Who's on First?

See "Who's on First" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sShMA85pv8M

The advent of Major League Baseball’s opening day demands a revisit to the classic Abbott and Costello routine. “Who’s on First?” still elicits guffaws generations after its debut.

The signature line from this classic piece of slapstick is the subject of this essay, and the theme is not baseball. The theme is about politics and churches, and particularly about politics in churches. Churches seem to split all the time and lots of reasons can account for that, sometimes doctrinal and sometimes not. To an outsider it is particularly curious when a church splits and both resulting congregations seem to retain virtually identical doctrines. That makes both of them look a little small in the eyes of the world, and maybe the eyes of the world are getting it right.

Having seen a number of splits firsthand, I can tell you that the wisdom of Abbott and Costello is a big part of the answer.

Who’s on first? Asking that question is a common human affliction and can almost become an obsession. Everybody wants to be on first. The disciples wanted to know who would be first in the kingdom of God. They all wanted to know who would be seated at Jesus’ right hand and left. Absalom, one of the wayward sons of King David, wandered around Jerusalem lamenting how if only he were king the people would be so much better off. He wanted to be first, and he wanted it so badly he was willing to foment a revolution over it.

As with the disciples and every generation before and after, churches that can be so very similar separate from each other and antagonize each other over the simple question of who’s in charge – “Who’s on first,” as it were.

One time I talked to a lady who was a part of a church split, and she was ecstatic about it. If memory serves, this split was of a Methodist church in a smaller city. But they split because they had a better understanding of Who’s on first than some of the church splits in my experience. The church was a growing church. They were a fast growing church.

Then they split.

But they split not over doctrine, not over politics, and not over who was in charge. They split because it was better to have two moderate-sized congregations on different sides of town than one large one on one side of town. Splitting enabled them to better serve the community. That’s the kind of split I would like to see more of.

And it worked because they know Who is on first.