Facets and Factions
Here are the questions that I want you to ponder today: What is the difference between a facet and a faction? Which are you? Which do you believe God wants you to be? And why? That’s it. If you can answer all those questions, then you can sleep through the rest of the message today.
When I arrived at Pfeiffer College in the fall of 1969, scared and lonely, with Mom and Dad halfway around the world in Thailand, Dr. Richard Brewer, chairperson of the Music Department at Pfeiffer, took me under his wing. I had four of the happiest years of my life there, immersed in music and singing with every choral group possible. Doc shaped my view of music and my love for it. Doc died three weeks ago, and I want to thank all of you for allowing me to re-arrange my vacation time so that I could attend the memorial service in Matthews, NC, last Sunday. More than one hundred singers, who all trained at Pfeiffer College during Doc’s tenure from 1962 to1987 showed up to pay their respects to this incredible man.
We all gathered at the church in Matthews at 1:30 on Sunday afternoon to rehearse the music. I had never even met most of the people in the group. Joe Judge, who was in Doc’s last class in 1987, is the music director at the church where Doc spent his final years. Joe had selected several appropriate pieces of music… half of which I knew and half were new to me. What happened in the next few hours blew me away. It has been years, literally, since I have sung with a group of professional musicians. Couple that with the knowledge that these one hundred singers were all trained by the same person. Couple that with the knowledge that the music we were singing was music that Doc had selected… some of which he composed or arranged specifically for us… and that we had sung in concert and on tour with him. Couple that with the fact that the accompaniment was played by an award-winning professional organist who studied at Pfeiffer under Doc… and a brass ensemble drawn from the ranks of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Couple that with the knowledge that this performance was the final performance we would do for Doc and that his wife, Eileen, was there to hear it. There were many times during the rehearsal and the subsequent memorial service that musicians in the group… myself included… were so overwhelmed by the experience that they could not continue to sing.
Singers will understand this next part: Even though we had never sung together as a group before, the one hundred voices that sang the music that afternoon in Matthews, NC, all breathed at the same time. They all pronounced their words in exactly the same way. They all put the “d’s” and “t’s” on the ends of their words… and with such force, sometimes, that I thought the pillars of the church would fall from the explosive power of it. They all observed the dynamic markings in the music in exactly the same way… the pianissimos were so controlled that they could barely be heard and the fortissimos rang with a sound that could drown the ten brass players and peal plaster off of the walls. It was unbelievable! It was like one huge voice, singing in four-part harmony. For a few brief hours, I was transported to heaven and I wanted to stay there forever. I was part of a whole that was so much greater than I was… yet, I was a part of it and contributed to it.
Facets and factions. Both words are two-syllable words. Both are derived from the French. Both sound similar and, you might think they come from similar roots. But, let’s take a closer look. A facet, from the French for “face”, is defined as one of numerous aspects of a subject or an object. Synonyms of facet include frame of reference, angle, side, perspective, and so forth. In gemology, a facet is one of the smooth, flat surfaces of a gemstone. In biology, a facet is one of the lenslike visual units of a compound eye, as of an insect. A faction, from the French for “to make or to do”, is a party or a subgroup (as within a government) that is often contentious or self-seeking. Synonyms for faction include clique, cartel, party, or schism. Are you a facet or a faction? Both are parts of a larger whole. Both are aspects of that larger whole that reflect some part of the whole, but are not the whole. Which are you?
A facet is a part of the larger whole that contributes to and enhances that whole. Each facet of a diamond, for example, increases its brilliance and its worth. Each facet of an insect’s eye provides greater information and sight for the insect. A faction, on the other hand, is a part of the larger whole that seeks its own ends… even at the risk of the destruction of the whole. Militant fundamentalism, for example, is a faction within a religious group… within any religious group… that can weaken… and even destroy… the group itself through its self-seeking actions. Factions within our church and our denomination can… and do… weaken the fabric of our faith… destroy relationships between and among Christian brothers and sisters… and have the potential for destroying the Church itself over the self-seeking actions of a small group. Facets or factions? Which are you? Which do you believe God wants you to be?
The seventeenth chapter of John is called the “Prayer of Consecration” of Jesus… and has been called Jesus’ “Last Will and Testament.” In it, we receive the testimony of God… given by Jesus himself as he prays. Jesus says, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me… for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.” Here Jesus testifies that he has passed on to his disciples everything that God has given to him, including the knowledge of God’s name, which in this context means all that is intimate and important about God himself. Do you remember what Kathleen read to us in our first scripture lesson today? She read these words from First John: “If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son.” These words of Jesus, in this prayer, are, as he says, the words that God has given to him. There is no greater testimony. If you do nothing else this week, I urge you to sit down with your own Bible and read this chapter from the Gospel of John. It is only twenty-six verses long. In it, Jesus prays for himself, for his disciples, and for the Church. Throughout the prayer, one theme flows through from beginning to end… that we may be one in Christ, even as the Son and the Father are one in the Godhead. We, as Christians, are to be one in Christ, even as the Son is one with the Father and the Father is one with the Son.
Volumes have been written on the unity of thought and action of God the Father and Jesus the Son. The unity and mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity has often been held up as an example for the unity of the body of Christ… of the Church… in the world. But notice something else. Jesus never says that the Son and the Father are the same … quite the contrary. The Son and the Father are not the same. They are not identical. They are different aspects of the Godhead… different persons of the Trinity. They are different facets of the whole…facets that contribute to and enhance the whole. Jesus does not ask that we be the same… that we become cookie-cutter carbon copies of other Christians. He does ask that we be one… unified in purpose… even as the Son and the Father are one.
There is something else for us to see in this example. Notice that within the Godhead, there is no dissension… no schism… no self-seeking behavior. Between Father and Son, there are no partisan politics …no factions that tear at the fabric of the relationship between them. Yes, we are not the same. Nor does Jesus ask us to be the same. But we are to be one… unified in purpose… not divided by dissension… by schism… or by self-seeking behavior. We are not to be factionalized. Facets or factions? Which are you? Which do you believe God wants you to be? And why?
And so, now we get to the “why” of it all. Why is it so important that we become one in Christ… just as the Son is one with the Father? Our text says, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Do you see that it is through our unity in the body of Christ that the rest of the world will come to believe? Do you see that it is through our ability to love each other and live together as the Son lives with the Father and is in the Father that the world will come to understand God’s love? If we, as Christians, cannot learn to live together and to be one as the Son is one with the Father, then we have no witness for the world outside these walls. All our talk means nothing… all our mission giving means nothing ... all our outreach activities mean nothing… if we cannot learn to love each other and live together in peace inside the Church. And that means this particular church… our denomination as a whole… and other denominations within the Christian church around the world. If we cannot live together as one within our Christian faith, then we do not live in Christ and Christ does not live in us.
It is an old axiom that “actions speak louder than words.” A search of that phrase on the Internet will generate one million two hundred and twenty thousand hits of people confirming the truth of that phrase… in every field of endeavor that you can imagine. Yet in no field of endeavor is as important as our lives as Christians. I would venture a guess that each of us can name individuals who have told us that they no longer go to church… or will never darken the door of a church… because of unChristian behavior they have witnessed in those who call themselves “Christian.” I can’t begin to tell you how many people in Stephenville have introduced themselves to me as “former Presbyterians.” I had dinner with another one last night. Each time, within the story of their departure from the denomination, is a story of factions… schisms… dissention… and self-seeking behavior. If Jesus knew that dissension… schism… and self-seeking behavior would naturally emerge among the twelve with whom he had lived… eaten… breathed… and taught for three years, how much more might we expect such behavior to emerge among those who have not been as close to him as those twelve?
I say this to you now because we are preparing to make some major decisions about the future of our church. It is a future that each one of us has a strong opinion about… and those opinions have the potential to develop into factions within our congregation. We must be diligent as Christians to guard the things that we say… and the things that we do… as we discuss and shape our future vision so that we are each facets of that vision…and not factions.
Notice that Jesus does not ask God to take the disciples out of the world… even if by doing he could protect them from the dissention… schism… and self-seeking behavior he wanted them to avoid. Instead, Jesus prays that God will protect them all from evil… or from the evil one. We are in the world, even as the disciples were in the world… and yet, we are not to be “of the world”… in other words, filled with the evil… the dissention… and the self-seeking behavior that we see in the world around us. Instead, we, as Christians, are to be one… as the Son is one with the Father. Not the same… not identical… but different facets of the whole that contribute and enhance the whole… whether that whole is our church family here in Stephenville… or the entire denomination of Presbyterians… or all Christians everywhere. For it is through the witness of our oneness… our mutuality… our interdependence… and love for each other… that the world will come to know that Jesus was sent by God and that the love of God is as much for them as it is for Jesus himself. We reveal Christ… and him crucified… to all who witness what we say and what we do. Brothers and sisters, let us love one another, for love is of God… and by our love, the world will know Christ. Amen.
John 17:6-23