Family Dynamics - Disciples in Community
Today I need to confess to you that your pastor is weary. Sad. Frustrated. Scared. Unsure. Because the world seems very broken and the task at hand is to talk about how we shape wholeness. And it seems like an especially daunting task. But it is the task we are called to in this season. It is the task the Holy Spirit is drawing us into in this season. And so…let’s go.
I am one of five children. I am the baby of the family, by 11 years. Which might make me the youngest OR it might mean that I resemble an only child in a lot of ways. I grew up with four doting siblings who would occasionally drag their preschool aged sister to band practice or a football game, and they were all really good at buying Christmas gifts for the “baby,” who they called “Laurie” instead of Laura until I had children of my own.
And I never had to share a bedroom with siblings. By the time I was settling into elementary school, my youngest sister was headed off to college. Most of my formative family vacations were just me and my parents, and they were all intended to be very educational. I got to go to Disney World twice – once at 13 and once at 15, and never with my siblings. At 15, I even got to bring a friend so I wouldn’t be lonely or stuck with my parents 100% of the time.
I also have three children – the oldest son, who lives into the stereotypes of seriousness and responsibility, the middle daughter who is the peacemaker who sees the world very differently from her siblings, and the youngest daughter who is wickedly intelligent and competitive and a little rebellious on all fronts.
There are expectations of attitude, behavior and character that are ascribed to birth order. Some of it bears out, some a self-fulfilling prophecy, some not valid. Youngest children are thought to be sheltered or indulged or lost. And only children are thought to exhibit loneliness or fierce independence. Middle children are considered the bridge-builders who hold everyone together. Oldest children are thought to bear marks of being responsible for those that came after them.
It is true that we are inevitably shaped by the systems we live in. Our family is one container that shapes us – it is often a container we don’t choose and over which we have little control. But the shape of that container becomes part of who we are, often for the rest of our lives even if we separate ourselves.
Another key container – I believe the most important container for how we live our adult lives – our careers, our service, our economic choices, our civic lives, our own family relationships – is faith community. It is the church. The church is not a club to which we belong, it is a community that shapes us and which we shape. Together.
Today, we begin thinking about our fourth stop on the path of discipleship. To do a quick flyover of where we have been, a disciple of Jesus Christ is one who….
(ONE) Experiences the forgiveness and acceptance of God.
(TWO) Follows the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
(THREE) Demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit.
Our focus this week and next is how we share the life and witness of a community of disciples.
We don’t do discipleship work on our own. In fact we CANNOT do all on our own. We can’t sit at our houses and read a book and pray and have it figured out.
Jesus called a community to surround him. He called people into new circles where they would be surrounded by teaching and modeling and growth. He rearranged connections between ethnic groups and power structures and invited people into new community.
As a Jew and specifically as a teaching Rabbi, Jesus was always calling people back to the promise that had been made to Abram and Sarai – that they would be a blessing to all nations. And so, calling all kinds of people and helping his hand-picked Jewish disciples to share community – loaves and fishes, debates with the pharisees, healing and inevitable disagreements – Jesus was doing the work of being a blessing to all kinds of people.
And he was modeling the work of being a blessing to all kinds of people so that those who were with him could watch and learn how to be a blessing, how to teach, how to listen, how to pray.
And when it is time, Jesus leaves his disciples with that same work.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28)
Let US be very clear that Jesus was very clear about the greatest commandments – to love God and love one another. Love one another. Once again we connect back to that story from Genesis…blessed to be a blessing to the whole world. The work of bringing others to the community is the work of loving one another.
Our second reading from Acts is the gold standard description that idealizes Christian community – life held in common, not on Sundays, not exclusively for worship and mission. The Acts community lived in a way in which there was enough for everyone. The life they lived was a demonstration of God’s abundant goodness for everyone.
It is noteworthy that throughout the book of Acts, GROWTH and vibrancy comes to communities because outsiders SEE with their eyes the abundant love and goodness that streams from these communities. When people SEE the life offered by healthy Christian community, they cannot resist joining in.
And so Acts offers one framework for the shape of community.
The reading from Matthew offers additional shape.
Our reading from Matthew is oft quoted, but I want to point out the context of this selected verse. This passage rests right in the middle of a key teachings about how we are to handle our disagreements.
Hear that again – this passage – where to 2 or 3 are gathered, I am there among you – is nestled between how you confront someone in the community who sins against you AND how many times you should forgive (remember that one from a few weeks ago? TOO MANY TO COUNT).
It seems that disagreement is part of community. And how we manage our disagreement is a mark of our discipleship.
Taking these two verses together, I am reminded that shared life marked by love is not without hard disagreements. The work of community is the hard work of walking into dialogue with love to achieve love – and not just seeking love but seeking shalom – God’s peace, God’s wholeness, God’s justice and welfare.
The work of community is not rejecting dialogue because we disagree, it is not correcting the language used to express anger or fear. It is listening to one another. It is wading in. It is finding the third way.
The work of community is to be shaped by the humbling act of approaching another or being approached ourselves so that all of us are growing and becoming.
We are living in painfully divisive times. And we are called to live in community. Our resistance should be to division, not to one another.
Last week, we talked about how Paul reminded the early church that they belonged to one another – and therefore they needed to take special care not to devour one another. To devour one another is to devour the community.
We belong to each other.
In these days, I just keep coming back to that.
We belong to one another.
Be prepared to hear it weekly.
We belong to one another.
But to belong to one another is NOT to seek the superficial peace of not engaging hard things.
We are called, on this journey, into community with one another. Along the way we will discover deep differences. And our work is to discern the path forward – not to “agree to disagree,” but to discern together how GOD is speaking to us as a community. Sometimes that means we will lose people. Because it is hard work to truly belong to one another. To keep showing up in hard conversation.
And as we lean into community, as we seek to belong to one another especially when it is hard, we will also be formed anew by the container that is that community. And in that container, we might find justice, shalom, abundance to light the world.
May it be so.
Amen.
Ending today with Friday’s poem by Steve Garnaas Holmes, who I have quoted often…but you’ll see again how the Spirit shows up:
O Beloved, spring of mercy,
call us, and no matter the path ahead
we will go with you.
In strange cities of change and challenge
you will guard us and guide us.
In meadows of beauty and grace
you will open our eyes to see.
Through deserts of hardship you will provide.
In narrow passages of hurt and suffering
you will be present.
In landscapes of loss and sorrow
you will be enough.
When you lead us into the world's pain
and move us to act for justice
you will be our nerve and our strength.
When we step into the unknown
you are with us;
you are the the light in the darkness;
yes, even the darkness itself is you.
O Holy One,
Lover, Beloved and the Flowing of Love:
beckon, and we will go with you.
Bless us and be with us as we look to the future
and step into the present.
call us, and no matter the path ahead
we will go with you.
In strange cities of change and challenge
you will guard us and guide us.
In meadows of beauty and grace
you will open our eyes to see.
Through deserts of hardship you will provide.
In narrow passages of hurt and suffering
you will be present.
In landscapes of loss and sorrow
you will be enough.
When you lead us into the world's pain
and move us to act for justice
you will be our nerve and our strength.
When we step into the unknown
you are with us;
you are the the light in the darkness;
yes, even the darkness itself is you.
O Holy One,
Lover, Beloved and the Flowing of Love:
beckon, and we will go with you.
Bless us and be with us as we look to the future
and step into the present.
(Steve Garnaas-Holmes, June 12, 2020, Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net)
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