Minister spiritual gifts to one another? (1 Peter 4:10)
Never become conceited, provoking one another? (Gal. 5:26)
Owe no one anything except to love one another? (Rom. 13:8)
Pray for one another? (James 5:16)
Regard one another as more important than ourselves? (Phil. 2:3)
Submit to one another? (1 Peter 5:5)
Teach one another? (Col. 3:16)
Use hospitality to one another without grudging? (1 Peter 4:9)
Wash one another's feet? (John 13:14)

Are we zealous about making progress on the other one-anotherness examples, the do's as well as the don'ts?

How we answer these questions individually and corporately may reveal how well or how poorly we are fulfilling our responsibility to love one another as Christ loves us (John 13:34, 35).

3. With the help of the Holy Spirit we are charged to live out a kind of alternative society before the eyes of a watching world--a world that is increasingly moving toward tribalism and division.

Here was a young man who was confident that he was a commandment keeper and that there was just one little step between himself and perfection. Yet there were two things wrong with him: He did not have the love of God in his heart,² and his attitude toward other people had been essentially negative.³ His malady was selfishness.

The lesson is that serious defects may also remain in us, though we have been keeping the commandments since our conversion. And unless these blighting influences are removed, we will make no further progress toward perfection. To set him on the right path, Jesus told the man to sell all his goods and distribute the proceeds to the poor.

Just as maladies vary from person to person, remedies vary as well. Here was his big chance to be perfect at long last, and he blew it!

If we are tempted to judge that man rather harshly, we might need to reflect upon our own pilgrimage to realize that we have relationship hurdles to overcome ourselves.

Look at it this way. You are a commandment-keeping believer. You get down on your knees and ask the Lord, "Is there anything else that I need to do to inherit eternal life?" You receive the same answer as the young ruler: "Keep the commandments." And you say, "Well, Lord, I have done that as a Seventh-day Adventist. What else do I need to do?"

Suppose He responds, "If you want to be perfect, deliberately seek out a congregation that is the exact opposite of what you're now accustomed to." And you say, "All right, Lord. I know just the one--down on Friendship Street." And He says, "No, not that one. I am talking about one with an uninhibited worship style." (He says that because you consistently seek out churches composed of only people like yourself--congregations of your own educational level, with similar biblical background and taste in hymns and liturgy. In short, since you have difficulty with varied expressions of worship, this remedy will help you learn to truly accept other people.)

Here is a second hypothetical example. Suppose He says: "To be perfect, relocate your family from your comfortable suburban setting to a hovel in the inner city, and for the rest of your life represent Me to the neglected people groups there." (He says that because He knows that you deliberately admit no people groups into your friendship circles who are different from yourself, and you need to be taught by those you have the most difficulty understanding and appreciating.)

A third hypothetical. Suppose He tells you: "To be perfect, you must transfer your membership to the Philippi church, where the minister and first elder are females." (He says that because you rally against those who have a different view of spiritual gifts, and there is something you need to learn about spiritual gifts and their Holy Ghost distribution.)

In these and other examples that best express your malady, how would you go away? Joyfully or sorrowfully? We know how the young man went away, don't we? The Bible says he went away sorrowful; and the reason was more than his love for money. He had lived his life embracing a strictly hierarchical model, and Christ's nonhierarchical community model simply went against the human grain.

I have been talking about two models this morning: society's strictly hierarchical model versus Christ's nonhierarchical community model. So your question might very well be: Is Christ's model a new idea? The answer is no! It existed before the world began. It has its origin within the triune God. It was present in the Garden of Eden before sin entered the world.

And after the Fall the story of Cain and Abel illustrated how God values mutuality. When the Lord inquired concerning Abel, Cain responded with perhaps one of the most thought-provoking questions in the Bible: "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen. 4:9). It's a question we would do well to ask ourselves every day. "Am I my brother's/my sister's keeper?" In other words, do we have a responsibility to watch out for and care for one another? The answer is a resounding yes!

The organizational-development specialist Margaret Wheatley published a book in 2002 titled Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future.⁴ She wrote the book to encourage people to begin having conversations about things that matter to them--equality, mutuality, diversity, fellowship, oneness, sharing. And on page 29 she lifts up the basic principles of meaningful, life-changing conversation:

"Acknowledge one another as equals."
"Try to stay curious about each other."
"Recognize that we need each other's help."
"Slow down so we have time to think and reflect."
"Remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together."

And I really like this last one:

"Expect it to be messy at times."

Margaret Wheatley's religious persuasion does not come through when you read her book. But I do know that today's gospel of mutuality, allelon, one-anotherness, is a great illustration of what she's talking about. If we cannot find acceptance in God's church, where else on earth can we go?

In a time of chaos and violence, when scores of nations are at war with one another; in a time when ecosystems are in chaos from misuse and abuse; in a time when lives are being lost to senseless greed, corruption, and drug abuse, many people out there and members in here are seeking healing, longing for hope. They need to see the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a fellowship that communicates mutuality.

This healing for which we long as individuals and as the corporate church, Christ offers freely. That is where His grace comes in. We need a transformed present today. Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34, 35, NJKV).

I believe it is time to turn to our Lord by turning to one another. What do you say? We must turn to one another as equals, not treating one another as competitors or dismissing one another with labels. We must take time to listen and to learn from our differences. We must remember with humility that we are put into this mess of a world and into the midst of this blessing called life to discover the grace that got here before us, and to lift up the love that first loved the world and that makes all love, all wholeness, possible. When all that happens, God's grace will be unleashed. And we will become a relational church, one-another people at long last!

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¹ Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 518.
² Ibid., p. 519.
³ The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, p. 548.
⁴ Margaret Wheatley, Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002).

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Rosa T. Banks is associate secretary of the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists and director of the Office of Human Relations.