“The Church and Her Enemies”

Scripture text: Titus 1:10-16

St. Francis de Sales writes in his book "Finding God’s Will for You":
“The enemy often tries to make us attempt and start many projects so that we will be overwhelmed with too many tasks, and therefore achieve nothing and leave everything unfinished.
Sometimes he even suggests the wish to undertake some excellent work that he foresees we will never accomplish. This is to distract us from the prosecution of some less-excellent work that we would have easily completed. He does not care how many plans and beginnings we make, provided nothing is finished.”

Last week, we took a look at the qualities of leadership in the Church – not in just those who have been elected to some position, but to Christians in general who are called to reach out to those who have yet to come to know our Christ.
This week, we look at the enemies of the Church – not the ones that exist in human form, but the ones that exist and thrive in our own attitudes. The enemy of the Church is not simply sinfulness – it is the thoughts and words and actions that tend to throw up road blocks between us and our mission.

As you know, the 1st century followers of Christ were known as those who were “in the Way”. They were Jewish in a formal sense, but Christian in faith. As the early faithful attempted to learn and follow the teachings of Jesus in their day to day lives, they were constantly being bombarded with condemnations for not adhering to the rituals and personal laws of Judaism. Moralistic laws had never been denounced by Jesus, but He was constantly teaching something new regarding ritual, or the ways we come closer to God. “Unclean” was no longer who you were or what went into your mouth – it was now the things that came out of your life, those things that you said or did, or even thought.

Read Matthew 15:8-11

Jesus taught new ideas regarding how to keep the Sabbath holy. It was no longer about the way you worshiped, it was about why you worshiped! It was no longer what other people saw on the outside of your life, it was what God knew to be true in your heart.

One of the greatest stumbling blocks between people of the Way and other Jews, other than the dietary distinctions, was that of circumcision. Paul wrote (Romans 2:28-29) that it is circumcision of the heart, not the body, that will bring praise to God. But many still held to the old ritualistic laws.

Read Titus 1:10-11

“Enemies” had begun to rise up in the Church - enemies such as Dissention and False Teaching. They held a suffocating grip on the things of the past, and were a denial of the true teachings of Christ.
Paul spends nearly as much time addressing the “enemies” of the church as he does the “blessings”. In Galatians 5:19-21, he lists a number of practices that he sees in opposition to the Christian life. Just a select few include hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy …”
Faith was no longer about advancing your own position – the emphasis had now changed to raising others up and putting the needs of others first. Self centeredness and false pride were supposed to become things of the past.

From Frederick Buechner’s "The Magnificent Defeat" (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985):
The love for equals is a human thing ... of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing ... the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.
The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing ... to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is bewildered by its saints.
And then there is the love for the enemy ... love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer.
This is God's love. It conquers the World.

Love, not only for the Body of Christ, but for all of God’s created, while setting yourself aside in the moment. And when we love with this degree of Christian passion, the differentiation between who is “one of us” and who is “one of them” begins to blur.

Read Titus 1:12-14

Rebuke the false witnesses! Tell those who are advocating for worldly precepts, earthly ways, to come back to Christ’s Way – show them the errors of their ways and help them to return to the true way of the Christian life. For Paul, in his letter to Titus, the teaching that circumcision was still an absolute requirement for God’s people was nothing short of pure evil. But even at that, he didn’t suggest that those “rebellious people” should be sent away. In fact, he wanted them to be corrected through the efforts of the Church, and returned to “sound faith”! Destroy the “evil”, reclaim the “evildoer”!

Read Titus 1:15-16

For those who are following a tact that is leading away from Christ, nothing is pure – or at least they don’t see those things that the church is trying to teach them as pure! Paul even goes so far as to say that these people do not know God! Interesting, isn’t it? After all, if you are teaching things that are in conflict with Christ’s teachings, how can you know Him? If you are taking a path that will advance your own ideas, your own benefits; if it will only serve your own self interests, your own self-importance, then you just may be on the wrong path!

During World War II, General Douglas MacArthur was one of our greatest generals, and was a vital part of our war effort to defeat Japan. His leadership resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Japanese, both military and civilian. However, at the end of the war, he requested the assignment to stay in Japan so he could help to rebuild the nation, to restore hope to the Japanese people. His thoughts were not of punishing the leaders or exacting retribution from the nation, but only of helping the people to find a new and better way of life.
He was pretty much alone in his post-war attitude toward the Japanese people, as most Americans only wanted revenge. Nothing could be too demeaning for the empire.
But General MacArthur knew different. They needed to regain their dignity. They needed to regain a sense of hope. They needed a new strength to go on and rebuild.
-from Charles R. Swindoll, Esther: A Woman of Strength and Dignity (Nashville: Word
Publishing, 1997), 156.

“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34-35
The gospels are full of Jesus’ examples and teachings on how to do this – from His first miracle at the Wedding in Cana, to His last miracle in the Ascension. And we are called to not only take a stand against the un-Christlike attitudes in the church, but to offer correction to those involved.

Mother Teresa:
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.
If you find eternity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.

As my favorite philosopher (Pogo!) once said “We have met the enemy and they is us.” The enemy is our attitudes, our arrogance, our pride, our self-centeredness, our prejudice, our stubbornness. And we need to help each other to shed that baggage in an attitude of compassion and love for each other.
In Christ, love them anyway.