Can you believe it was once illegal in Virginia to skip church? Remember that the Virginians brought the Church of England with them to Jamestown. Going to church and paying the tithe were required before the Revolution. I found one of my ancestors on a list with some of his neighbors for not attending church in the Bristol Parish. When they were hauled before the judge, they complained that they needed a ferry to get across the Appomattox river at flood stage, or they needed a church on their side of the river. Later some of the Virginians abandoned the Church of England in the Great Awakening and started their own Baptist and Methodist churches. In the state of Virginia, Baptist preachers were beaten and put in jail because they were not part of the state church. No wonder Baptists John Leland and Isaac Backus pleaded with James Madison to include freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.
When the Israelites settled into the promised land (though they never evicted all of the Canaanites), the Reubenites, Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh crossed the Jordan to go back to their own land on the other side. There they built an altar, provoking the rest of Israel to action. There was no trust between them. The two and a half tribes building their own altar seemed like an act of war to the remaining Israelites. But the two and a half tribes pleaded their case. They didn’t build their altar to rebel against the Lord. Instead, they wanted to be sure their descendants also worshiped the Lord and were not cut off from Israel by the geographic barrier of the Jordan river. Cooler heads prevailed and the two sides agreed to bless each other instead of fight. They named the altar: a Witness Between Us – that the Lord is God.
In turbulent times, the divisiveness of the culture easily seeps into the church. We may mistrust the intentions of others and impugn their motives. In a spirit of hospitality, we may make room for those who disagree with us on non-essential matters. A wise friend said to me recently, “My bucket of non-essentials is a large bucket.” In other words, there aren’t many things worth fighting over in the body of Christ. Theological truth is essential. Getting our way in every matter is not. What if we allowed our corporate worship to be a witness that in our churches, the presence of the Lord is enough to unite us? We may never agree on every matter. But Christ is enough to unite us. What if we agreed not to harm each other by our words or deeds? We do not answer to the law but to the Lord for the way we treat each other. Let us choose wisely. “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone . . .” (Romans 12:18). Let’s “seek peace and pursue it.”
