Stone Soup: Generosity in Community, Part 4: This Soup Needs Some Witnesses
Through the lens of a
folktale, Stone Soup, we explored the ways we share our goodness generously in
community SO THAT we are nourished, learning, growing, able to share ourselves
with the world. We’ve talked about our
prayers and presence, hopefully you’ve read about service (we missed that one
in snow, but it is online), and last week we talked about our call to share our
financial gifts.
Today, we’re wrapping up the
exploration by talking about what it means to share our witness with the
world. WITNESS was just added to the
list of membership vows in 2008 —if you look in your hymnal at the vows for membership,
you’ll notice the word isn’t actually there. That’s why you have an extra
bulletin insert today. WITNESS is a
latecomer to how we understand what it means to be a member of Ferndale United
Methodist Church, how we understand the ways we collectively commit to growing
as disciples ourselves. WITNESS is a
latecomer to how we understand our work to make disciples of Jesus Christ for
the transformation of the world.
What is our witness in the
world?
Imagine some of what might
have been said, reported, posted, shared after the Stone Soup incident:
“After that stranger knocked
on my door and I sent him away…I saw my neighbor talking to him out on the
street and my neighbor had some potatoes in hand, handing them off to him. Well, if Bill’s got potatoes to share, I
surely have carrots. And I called up Sylvia — I know she’s always got onions...
and she wouldn’t want to be left out.”
“That pot bubbled in the
center of town. And I talked to neighbors that I hadn’t seen all winter. It was chilly still in the spring air, but
the fire was warm, and the smell was amazing.
I’ve never smelled soup quite like that, surrounded by so many familiar
faces and names and stories.”
“The whole time our visitor
sliced and diced, he also talked about all the places he’d been and the people
he’d met along the way. Clearly, he’d seen a lot of things – good things and
hard things. And he’d met people who
took him in and people who chased him out of town. I’m glad he came to our town.”
“The guy seemed sketchy at
first, knocking door to door. Looking
for a handout it seemed. But he turned
out to be really wise. And he had a new idea. At first I thought, we’ve never
done that before. But then he shared the
soup with all of us! That was a great
idea!”
“So yesterday, I was stopped
on the street by a stranger who needed directions and to use a phone to make an
urgent call. Normally, I would have
walked away. It is hard to trust people today.
But then I remembered our stranger and the stone soup. And so, I let the stranger use my phone and I
helped him figure out how to get to his appointment. It was the right thing to
do.”
Our witness is our story. It is the story we tell with our lips. But it
is also the story that we tell with each of our actions. Our story is like our portrait in the world. But
our story is just that – one story. A
story about our life.
Part of what is vital about
the story of Stone Soup for this conversation is that it is a story with a cast
of characters that MUST work together. Each person there walks away from the
experience with a slightly different story to tell – one that comes from their
experience not just on that day, but the experience of life who have led up to
sharing the soup pot with a stranger.
And together, the collective story paints a picture for the world to
see.
In the United Methodist
church, in our membership vows, we covenant to work together to be Christ’s
light in the world. A key to what we
believe here is that our individual salvation doesn’t actually mean much if we
are not growing and serving and living with others in community. We make a
promise to one another and to God to grow and become, to serve and to share —
together. We make a promise to weave our stories together one by one so that a
new picture comes into being.
In our text from Paul’s first
letter to the church at Corinth, he talks about the ways each individual has a
role and brings something needed to the picture that is the church — the body
of Christ. Not everyone will be an ear
or a foot or a hand or an eye. But together, our prayers, presence, gifts,
service and witness collectively make up the Body of Christ in the world, the
way people experience a living moving God through us.
Part of what our founder John
Wesley was doing with his Methodist protest movement back in the 18th
century was pushing back against the idea that had become so prominent in the
world - that one was saved and that was that.
Going to church was about holding on to your salvation. Holiness was a private matter.
No….John Wesley believed that
there was no holiness but social holiness.
No religion but social religion.
We do this life together because iron sharpens iron and we are not independent
— we are painfully dependent as mere humans in the world. And it is because of that understanding of
how we are all connected in a web that we have been able to reach across
continents, respond to victims of natural disaster, cure malaria in many parts
of the world.
Of course, in this day and
age, it is important to note that our witness – our individual and collective
witness — can work against us if we are not careful. If we are not true. If we are not closely connected to God’s
movement in the world. If our choices
and our lifestyle don’t actually reflect our decision with our lips to be
disciples.
The greatest single cause of
atheism in the world today
Is Christians who acknowledge
Jesus with their lips
Then walk out the door and
deny him by their lifestyle.
That is what an unbelieving
world simply finds unbelievable.
These are the opening words
in DC Talk’s song, “What if I Stumble.”
We face a crisis in
Christianity today, particularly in the Western world. Young people are leaving the church in droves
because what the learn about in the pews and Sunday School, what they
understand a Christian should be, is not what they see when they interact with
many who call themselves “Christians” in the world. Young people today see the
church as exclusive, inward focused, discriminatory, unrealistic,
self-absorbed…
Because the mosaic of our
witness in the world is confusing.
When Jesus called together
the disciples, he was inviting them into life together. This strange little band of fishermen and
farmers and tradesmen shared life and became known as a collective. These were
Jesus’ followers. They became both an
attraction and a threat to the status quo.
They chose simplicity, they chose learning. They chose love. And they chose a power higher than the
economy or the government.
When Jesus showed up in a
synagogue in Nazareth, unrolled the scroll containing the words of the prophet
Isaiah, declaring the prophecy fulfilled as people heard him reading the words,
he was declaring a mission for the church to come — to proclaim good news to
the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, release of the captive. This was the work that Jesus was called to do
and it is the work his motley band of disciples took on.
And anytime we stray from
that call, our witness in the world becomes a little harder to connect to the
person Jesus Christ. Who built a
team. Who sent the Holy Spirit to enliven
the team. SO that their witness,
collectively, would represent the body of Christ in the world.
Today, we are joyfully adding
to the body of Christ which is Ferndale United Methodist Church. Today, we have the opportunity to recommit
ourselves to this call on our lives to proclaim good news to the poor, recovery
of sight to the blind, release of the captive — the captive to addiction, the
captive to materialism, the captive to self-absorption, the captive to
politics.
And so today, at the end of
the first month of the year, we’re going to end our sermon time by sharing
together a prayer adapted by John Wesley and used as part of a new year
tradition called watch night — sort of a way of renewing resolution to
discipleship at the beginning of a new year.
I am no longer my own, but
thine.
Put me to what thou wilt,
rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to
suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or
laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought
low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be
empty.
Let me have all things, let
me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield
all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O Glorious and
blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am
thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have
made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.
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