Nurture Each Other
When we hear the word nurture, I wonder what comes to mind first.
Maybe children.
Maybe houseplants.
Maybe pets.
Maybe sourdough starters, if you went through that particular pandemic phase.
Maybe relationships.
To nurture is to care for something or someone in a way that helps them grow, develop, and thrive. And most of us know that nurture is not a once-and-done act.
You cannot water a plant once, declare it nurtured, and then ignore it for the next six months.
You cannot feed a child one good meal, pat yourself on the back, and assume the work is done.
You cannot tell a friendship, a marriage, a congregation, or a community, “I cared about you back in 2018,” and expect that to carry everything forward forever.
Nurture is not a moment.
Nurture is a pattern, a rhythm, a discipline.
It is attention over time.
It is care that repeats.
It is support that adapts as growth happens.
It is teaching and feeding and pruning and encouraging and correcting and making room for something living to become what God created it to be.
And in the United Methodist baptismal covenant, nurture is one of the promises we make.
When children are baptized, when youth are confirmed, when adults profess faith, when new members join the church, the congregation does not simply watch from a safe distance. We do not say, “How lovely for them,” and then return to whatever we were thinking about before.
We make promises.
We promise to surround one another with a community of love and forgiveness.
We promise to pray.
We promise to teach.
We promise to live according to the example of Christ.
We promise to help one another grow in trust of God and be found faithful in service to others.
We promise to nurture one another.
And I wonder if we really think about that as one of the primary reasons we are here at Faith.
Not simply to attend worship.
Not simply to preserve a building.
Not simply to maintain programs.
Not simply to pass on the traditions we prefer.
But to nurture one another in Christ.
To help one another grow.
To become, together, the kind of people who can love boldly.
We’ve been talking about our baptismal commitments for four weeks now.
We began by remembering that baptism calls us to tell the whole truth: to renounce evil, reject the powers that distort life, and repent when our own sin participates in harm.
Then we remembered that baptism gives us freedom and power to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
Last week, we heard the call to confess Jesus Christ as Savior, put our whole trust in his grace, and serve him as Lord.
And this week, the question becomes deeply communal:
How do we nurture one another in Christian faith and life?
How do we become the kind of church where people can grow?
How do we live together in such a way that children, youth, adults, elders, newcomers, lifelong members, doubters, seekers, tired saints, and people carrying wounds all have room to become more fully alive in Christ?
That is holy work. And it is even harder than it sounds. Because people are complicated.
We bring our histories with us.
We bring our assumptions.
We bring our family systems, our politics, our habits, our griefs, our fears, our ways of managing conflict, our favorite seats, our unspoken rules, our long memories, and our tender places.
And then we try to become one body – the church.
That was true in Ephesus too.
The letter to the Ephesians is written to a community learning how to live as one body in Christ. Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus were learning how to belong to one another across real differences of history, culture, religious practice, and social expectation. So when the letter to the Ephesians references unity, it’s author is not talking about everybody already being comfortable with each other.
They are not describing a church where everyone naturally agrees.
They are not imagining a community where nobody ever irritates anybody else.
The are speaking into the messy, sacred, practical work of becoming a people whose life together is shaped by Christ.
And in today’s passage, the writer gets very direct:
“Let no one deceive you with empty words.”
“Live as children of light.”
“Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.”
“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.”
“Be careful then how you live.”
“Be filled with the Spirit.”
“Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.”
“Give thanks.”
“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
That is a lot.
And if we read this passage too quickly, we might hear it only as a list of moral warnings.
Do not be deceived.
Do not live in darkness.
Do not be foolish.
Do not get drunk.
Do not waste time.
And there are necessary warnings here. But the larger question is not simply, “What behaviors should Christians avoid?” The larger question is, “What kind of community makes life in Christ possible?”
Because nurture is not only about protecting one another from harm.
It is about helping one another grow toward love.
The writer says, “Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light.”
Notice that.
Not simply, “You used to be in darkness.”
Not simply, “You used to make bad choices.”
But, “Once you were darkness.”
And now, in the Lord, you are light.
This is identity language.
It is baptismal language.
It is the old self and the new self all over again.
It is the author saying, “You are not who you used to be. You do not belong to the old powers anymore. You are in Christ now. So live like the light you have become.”
That sounds beautiful.
It also sounds difficult.
Because most of us are not only light or darkness all the time.
Most of us know what it is to carry both.
We can be generous in one moment and petty in the next.
We can be brave in public and fearful in private.
We can speak beautifully about justice and then avoid the hard conversation right in front of us.
We can love the idea of community and still struggle with the actual people who make community possible.
This is why we need nurture.
Not because we are terrible.
Because we are still growing.
Because grace is not finished with us.
Because baptism is not the end of Christian life.
It is the beginning of a life shaped by Christ.
And that life is not meant to be lived alone.
John Wesley understood this deeply. Wesley believed Christians are going on to perfection. That can sound terrifying if perfection means flawlessness, as if the goal is to become the kind of person who never makes mistakes, never says the wrong thing, never loses patience, never needs forgiveness.
But that is not what Wesley meant. Christian perfection is not flawlessness. It is love. It is being so filled with the love of God and neighbor that love becomes the pattern of our life.
And Wesley also understood that we do not grow in love by ourselves.
Remember that there is no holiness but social holiness. We’ve talked about this.
We become holy in relationship.
We become more loving by practicing love with actual people.
We become more patient by needing patience with one another.
We become more forgiving by being part of communities where forgiveness is not theoretical.
We become more truthful by learning to speak and receive truth in love.
We become more courageous by standing near people whose courage strengthens ours.
We become more faithful because somebody else asks, “How is it with your soul?” and waits for our answer.
That is nurture.
Not church as performance.
Not church as religious customer service.
Not church as a gathering of like-minded people who happen to enjoy the same music and coffee hour snacks.
Nurture is
Church as a community of formation.
Church as the place where Christ teaches us how to live.
Church as the place where the Spirit keeps tending the roots so that love can grow.
And that brings us to the end of the passage, where the writer says, “Be filled with the Spirit.”
That is at the core. The Christian community is not nurtured by willpower alone.
We are not sustained by strategic plans alone.
We are not transformed by good intentions alone.
We are filled by the Spirit.
The Spirit sings through us.
The Spirit teaches gratitude.
The Spirit binds us together when our own preferences would pull us apart.
The Spirit gives us the capacity (somehow) to yield to one another, to make room for one another, to listen to one another, to serve one another, to change for the sake of love.
“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” the author writes
That line matters. And it has often been mishandled by the historic church. Too often, language about submission has been used to keep people small, to protect hierarchy, to sanctify abuse, or to demand silence from those who were already being harmed.
That is not nurture.
That is not love.
That is not the life of Christ.
Here the command as written is mutual: be subject to one another.
Not one group controlling another.
Not one person dominating another.
Not the powerful demanding compliance from the vulnerable.
Mutual yielding.
Mutual humility.
Mutual care.
A community where we ask, “What does love require of me for your growth?”
A church that says, “We will love one another boldly.”
Bold love makes room for growth.
Bold love asks what a person needs in order to become more fully alive in God.
Bold love welcomes the child, and then keeps making room as that child becomes a youth with questions, then a young adult with a different schedule, then an adult trying to figure out what faith looks like in the real world.
Bold love welcomes new members, and then makes room for their gifts, their voices, their leadership, their holy disruption.
Bold love honors elders, not by freezing the church in the season when they first loved it, but by receiving their wisdom as part of a living tradition that keeps bearing fruit.
Bold love does not simply say, “We are glad you are here.”
Bold love says, “Your growth matters to us. Your faith matters to us. Your questions matter to us. Your gifts matter to us. And because we belong to Christ, we belong to one another.”
That belonging is not always easy.
But it is good.
And it is necessary.
Because the world does not need the church to become another place where people are sorted into winners and losers, insiders and outsiders, useful and inconvenient, right and wrong. The world has plenty of that already.
The world needs communities where people are being formed by grace.
Communities where truth is spoken without cruelty.
Communities where accountability is practiced without shame.
Communities where forgiveness is real and therefore not cheap.
Communities where gratitude is stronger than grievance.
Communities where the Spirit is making something alive.
Communities where people learn how to love God and neighbor with heart and soul and purpose.
That is what we promised.
Not perfectly.
Not always confidently.
But with God’s help.
Maybe these are questions before us this week:
Who is being nurtured because of the way I am living my baptismal vows?
Who is growing in faith because of my presence?
Who is being encouraged by my words?
Who is being prayed for by name?
Who is being invited into belonging?
Who is learning from my example that Christian life is not only something we believe, but something we practice?
And maybe there are another set of questions that matter as well:
Where do I need nurture?
Where do I need someone to ask, “How is it with your soul?”
Where do I need correction that is honest and loving?
Where do I need encouragement?
Where do I need to let the Spirit fill the places I have been trying to manage by control, avoidance, resentment, or exhaustion?
Because none of us only gives nurture.
We need it too.
Pastors need it.
Parents need it.
Caregivers need it.
Teachers need it.
Leaders need it.
Children need it.
People who look like they have it all together need it.
People who are brand new to faith need it.
People who have been in church their whole lives need it.
We all need communities that help us grow toward love.
So this week, I want to invite us to practice one concrete act of nurture.
Not vaguely.
Not theoretically.
Choose one person.
Pray for them by name.
Encourage them in a way that is specific.
Ask a real question and listen to the answer.
Thank someone whose faithfulness usually goes unnoticed.
Invite someone into a next step.
Apologize where your words have not given light.
Make room for someone else’s gift to grow.
And then ask yourself:
What kind of church are we becoming when we practice this together?
Because this is not small.
This is how the body grows.
This is how roots deepen.
This is how love becomes visible.
This is how children of light learn to live in a world that still knows too much darkness.
This is how we are filled with the Spirit.
This is how we love boldly.
Not as a slogan.
Not as a theme for a few weeks in summer.
But as a way of life.
Rooted in Christ, we nurture one another.
Rooted in Christ, we make room for growth.
Rooted in Christ, we become light together.
May it be so.
Amen.
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