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2008-04-01 issue:

Someone wise enough to judge

Is it time for a Mennonite ombuds-team?

by David A. Shank

Print Article

In the dynamics of the early church at Corinth, failures were appearing in what was not yet a clear system. People who had been made just before God through faith in the Messiah Jesus, were accusing each other of injustices and taking their cases to civil courts presided by ungodly judges who were typically guilty of rendering decisions according to human law—and the highest bidder.

So the Apostle Paul intervened by letter (1 Corinthians 6) with his own critique of what was going on. For him, the Christian believers—as far as rendering justice is concerned—were much more highly qualified than such judges, or even the angels. Paul understands Christians to have an understanding of justice—through the cross—that these others do not share.

Hence Christians are more qualified to judge the things of this life, even though these are trivial compared to God’s work in Christ that makes them just. “Is it possible that there is no one among you wise enough to judge disputes between believers?” asked Paul. “Appoint judges,” he wrote. Those justified by faith in Christ’s grace and compassion through the cross are to render such justice among themselves, where the message of the cross is at the heart of things. In that context, he could even ask in the light of the cross of Jesus, “Why not rather be wronged?”

This early congregational context knew nothing of intercongregational situations or of today’s broad-ranging institutions, organized in the world, with governmental or other secular requirements for employers with employees. For Mennonites, this has been a slow evolution, under many different initiatives, starting with primary schools, missions, children’s homes, homes for the aged, colleges, publishing houses, hospitals, high schools, service for peace, psychiatric care, care of the socially challenged, programs of social and economic development. They have often started along the familial pattern of brothers and sisters in Christ working together, then evolved into a more or less typical corporation operated by Christians.

It’s a remarkable networking system of the Mennonite church projected into action, extended and structured through many autonomous but often interrelated institutions—all working at fulfilling necessary Christian vocations through this particular system. Often it has meant employing non-Mennonites, even non-Christians. It is Mennonite-initiated and organized, and—in some sense, in some contexts—more or less overseen through various church boards, yet it is not “the church” as such. It acts like a business, not the church. It runs like a corporation, not the church. Yet these are all spin-offs of “the church” in the world, for the sake of the world and the witness of the church and are often confused with the church, which is congregational, confessional and familial, with its own organizations, structures, disciplines, commissions, boards and patterns of interrelating congregations. Yet when injustice and unfairness are experienced in one of those multifarious institutions, it is perceived as coming from the church.

In the world there is hiring and development of staff and employees, with structural and financial hierarchies, varied institutional disciplines, competition for jobs, and contracts—with wages, vacations, sick leaves, dismissals, terminations and firings, insurance and retirement policies. Is this the church or parachurch? Are these the institutions of the church, church-inspired institutions or just church-related?

Inevitable misunderstandings, disputes and conflicts, clashes and disagreements arise between the institution as employer and the gifted or qualified employee about understandings, interpretations, applications, sanctions and rewards. The heavy, decisive weight of the Christian institution over against the defenseless, solitary individual without the solidarity of a labor union may create permanent, unresolved, leftover, dangling resentments and anger against the Mennonite church as experienced through this larger system. Some of these leftovers are found among people still within the church; others—with their families—are outside, looking in at what “the church” did to them.

Are there not among Mennonites such professional mediators, people trained in conflict resolution or specialized lawyers committed to our church’s vision and understandings who could be officially designated Mennonite purveyors of compassionate justice in our current system? Such people in secular life who investigate complaints and mediate fair settlements, especially between aggrieved parties such as consumers or students and an institution or organization, are given the Swedish name Ombudsman—“a trusted agent of justice.” When one’s situation is seen as falling through the cracks of the system, one can always appeal to the Ombudsman; she is there because the system recognizes that by definition such situations happen and call for fair treatment. When the system fails, there is someone there to intervene.

In some circumstances this has already happened. But what about the possibility of, say, a permanent Mennonite Ombuds-Team (MOT) of three people designated officially to operate within our system with all its imperfections?

The suggestion raises two obvious questions: How would such a service be created? How would it work? Here is one possible scenario, among several. The Mennonite Church USA Executive Board could ask the Constituency Leaders Council to elect three people (each with more than half the CLC’s affirmation) who would be named judges on MOT—the Mennonite Church USA’s Mennonite Ombuds-Team.

How would it work? The Peace and Justice Support Network [PJSN] could organize and administer the services of MOT, determining patterns for relating appeals to MOT from individuals or institutions. Either among the latter would be free to submit appeals up to perhaps 20 years after the incident, and both would be committed before-hand—as a part of a larger Mennonite network—to accept the majority judgments of MOT. The emerging body of experience would be an important teacher and would help PJSN monitor emerging patterns of practice.

Let’s look at a fictional illustration. A woman who is no longer a “practicing Mennonite” was dismissed 10 years ago by a Mennonite institution that claimed a lack of resources.

Presumably for the same reasons, she was not given resources for a year’s leave she had earned during more than 10 years of service, according to the institution’s written policy when she was hired [“called by Christ”]. To survive, after dismissal, she was forced to use up her earned retirement funds. With time and aging, the nonexistence of those funds now threatens her. Since the institution is now thriving, why should she not be given retrospectively the resources with interest for a year’s earned leave that she never received 10 years ago? It would permit her to invest some equity for retirement. If MOT existed, she could take her case to MOT, and the case would be closed by designated Mennonite judges. Now she just has serious questions about Mennonite Church USA’s system and wonders about its calls for peace and justice.

The Russian Communist regime, it was reported, was so certain of its system of justice for all that it actually punished Christian congregations that cared spontaneously for needy people who “fell between the cracks” in the system. Such caring exposed the failure of the system.

As part of four generations of family relationships with “Mennonite institutions” I don’t think our evolved system has come to this, though the claims for its intentions are high, yet murmurs of anger and resentment do emerge now and then.

Such murmurs call for the recognition of failures and the need for a permanent, three-person council of wise and just judges—a Mennonite Ombuds-Team available to provide a wholesome settlement and a just peace between people and institutions left at odds? We seek justice and peace in Christ within our system, then to share out of that experience in the world. MOT would be a permanent service organ of Mennonite Church USA that officially acknowledges failures in our midst and seeks to overcome them with justice and peace.

David A. Shank is a member of Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship, Goshen, Ind.

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Additional Notes

David A. Shank is a member of Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship, Goshen, Ind.

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