The Gospel according to St. Robert

In 1876, embarrassed at his inability to conduct an orderly public meeting, an Army Engineer by the name of Henry Martyn Robert created a set of rules and procedures that we all know as Robert’s Rules of Order.

I have a hard time deciding whether he ought to be remembered a hero or reckoned a scapegoat.

I have no doubt that Robert’s Rules, like every good Parlimentary process, is the skeleton on which good and wise decisions have been assembled. There are, no doubt, many, many episodes where Robert’s Rules constrained conflict unto civility, and even productivity.

Good for Parliaments, Senates and Congresses. A true boon to lawyers everywhere. But a horrible and even dangerous delusion for the rest of us.

The very name gives away its flaw. Robert’s Rules of Order. Of Order. Meant to be particularly useful, acceptable, valuable even, to those moments requiring, capable of, order.

But what of those other places? What of the community of faith?

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 1 Corinthians 1:20

Yes, it was another Synodical gathering this weekend past. In many ways, a reminder of all that is beloved and lovable about the institution of the church, the earnestness, the warmth, the unchanging but ever new stories. But then the gathering becomes a meeting, and we forsake being a church to try to be something else.

Which is that we try to be right.

I don’t mean to be as dismissive of such things as I’m sure I seem. I understand and even trust that the brothers and sisters in Christ who bravely approach the numbered microphones in the hall to speak to the assembly intend good, seek righteousness, believe and mean what they say. What they do not know, what we all dare not say, is that what we seek is not within our grasp.

We wish to be right about God. We wish to be right about God in this life, in this world. We can not. We are not capable in all things, in many things, perhaps even in most things, to be wise, true, right. It is not for to know right – that is the purpose of law, of command. We cannot do right – that is the purpose of Christ.

But more, I believe. When we search for right, we miss the point entirely.

God does not call us to right. He calls us to faith. He calls us, in fact, to foolishness, to weakness, to what must seem undoubtedly wrong. The endless and fruitless search for right turns out to be, in the end, a journey to division, frustration, violence. Death.

Let our search be otherwise. Let it be our search for God.

God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. 1 Corinthians 1:25