6-21-09 Sermon #3 in the Making Church Series
There was this guy, Joseph, who heard what Jesus’ followers were saying and took it to heart.
There was this other guy, Ananias, who heard what Jesus’ followers were saying ....saw what Joseph did...Ananias saw Joseph’ visible reward, his new name, Barnabas ( or son of encouragement). What a role model! Everyone wanted to be transformed like Barnabas.
This story is about what happens when we try to follow role models,
We either become children of encouragement or victims of fear.
When we are truly encouraged, we are open to transformation.
Authentic community creates safe places for addressing fear and working through our experiences and issues. That’s what healthy families do, isn’t it?
They make places where a child can say to her father, “Daddy, I’m afraid of the dark…”
What do we need each other for anyway?
It is one of the strangest quirks of western human character that we seem naturally determined to “go it alone,” until something, a force of nature, a relationship disaster, a bad day starts to crumble the walls of our life (What was that song, and the walls start tumbling, tumbling…)
Gordon Cosby often remembers when he experienced those crumbling walls during the last days of WWII. When men are involved intensively in a common danger and do not know whether they will be around the next night, let alone the next week, they move with directness to satisfy human need to be heard and to be known. Even gruff and untutored men listened without judgement and treated with tenderness each other's stories. Deep bonds of friendship were forged. (Elizabeth O’Connor, Servant Leaders,Servant Structures, p. 8)
But most days we act as though we shouldn’t depend on each other unless a catastrophe absolutely demands it, an ice storm, an accident, a terrible end to a relationship, a devastating mental illness…….(you can fill in the blanks, can’t you?) and even then, we often recede from the other’s space of pain as we have so thoroughly trained ourselves to.
Jesus said, it oughtn’t to be so. Come along with me....any time, don’t wait for disaster. Learn to share your lives, share my life in yours.
When the Church of the Savior in Washington D.C. bought a building for their Servant Leadership School, locating themselves in what was then one of the most squalid neighborhoods of the city, an artist among them placed a lifesize statute of a figure, the teaching Christ, on the sidewalk out in front.
ON the sidewalk. Elizabeth O’Connor remembers,
When Jimilu was placing this new figure of the teaching Christ in our ghetto street, {a companion piece to the figure of the Servant Christ across the street in front of our medical facility for homeless men], she was aware that
passersby averted their eyes as though art was not something intended for them. Finally a woman stopped and asked, “How long is he going to be
here?”
“Oh, he’s going to live here,” Jimilu replied. “He is here to stay.”
“Well, then,” said the woman, “I will take a look.” (SLSS, intro).
Earlier this year we did a worship exercise prayerfully exploring what quality of Christ we hoped would develop in us. some of the responses were:
Unconditional love
Kindness to those in need
Love of everyone regardless of race, sex, ability, age, etc…
Patience (3)
Understanding (2)
Faithfulness
How do we get there from here???
Maybe some of us are reluctant to draw apart and learn from Jesus with each other because we’re stuck in the 60s. We’ve gotten a picture in our minds of a never ending, naval gazing “kum-by-yah” circle. Put your hands together and twiddle your thumbs.
We tend to be action oriented people. And we can get there from here.
Some of us may be reluctant to try this type of learning, growing fellowship because we know the goal of perfect human community is so very, very far beyond our reach. I love what Jean Vanier said about this as he worked through learning to live with developmentally different adults.
Stop wasting time running after the perfect community. Live your life fully in your community today. Stop seeing the flaws---and thank God there are some! Look rather at your own defects and know that you are forgiven and can, in your turn, forgive others and today enter into the conversion of love, and remember, pray always. Jean Vanier, Community and Growth
So, How do we get there from here?
Jesus models the creation of small groups of folks who trust each other to help us hear the quiet voice of God: guiding us, constructing relationships that help us change, become more like Christ, overcome the obstacles in ourselves that hold us back and keep us from growing into the full stature of Christ. (SLSS p. 24).
Groups who learn to:
-Pray together, listening
-Talk honestly with each other about our lives.
-Be there for each other, on a regular, weekly basis, and in between-to walk, talk, occasionally eat together. We do this with co-workers, we do this with friends, why should we not do this together with our sisters or brothers in Christ? .
Can you imagine trying to do this with all the people in an entire church?
It sounds exhausting, terrifying,
A group of a few will do, 12 at the most. (That was as many as Jesus could handle!)
Think right now of 2 others you can imagine sharing your journey with in an honest and trusting way. __________________________
Think right now of what you might ask another about the faith journey.
______________
Think right now about what you need others to help challenge you to do?
_____________
What prevents us? I suspect it is reluctance to be formed in the image of a Christ we can’t quite see. A man who we’ve come to think of as simplistic rather than simple, as a loser rather than a winner, as irrelevant –or at best a curiosity, rather than the center of our very being.
What prevents us? It’s hard to present ourselves as anything less than perfect, to be really authentic with our strengths and weaknesses. It hard to be human. But it's who we are. And It's who God loves toward the perfection that only God can create.
When Jesus gave his big sermon, the first words out of his mouth were: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There are a number of ways to translate "poor in spirit," but on an intellectual level, the best translation is "confused."
Blessed are the confused. If you ask why Jesus might have said that, then I must point out to you that confusion leads to a search for clarification and with that search comes a great deal of learning. For an old idea to die and a new and better idea to take place, we have to go through periods of confusion. It is uncomfortable, sometimes painful to be in such periods. Nonetheless it is blessed because when we are in them, we are open to the new, we are looking, we are growing.
And so it is that Jesus said, "Blessed are the confused." Virtually all of the evil in this world is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they're doing. It is not committed by people who think of themselves as confused. It is not committed by the poor in spirit. -M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled
As we continue to think and pray about who we are becoming, may you find partners in the authentic journey with Christ.
