Not All Weighty Matters Weigh the Same
By Jessica Maddox
Imagine that we have before us a set of scales—on the one side is an officebearer’s service as deacon, elder, or pastor, and on the other side is an officebearer’s confessional difficulty. How weighty must a confessional difficulty be to tip the scales? And how do we know when alignment with a point of confessional teaching is more important than the willing and faithful service of an otherwise confessionally-aligned officebearer? What measuring apparatus are we using to weigh a belief?
Recent comments on the synod floor indicate the church holds varied views on how to handle weighty matters. One approach observed is to make everything weighty; there’s no need to weigh any one matter when you believe all things weigh the same. Another approach recognizes different matters have different weights. We need to be asking two things:
(1) What tools are we using to measure the weightiness of a matter?
(2) How do we determine what constitutes a weightiness that outweighs an officebearer’s willing and faithful service?
The Bible and the church have long recognized that some matters are weightier than others; that is, some matters are more important than others. We cannot be the church in unity together and insist that all matters of life and faith weigh the same. We could use some guidance discerning what tips the scales. Matters we believe to be most important say something about how we see the kingdom of God. How we measure weighty matters is an opportunity to live toward the new life of the kingdom that is already among us but not yet fully realized. As we look to Scripture and our tradition, how are we helped in discerning what matters most in the eternal kingdom of God? Brief examples from a gospel, an epistle, and a confession can help lead us toward an answer.
In Matthew 23 Jesus calls out the Pharisees for practicing outward obedience to the law without attending to the inward obedience to the law. Seven times in a row Jesus calls “Woe” to the Pharisees and exposes their hypocrisy. This hypocrisy lies in their meticulous but selective attention to law-keeping and the optics of righteousness; that is, they are more concerned with looking holy in the places where others can see them than with being holy in the places where only God sees. The Pharisees keep the law that keeps them looking good, but neglect the law that governs their hearts. Jesus’ rebuke of the Pharisees suggests to us it is a weighty matter to misorder what’s most important. Jesus says, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:23-24). Jesus says all the law should be minded. But some matters of the law are weightier than others. Some things are gnat matters and some things are camel matters.
And in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is working out a thesis that, of all the gifts God gives his church for its flourishing, the greatest of these is love. To illustrate, Paul picks a few often-elevated spiritual gifts used for building up the church and cites how each of them is futile if not exercised with love: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Paul suggests when we misorder what’s most important, what we’ve elevated amounts to nothing. Things like all the right knowledge and the most generous giving are not unimportant, but they are less important. As we practice them now, they are temporary, passing, suited for a season that will come to an end. Some of the spiritual gifts given to build up the church are weightier than others. Some things are for-now matters and some things are for-always matters.
Finally, the Heidelberg Catechism is well-known to be structured into three parts: the misery of sin, God’s deliverance in Jesus, and our response of grateful living. Gratitude is the context for the Christian’s good works. Good works are an expression of thanks we make with our very lives, the way we praise God, see the fruit of our faith, and witness to the gospel of Christ. The catechism’s treatment of the Ten Commandments is located in this gratitude section, indicating that the decalogue is a useful guide for living out our thanks to God. But if we flip past all the Q&As on the Ten Commandments, we may be surprised to see what the Catechism thinks outweighs them all. Q&A 116 states, “Why do Christians need to pray? Because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And because God gives his grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking for these gifts and thanking God for them.” The good work of following the Ten Commandments remains useful to the church—the commands are guide posts marking the way of life in the kingdom of God. Yet the good work of a prayer inviting the Spirit into our lives is more important. The Catechism suggests that prioritizing living by the Spirit over living by the law is a well-ordered life. Better than the law ever could, the Spirit stirs and changes our hearts, reorients our desires, and strengthens our steps to follow the way of kingdom living. Some of the ways we live out our thanks to God are weightier than others. Some things are outward-change matters and some things are inward-change matters.
In order to discern what’s most important for the church now, we need to lift our eyes up from what seems most important in this moment and reflect on what we know about the kingdom of God. The things that ought to matter most now are the things that most resemble kingdom life—the kinds of things valued most in the examples above: justice and mercy, love, and a true change of heart. Are these among the most weighty things we are looking for in the people who lead our churches?
When we calibrate our scales to what’s truly most important, the things we value in one another most are the glimpses we see of God’s kingdom come. When we view and value one another for who God is forming us to be, we can live generously and graciously together while we wait for the day when all things, including ourselves, will be made new.
