Cliques in the church and loving difficult people – John 13:18-38, Part 5

Over the years, people have said there are cliques in the church, and they don’t believe there shouldn’t be cliques in the church.  A clique is a small group of people who like to be together and can be adverse to others joining them.  What do you think? Are cliques antithetical to Christianity?

In the previous post, we learned what is perhaps a top five most important teaching of Jesus: “Love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” It sure seems like Jesus would not be a fan of cliques in the church.

Let me push back on that a bit, though. Jesus is not saying that you need to be best friends with everyone in your church.  Frankly, in most churches, it is not possible to be best friends with everyone.  The average size church in America is around 65 people.  65 people is too many to be best friends with.  You can, however, be loving to all, while being in close, deeply loving relationships with a smaller group.

The reality, though, is that some people are hard to love.  Are there people in your church family you struggle with?  Yes, of course there are.  That’s true for any family.  We all have people in our own families we struggle with, so it is only natural that we will have people we struggle with in our church family. 

Examine your heart, mind and action.  Do you need to confess and repent of unloving attitude and action toward someone in your church?  Is there a broken relationship you need to restore?  Again, the purpose is not to be best friends, but to establish the baseline of love.

Back in the Upper Room as Jesus is teaching this principle of love, I wonder if he had in mind the fact that one of the twelve would betray him.  It would be exceedingly difficult for the other disciples to love Judas, especially once they found out about Judas’ betrayal.  But as you and I know, it is not Judas that the disciples will have to learn to love.  In fact, other than the brief moment of the kiss of betrayal in the Garden, which will take place in just a few hours’ time, the disciples will never see Judas again. 

There is, however, another disciple they might have a hard time loving.  Some of them very well might already have a hard time with this disciple.  Now Jesus reveals something shocking about this other disciple that could make it even more difficult to love him. 

I’m talking about Peter, of course.  The bold, loud mouth.  Those kinds of people can be annoying.  Difficult.  Remember the post last week when Peter says, “No Jesus you will never wash my feet.”  The other disciples were probably rolling their eyes.  They’ve heard Peter’s bluster so many times.  I’m guess most of you can picture in your minds a person like that.  Then when Jesus responds to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me,” Peter does a total flip-flop saying, “Well then wash my head and hands too!”  The disciples were probably huffy at Peter about that too. 

My point is that I bet Peter could sometimes be difficult to love.  But Jesus has just said that the disciples will show the world that they are his disciples by how they love one another.  Now he has something to say that might make it incredibly difficult to love Peter.  But first Peter seems stuck on the part back in verse 33 where Jesus talked about leaving them.  Look at verse 36-37.

“Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

I bet the disciples were whispering to each other, “This guy.  Such a big talker.  Will he ever shut up?”  But Peter, it seems, was sincere.  He meant everything he said.  He believed it.  Peter had made plenty of bold proclamations before.  Now Jesus has a shocking response in verse 38,

“Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”

Jesus has been bold with Peter before.  But this is intense.  You’d think Jesus would say, “Thank you, Peter, for your commitment to me.  Thank you for saying you will lay your life down for me.  What about you other disciples?  Are you going to lay down your lives for me too, like this awesome disciple Peter?”

But nope, Jesus does not affirm Peter at all.  Instead, he says, “Really, Peter?  Really?  You want to know the truth about your big talk?  You’re doing to disown me three times before next morning.”  My guess is that the look on Jesus’ face when he said this, and the tone of voice he used, made it abundantly clear that he was serious. 

I wish John told us about how Peter responded.  We are left wondering if Peter said anything back to Jesus.  Did he feel embarrassed, put in his place, and thus was quiet?  Shamed?  Or was he typical Peter, loud and aggressive in his disagreement? As one person pointed out to me, it is also possible that Jesus shared the news of Peter’s denials as a private aside to Peter, so perhaps the rest of the disciples didn’t hear Jesus’ words in verse 38. They’ll find out though in a just a few hours when it happens. Then the disciples just might find it very difficult to love Peter. 

For now, we return to the principle of loving one another as the preeminent mark of the church.  There is always hope for people, even when they seem too far gone, too difficult, when we take Jesus seriously and love them.

Who do you need to love?

Photo by Kimson Doan on Unsplash