8: Tomatoes versus Maters
The difference between home grown tomatoes and store-bought tomatoes which Scot calls Maters.
ONE CHURCH? “We must stop right here to ask ourselves two questions: Is the lack of power in our witness because the church is so divisive, so un-unified, so out-of-step with Jesus’ prayer? Is it because we’ve spread out the items in the salad onto the plate in separate piles instead of living together as a mixed salad in God’s salad bowl of unity?” The church today is more like a mater than a tomato—a tasteless experience of the real thing that Jesus prayed for.
A PROBLEM TO CONSIDER. Our questions about the Christian life tend to focus on our personal relationship with God, and not about the church and its health. “Mater Christianity elevates individualism while tomato Christianity enters into the challenge of fellowship with all the saints.” Paul gives two strategies for church unity, but first …
LEARN TO DANCE. “You can settle for maters or you can have the tomato, but if you want the real tomato of unity, you have to get onto the dance floor, turn on the music of God’s Yes for all, and learn to dance together.”
STRATEGY #1: GET A NEW MIND. Paul’s claim that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, etc requires us to think differently. In Paul’s time society was highly stratified. Pauls’ call for unity in diversity was a radical shift in the culture. “Are we willing to embrace the diversity of the church as the very thing God most wants? If so, the first strategy for Paul is to get a new mind about ethnic, class, and sexual differences. In Christ, they have all been transcended. God says Yes to all kinds.”
STRATEGY #2: LIVE IN THE SPIRIT. “The Spirit of God transcends human ability and transforms human inability.” James Dunn, Scot’s doctoral professor. How can the wildly different groups come together in Paul’s time—the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We focus on what our gift is, but we need to understand why are there gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul answers the “why” question with, “So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5)” In today’s church these gifts have become source of division, no unity.
THOSE WHO FOCUS ON THE SPIRIT. The story of the Azusa street revival in the early 1900s and how it broke down racial and economic lines.
TRANSCENDING DOES NOT MEAN ERADICATION DIFFERENCES. “Getting a new mind and living in the Spirit mean we transcend our differences while remaining different as we live with one another. Our difference is not eliminated, for difference is the vitality of our fellowship.”
Quotes From: Scot McKnight. “A Fellowship of Differents.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/9W9u1.l