Community:
A Genuine Respect For Each Other

Galatians:
Biblical scholars remind us that many of Jesus’ teachings are given to help each of us discover the unique, loved, child of God we all are. As exciting and affirming as Jesus’ teachings are for all who hear them, they challenge the conventional wisdom of his day. They are teachings that introduce to his hearers the kingdom of God, and what life would look like if God’s hopes and dreams for creation were fully realized and fully lived in our relationships with each other. The Apostle Paul’s teachings, such as the one we are about to read, are more directed to helping this new movement called the church, understand how they become a kingdom of God community that respects and honors each person as a child of God. There is no nationalism, there is no social hierarchy, there are no glass ceilings for pay and opportunity. Paul is constantly trying to help this fledgling and often times floundering movement to become the church, the community of Jesus Christ in its fullest sense of being kingdom builders for God.

Read Galatians 3:23-28

Luke:
One of the most affective ways Jesus taught his followers about the kingdom of God was through parables, short stories that help us still today capture a new understanding about our lives. Parables are often about very common life experiences or they utilize things familiar to the everyday lives of the people who are listening. Often, teachers told parables without giving an interpretation, letting the hearers ponder what they heard and drawing their own inferences from the story. Yet, scripture, at times, has Jesus giving an interpretation helping us to receive the specific teaching he wants the listener to hear, but that has, at times, caused us to miss other meanings or broader understandings the stories have to offer us. The parable you are about to hear is one of these stories that we are familiar with, and is usually read in light of the interpretation Jesus shares. Today, the interpretation is intentionally not being read so we may look at how it is a story that can help us understand our lives and relationships in differing ways. To help us understand what Paul is teaching us about being the community called the church, the family of God.

Read Luke 8:4-8

Sermon:

What does it mean to be the church? What is our purpose? What is our reason to be? Why do we gather? My suspicion is that if we each answered these questions we would have a myriad of different answers. For some of us, worship is a time to come from lives that can be overwhelming and find a word of hope. For others, we come from places where our lives seem afloat and rudderless, and we hope to receive some words of guidance and direction. In a prior church, I had a man who would never miss worship. He was about 90 years old, could not hear a thing. But he would sit through the service patiently, until the closing hymn when he would then recess to the narthex ahead of everyone else, and secure his position by the coffee pot so he could talk with every person who poured themselves a cup of coffee. He would stay until everyone had left for home. His sacred time was the gathering after the worship service, where he had his time of community in a week that was normally lonely and often spent mostly alone. So our questions have no easy, simple answers.

But I believe there is something that this time of gathering and being the church depends upon, no matter what the reason we gather. And I would like to utilize the parable of “The Sower and The Ground” to illustrate what I mean. Jesus, in his interpretation, likens the sower’s seed to the word of God. Today, I would ask that you see the sower as casting seeds of community, and that the growth of real community depends upon the ground, the receptivity we bring to our times of gathering which allows that community to grow between us.

I often hear people say that we need to be careful about the topics and issues we talk about or the things we do, because we do not want to offend anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings. What that usually means is, we must make sure we do not address any controversial issues, or address anything that may have differing opinions, or wide breadths of thought. It seems to me that if this is how we approach community we may never find it. To use the parable, the seeds will land on ground that never lets real community take root. We will keep our thoughts and discussions at a level that never allows us to hear the deeper hopes and dreams of others. We may never be exposed to kingdom issues that help us move closer and grow in our quest to become more Christ-like, enabling us to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

To keep our relationship with each other at this safer level does not prevent us from experiencing some special and important moments we associate with community. We know when someone is sick or has experienced a death in their family the church rallies and supports them. It is the seed growing in the rocky or shallow ground. It takes root and grows, but it does not last. After we have shown our care by praying and bringing food, and sending our cards, maybe giving rides to the doctor the relationship returns to the status quo. We shared in an important moment that let people know they are cared about, but then our relationship returns to what it has been. Counselors tell us that often it takes a crisis for us to enter community even if it is for a short while. My experience is people want to show this care and concern, it is an innate part of who we are, but we are not always clear how to do it. So when a crisis happens, we have at least some understanding of things we can do to show a relationship of compassion and concern. But the question remains how do we move, how do we plant seeds that grow and sustain real community?

I believe the ground that grows real community and deep relationships in our personal lives is ground that consists of commitment and respect for each other. Scott Peck, in his book, The Road Less Traveled, talks about how commitment to another is the key to a deep, healthy relationship. He shares his thoughts reflecting more about the one on one relationships we have, but I believe the insights hold true for what it means to be the church, a community of faith. Peck states, “Commitment is the bedrock of any genuinely loving relationship. . .Anyone who is truly concerned about the spiritual growth of another knows that constancy and commitment are the key to that growth. . .Couples cannot resolve in any healthy way the universal issues of marriage-dependency and independency, dominance and submission, freedom and fidelity-without the security of knowing that the act of struggling over these issues will not itself destroy the relationship.” Real community, real loving relationships allows us to talk and wrestle with each other about the deep issues that affect and impact all of our lives, whether on a personal realm or in our lives shared as a community, especially as the church.

If we do not believe we care about each other enough that even addressing the issues will destroy our relationships, our community, we will never be able to talk about what is upon our hearts. How can we wrestle with a Christian understanding of such deeply felt issues as abortion, homosexuality, war, poverty, and the environment if we are too afraid that even talking about them or asking questions will destroy our community? Please know that when I mention these issues they are not some abstract, generic societal issues beyond the realm of our gathering. Every issue I mentioned is a real part of people’s lives that are worshipping with us right now. I remember a few churches back, Nancy received a phone call from a woman in our congregation and all she could hear was deep, deep sobbing over the phone. Finally the woman was able to compose herself enough to say that she had been to a study on homosexuality, and she learned that homosexuals were going to hell. Then the real crux came, “Do you believe my son is going to hell?” Friends, we need to talk, we need to trust each other, we need to know we are committed to each other in love, so we can share our deepest thoughts, our most intimate cares and concerns and know it will not destroy our relationships, to know we will still be able to love each other no matter what and be there for hugs and support when we need them the most. Then we will be a kingdom of God community.

I have shared with you before my favorite definition for preaching. “Preaching is allowing others to overhear your prayers.” It is sharing with others your deepest, most heartfelt and intimate understandings of God and who God asks us to be. I share this, as I believe it is also the best definition for faith sharing I have ever heard. A calling we all have as followers of Jesus Christ. But to do this, we have to have a deep sense of trust in each other and a genuine sense of commitment and respect for each other.

Psychologists tell us that one of the deepest needs we all have as people is the need and desire to be understood. To be really known and then be embraced and loved by those who know us. The reality is we never feel true love and hence real community unless it is a real caring for ourselves as who we really are. If people like us as who we project ourselves to be, even if we are loved, it is not us but the image we project that is loved. And we live in our loneliness and isolation wondering if they really knew me would they still care about me?

I would share a poem written by a young woman who took a risk and went to a church seeking an answer to the void she was feeling in her life. What she found excited her, and scared her. Was it real? Or was it simply a projection that only simulated the real community she was seeking?

MAGGIE’S POEM

Do you know
do you understand
that you represent Jesus to me?
Do you know
do you understand
that when you treat me with gentleness,
it raises the question in my mind
that maybe He is gentle, too.
Maybe He isn’t someone
who laughs when I am hurt.

 
Do you know
do you understand
that when you listen to my questions
and you don’t laugh,
I think,
“What if Jesus is interested in me, too?”

 
Do you know
do you understand
that when I hear you talk honestly about arguments and conflict and scars from your past that I think, “Maybe I am just a regular person instead of a bad, no good little girl who deserves abuse.”

 
If you care, then I think maybe He cares --
and then there’s this flame of hope
that burns inside of me
and for a while I am afraid to breathe
because it might go out.
 
Do you know
do you understand
that your words are His words?
That your face
is His face
to someone like me?

 
Please be who you say you are.
Please, God, don’t let this be another trick.
Please let this be real.
Please.
 
Do you know
do you understand
that you represent Jesus to me?

To become who God created us to be as people, as the community called the church, we must be able to live our loving commitment by showing our genuine respect to each other and to all people as children of God. Let us read together who we can truly be for each other when we are able to live together in this way.

Friend

I love you not only for what you are, but for what
I am when I am with you.
I love you not only for what you have made of yourself,
but for what you help me make of myself.
I love you for the part of me that you bring out.
I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
and passing over all the foolish and frivolous and weak things
that you can't help dimly seeing,
and for drawing out all the beautiful and radiant belongings.
I love you for laying firm hold on the possibilities
of the good within me.
I love you for adding to the music in me by worshipful listening.
I love you because you are helping me to make of
the timber of my life a temple.
I love you because you have done more than any
creed could have done to make me happy.
You have done it without a touch, without a word,
without a sign.
You have done it first of all by being yourself.
After all, this is what being a friend means.

May we always live the good ground of friendship, by loving, caring and respecting each other as children of God, loved by God.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on June 17, 2007.