August 23, 2015
Texts:
John 15:12-17
Romans 12:4-5
Hebrews 10: 24-25
Ps 133
Recently in our Bread of Life church we held a School of Christian living class. It was a survey class working with topics such as Prayer, Call, Money, Power, and Community.
I was most fascinated by our class on community, and that is the theme of my sharing this morning.
In our class we worked with the question, "What does it mean to belong to one another in Christian community and what has been our own personal experience with it."
I was particularly intrigued by the responses of Markus Larsson, who grew up in the countryside of Sweden, and Djaloki Dessables who grew up in Haiti.
Sweden and Haiti are very different cultures.
Markus shared that if you met someone walking along the road in the countryside of Sweden, the most respectful thing you can do is to look down and not to speak. Swedes value their privacy.
Djaloki smiled and said that when you meet someone walking along the road in Haiti the most disrespectful thing you can do is not to speak. You would never think about not stopping and talking, maybe even following them to their home and spending time talking with family and community members. Haitians value relationships.
Relationships are much more important than efficiency, privacy or personal agendas.
René Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am," which is one of the basic tenets of Western rationalism and individualism (not in the sense of "selfishness, but in the sense that humanity is a collection of individuals and that communities are produced by individuals coming together).
In the South African Bantu language, the concept of Ubuntu (often mentioned by Nelson Mandela and Rev Desmond Tutu) states: "We belong, therefore we are."
This is one of the basic tenets of the African sense of community: humanity is a collection of communities (not individuals). Individuals exist because of, and thanks to, their communities, not the other way around. It is the community that produces, and hence defines its individuals. A human cannot survive alone by herself or himself.
Djaloki said that in Ayiti, in order to ask someone where they are from, people say: "Ki kotè ou moun?" which means: "Where are you a human?" Isn't that a great question? Where are you human?
"I think, therefore I am" ---- "We belong, therefore we are"
We all had a good laugh and agreed that both cultural expressions were "right" and needed and that both communities could learn from one another.
The different experiences and perspectives on community from our sharing in class that night got me to thinking:
"What does it mean to belong to Bread of Life Church?""What does it mean to belong to one another in our little Christian Community and how do we live it out?"
Early Christians were known as People of the Way. They were recognized for their love of neighbor, fellowship in the breaking of bread and their commitment to follow the life and practice of Jesus. Paul confessed to worshiping God according to the Way (Acts 24:14).
What I am going to share today is what I believe to be qualities and commitments to taking part in an authentic Christian community. It is not exhaustive list and it is okay if you disagree or want to add to the list. My hope is that what I share will encourage you to reflect and consider what it means to belong to one another here at 8th Day.
Let me start with a quote from our dear Gordon from a sermon Feb 2000.
"Of course there are no ideal Christian communities, they just don't exist. But even though there are no ideal Christian communities and even though being in one is the most difficult of all tasks, being in Christian community is the most important of all tasks in the world."
At another time I heard Gordon say that Christian community is a group of people collapsing into God and collapsing into each other.
I don't particularly like the image of collapsing, and I certainly don't like the idea of others knowing my collapsible parts, the places where I struggle, and where I am most vulnerable.
I remember my first School of Christian Living class in 1988; we met on the 4th floor of Christ House. Gordon had us reading Search for Silence by Betty O'Connor. The first assignment was to write about our shadow side. I remember thinking, "Are you kidding me? Who do you think I am, Darth Vader? You want me to talk about the shadow side, my Dark side? I don't want to do that … Wouldn't you rather know how wonderful I am?"
What made the difference for me and got me to take the assignment seriously was the safe atmosphere that Gordon and others in the class created. It was a safe place. I learned a lot in the class about myself and can see now (after 25 years of sharing my struggles with others) that it has been those moments where I have felt safe enough to share my brokenness that have allowed for my healing and growth.
We need to cultivate a community where we feel safe enough to collapse into one another; a place where we commit to one another to be honest and open and to being deeply known; a place where our honesty and openness will be met not with hostility, but with care and understanding. I have also learned a lot from the 12-step groups. I love the sayings, "We will love you until you can love yourself," and "We are as sick as our secrets."
We cannot be in community and pretend. If you want to be a saint, do not do community. To be in a community is to become vulnerable; it is to say "I need your love, I need your help;" it is a place where we are not ashamed to say "I need you."
Community is a place of confession. At Bread of Life Church, the community becomes the High Priest, if you will. We confess one to another. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. (James 5:16)
Community is a safe place to be honest and known, a place of confession.
If we are going to be committed to honesty and to being deeply known, then we must be committed to Forgiveness.
Carlo Carretto (Little Brothers of Jesus) writes,
"The number of people who have fled the church because it is too patient and compassionate is small, tiny- The number who have fled because they find it too unforgiving is tragic."
God calls us to a counter-cultural lifestyle of forgiveness in a world that demands an eye for an eye.
I have always been fascinated with the Amish. They don't teach their children about forgiveness in a formal way. They don't have a curriculum on forgiveness. Amish children see their parents forgiving or extending forgiveness—that is how they learn. The Lord's Prayer is one of the first things that an Amish child memorizes and learns to recite. They hear Jesus say forgive 70x7. But no formal curriculum.
On Oct 7th 2006, in PA's Lancaster County, Charles Roberts, a 32-year-old very troubled milk driver put the Amish belief in forgiveness to the ultimate test. In a tiny schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, he opened fire killing five Amish girls and wounding five others.
As the families began to recover from the horror of the mass killing, they said, "You know we need to go over to the Roberts family and make sure they know we're forgiving them."
It was not a matter of rational decision-making. It was more habitual. It's woven into the fabric of the culture and community. It is woven into the fabric of the faith. This is what you do.
The one element that enabled the Amish to forgive was the strength of their community. They did not need to defend themselves individually; they did not need to retaliate; retribution is not part of their vocabulary. It was the community that helped them absorb the hatred. The community support helped them deal with the grief and anger.
They did decide to tear down the school; they knew they could not send their kids back there. But while the school is gone, the memory of that day and the challenge to forgive remains. It is not something you do once and then it is done.
They told a NYT reporter that they have to work at forgiveness everyday. Every morning they wake up: all the emotions are there, from anger to grief, to pain. And they have to start over everyday, but the community helps them absorb the pain.
Forgiveness is woven into the fabric of their faith.
If we are going to be committed to forgiveness and absorbing each other's pain, we must be committed to a life of prayer.
I don't believe there is any way that we can be in an authentic Christian community for very long without an ongoing prayer life. We must stay connected to God, to the vine. It is from that communion with God that we offer ourselves to the community.
At Bread of Life, we commit to one hour a day of prayer, praying that God's WILL will be done in our church and in each other's lives. I don't know what is right for Kim or Terry or Jim or Markus. What I can do is bring them before God each day, praying that God's WILL will be done in their lives and in the lives of their families.
Not only are we committed to praying for each other, but we are also committed to the prayer of silence. Many of us use the Centering Prayer method. It is not doing prayer, but letting prayer do you. It is believing that God can work with us beyond our thoughts, words, and emotions. You have probably been told by a parent or grandparent, "Don't just sit there, do something." This is the opposite. “Don't just do something, sit there.”
We must also be committed to patience with one another.
I don't know about you, but I have noticed how less patient I can be with others' transformation, than my own. (Come on, get on with it, geez, still sharing about that…)
My timing is not God's timing. People may need a lot of time to work through their pain. The pain is always deeper than we think. My impatience is the problem.
Christian community is a place that allows our gifts to grow and takes with utter seriousness the responsibility of helping others find their gifts and calling that will be lived out within the mission group, Church, and the world.
Church must be a place of encouragement.
Authentic Christian community is a place to be on mission, a specific outward calling to mission together. The mission groups that I have been in that have not been fruitful have always been the ones that did not have a specific outward calling. You are called to the mission, not the people.
Christian community is not the same as a best friend. We choose our friends; God chooses our community. You may become a part of people's lives that you may not have chosen to be with. And at times God calls the strangest groups.
I remember one person early on who said he felt God calling him to our church. I was the early 90s, and I remember thinking (not so lovingly, I might add) "dang I don't like this person, he rubs me the wrong way." He was probably a lot like me and I was projecting on to him. He felt called, anyway and who was I to say he wasn't? I ended up being the best man in his wedding and we are dear friends to this day.
In a community everyone is different, but the difference is not a threat, it is a treasure.
"Community is finding the right distance with people."
Some of us fall on the Swedish side, some on the Haitian side, and we need to respect those differences.
It is also important for me to be with people who do not take themselves so seriously. I don't trust a spirituality that does not have a sense of humor. As we hold the pain of the world, we must also hold and claim the joy and goodness in the world and in each other.
It is not easy to hold these two at the same time, but to me that is what the spiritual life is all about.
I can't imagine trying to be the person I want to be, faithful to the way of Jesus, without people around me who are dedicated to, and desirous of, this kind of life together, this kind of freedom. I know I will not make it. The pull of the culture around me is just too strong.
A word about the disciplines/commitments/practices: This is tricky. I have not found a way to explain to others about our shared disciplines that does not come off sounding like a legalistic set of rules. So I want to share from Walter Brueggemann. He asks the question: What do you think we can learn from the Torah tradition? All that comes to mind are lists of rules and regulations? And he answers:
The Torah is the basis of the largest vision of a just human condition. The Ten Commandments are guidelines for how to maintain a human society. Now the other side of the Torah, which seems to be where your objection lies, is the discipline set out in the Torah by which the Israelites are to maintain their unique identity. Remember the great threat to Judaism was always assimilation. So the question for them was, “What daily disciplines do we need to keep from assimilating?” They settled on such things as circumcisions, Sabbath, kosher kitchens, and prayer tassels.
Those particular disciplines are not for me. But I do believe that assimilation into a consumer economy is the greatest threat to Christianity, so that from Torah, Christians can learn to ask, “What are the daily disciplines that will maintain our identity?” As soon as you talk about daily disciplines, you are inevitably coming very close to legalism because you’re saying this is what you’ve got to do whether or not you understand it, like it, or feel like doing it—you’ve got to do it every day to remember who you are.
Walter Brueggemann
Like Fire In the Bones, p. 208
So my list:
- a safe place where we can be honest,
- a place to be really known,
- a place where we can confess one to another,
- a place of forgiveness,
- a place that absorbs the pain of others,
- patience,
- a place committed to prayer, of evoking and sharing of gifts, of encouragement, of joy and of claiming the goodness of God and the goodness of each other.
This is of course, "preaching to the limit of my vision" as they say. I have a long way to go in each area.
So I will leave you with the question we worked with in our Bread of Life School of Christian Living:
What does it mean to belong to one another in Christian community? What does it mean to belong to 8th Day Church?
Amen