In one particular episode of The Andy Griffith Show, while going through files, Barney Fife comes upon an unsolved case from twenty years ago. Apparently Floyd, the barber, was involved in a dispute with one Charles Foley which ended with a punch in the nose. Barney, as is typical for him, is not able to let a sleeping dog lie and reopens the case.
As Barney goes through the town on his investigation he ends up reopening not only the case but all of those old wounds. The conflict—which had been dormant for some 20 years—is now once again festering and leading to noses being bopped all throughout the once sleepy town of Mayberry. Predictably the whole conflict is resolved when Sherriff Taylor steps in and restores order.
As the new pastor in a local church I find myself at times in a place similar to Barney Fife. One of the first things that a new pastor will do is try to learn a bit about the history of the church—at least I do, being the history nerd that I am. In every church I have been a part of there are things which have been swept under a rug. There are sometimes twenty year old conflicts that do not seem to have been resolved. And so what is a pastor to do? Should he go on a Barney-like quest and reopen the case and try to get it resolved? Or should he take the Sherriff Taylor approach and just let it stay under the rug?
Scripture does speak to this:
Whoever covers an offense seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates close friends. (Proverbs 17:9 ESV)
Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11 ESV)
I love the way Jon Bloom summarizes this. He says, “Some cover-ups are lies and some cover-ups are love. It depends on who’s doing the covering.” Love will seek to cover up the offenses of others. In this instance, Barney was not being loving by “going by the book” and trying to resolve a conflict that had already been covered in love.
I praise God for the renaissance of biblical church discipline. But one of the effects I’m seeing is that some pastors are “going by the book” far too much and pulling up things that have already been covered in love. Covering something with love means that we believe that Christ will make all things right. This gives us an ability to agree to disagree on some issues. We are saying that our love for one another trumps the offense and so we are willing to cover it with the rug of love—even if it is not fully resolved by repentance and full reconciliation.
When It Smells
When my daughter was younger, she had a tendency to sneak into the fridge and pull out pieces of lunch meat. Understandably, she’d get bored with eating the lunch meat and decide to “save it for later”. That would consist of her burying it somewhere in her bed or under the couch cushions. If we didn’t stay on top of these things we’d have a little bit of an odor in a couple of days.
In other words, there are some things which smell too badly to be put under a rug. An offense isn’t truly covered if it has negatively impacted your relationship with someone. Likewise, if it is something which has caused dishonor to the Lord it will not be able to stay under the rug for long. Eventually you’ll have to look under the rug and get rid of the smelly offense.
So how does a pastor know if an offense should be brought out from under the rug or it should simply stay covered? Here’s are a few diagnostic questions I’ve come up with:
1. Is the offended party the one who did the covering? If not, then it might be more like a cover-up than covering something with love. Many churches have gotten in trouble with this by trying to “protect the church” they’ve not protected an offended person. The right/privilege is on the offended to do the covering.
2. Is it really covered? Did the person simply say that they had covered it in love but in reality it is still impacting their relationships? If it isn’t really covered then it needs to be dealt with. My job as a pastor is to counsel the whole Word of God to folks. In doing this at times we’ll see that some sins aren’t actually covered. In these times we have to walk through what isn’t covered. But its not my responsibility to go digging up old “case files” and making sure that people have righted every wrong. If it’s covered it should stay that way.
3. Is it starting to stink up the joint? When the check engine light starts blinking you look under the hood. There are times when these diagnostic lights will alert the pastor to the fact that something is amiss under the hood. Usually you will find that there is something that has been swept under the rug that should have been dealt with. If this is the case you can’t keep it covered—it’ll keep stinking up the joint. It isn’t going away. No matter how painful you need to wisely and lovingly deal with it. Everything will smell better after you do.
So what do you do when you stumble upon a few “open-case files”?