jumping in with both feet: Christian community

from my sermon on 1/22/12 from Romans 12:4-8


S'more's....you know what I am talking about? You can find a recipe for them on a box of Graham crackers ( I read all of the world's great literature). You take a graham cracker. You put a Hershey's chocolate bar on that (I don't know why it has to be a Hershey's bar but that's the recipe). You melt a marshmellow over a campfire ( if you don't have a campfire, a microwave will work). You put that on the chocolate bar and finish it off with another graham cracker on top. You smush that all together, and it is a s'more. Now I like graham crackers all by themselves. I like Hershey's chocolate bars all by themselves. I like marshmellows all by themselves. But they are really good when put together. They are each good individually, but they are better together. So are we! There's s'more to us when we get all put together.

The passage from Romans says, so we though we are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. The phrase one another or each other is used 50 times in the New Testament to talk about Christian community. YOu think it is a pretty important topic? Yes. Join with me in litany. Each time I point to you, say "one another." Here are a few:

Confess your sins to ONE ANOTHER
Do not grumble against ONE ANOTHER
Live in harmony with ONE ANOTHER
Don't be puffed up against ONE ANOTHER
Admonish ONE ANOTHER
Pray for ONE ANOTHER
Love ONE ANOTHER
Fellowship with ONE ANOTHER
Accept ONE ANOTHER
Fellowship with ONE ANOTHER
Accept ONE ANOTHER
Depend on ONE ANOTHER

We are in the 3 week of a 6 week sermon series on the Treasures of the Transformed Life. Today the focus is on Christian community: Jumping in with both feet. Didn't the youth do a great job with the skit. We sometimes are afraid to invite someone to join us in the pool. We sometimes are afraid to respond to an invitation. We think that we are just making a commitment to Christ, but really He is making a commitment to us, to show up in our midst, when we gather in His name, looking out for ONE ANOTHER. Christ meets us wherever 2 or 3 gather in His name.

Which leads me to my haircut. Did you notice? Did you even know I have hair? So we had some neighbors move in across the street. We will call them Julio and Holly, not their real names. We did the friendly neighbor thing, taking over a lemon pie and our business cards with telephone numbers on them. Now my card says pastor of Westlake UMC on it. But you need to know that I am real reluctant to push my faith on other people, especially neighbors. I am afraid that I will turn someone against the Christian faith. I am overly sensitive in this area. I know I am the only who feels this way! So in meeting our neighbors, Julio mentions he works as a respiratory therapist, and Holly cuts hair from home. So what happens next is that the Disciple Bible Study lesson last week challenges us to go beyond our comfort zone to reach out to persons and situations where we feel uncomfortable. I made the commitment to get to know my neighbors. So sure enough, on Wednesday, Julio and I find ourselves at the mail box at the same time. I asked him about his wife cutting my hair. We got it set up for Friday at 10 a.m. So there is a point to this story. On Friday, I sit in their dining room looking at a wall of crosses. This is not going to be that hard, I say to myself. As Holly gets out her equipment, she immediately starts to talk about her faith. She told me about growing up in Bertram, TX, and being part of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. I know that church, I say, because my grandmother used to be a member there. And here's the point: she said when I went back there for Christmas Eve service, it took me 10 minutes to sit down. One by one, these older men and women came up to me and hugged me. Not once did they use that accusing voice, "Where have you been?" Each one of them said, "Remember me, I taught you in 3rd grade Sunday School." They asked how I was doing. They said, it is good to see you.

This is what we are thirsty for: Christian community, to be known, to be loved, to be prayed for. We live in a culture of rugged individualism, of self-made people.....but also tremendous loneliness. This is not God's intent for us. The gift is that we were made for One Another, for Christian community.

I have 2 confessions to make now. The first is I have often offered less to people than true Christian community. I will illustrate. Are you a member of a club? Service club like Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, Optimists? Are you a member of AAA, or AARP? Are you a member of a fitness club or a country club? Sometimes, I have offered people only being a member of the church, like it was simply another club, maybe one with even less expectations that these other ones. In my reading this past week the following struck me: not once in the New Testament does it ever use the words "church member." We have another metaphor: being a member of the body of Christ. This is what people really are thirsty for, not just a congregation or a denomination, but a relationship with Christ. They want to be a part of a larger purpose, something lasting, life-changing.

Which leads to what happened last Sunday. We have a new movement in this congregation called the Point. Sometimes they gather on Sunday night for worship called Point Praise. Sometimes they go out to serve called Point in the World. Last Sunday while we were in here, they were sorting clothes in our clothes closet. In the afternoon, they distributed some 500 - 600 articles of clothing to the homeless at Church under the Bridge. Here's the punch line 20 of the 29 persons who passed out the clothing had had no prior association with our congregation. Pastor Jim and Tonya Creamer had posted on an internet site our movement, and 20 people, families with children said that they wanted to be part of something like that. People want to belong to something that matters in the world. They want to use their spiritual gifts, remember that list from Romans, about giving, serving, teaching, healing.....they want to use them for the betterment of the world. I remind you that when the Bible says "Body of Christ," it is code language for the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. We enact, we carrying on his ministry. We love, we live, we sacrifice, we bring hope, we offer holiness like He did.

I have a 2nd confession. The body of Christ is much larger than this congregation, or this denomination. Sometimes I have not acted this way. We join with members of St. John Neuman across the street, St. Michael's Episcopal, Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran, Westlake Pres., Austin Ridge, Lake Hills, Promiseland West, and many more to become the Body of Christ. I confess our divisions and competitiveness. Even United Methodists aren't United. In my book on American Christianity, there are more than 20 denominations that have Methodist or Wesleyan in their names. I live out this fragmentation sometimes when I am typing, and instead of United Methodist it comes out Untied Methodist.

Sometimes we get it right, about Christian community. Fred Craddock tells the story of his hardest convert, his dad. His father had a drinking problem, which means he had an anger problem, which means he had a problem keeping a job. In country talk, it was a hard scrabble life. His mother kept the family together. Going to church was a part of the coping. Fred loved it, the stories, the fellowship, the caring. His dad didn't go. When Fred would ask him why, his dad would say, "all those church people care about is getting your name on the roll and getting your money." Fred went on to become a pastor in the Disciples of Christ Church, and a seminary professor. He continued to invite his dad to life of faith. You know his father's response: all those church people care about is getting your name on the roll and getting your money. At the end of his father's life, Fred went to see him, all 73 lbs. in a VA hospital. His dad couldn't talk because of mouth/throat cancer. All he could do is write his responses. The room was full of cards and flowers. His dad wrote that church people had come by. They would visit. They would sit quietly. They brought food. They brought prayers. They brought hope. They brought no judgment. When Fred asked his dad about the church, his dad wrote, "Tell people I was wrong!"

We were made for community, for one another.