The Promises We Make

Jeremiah 29: 4 – 7

Jeremiah 31: 31 – 34

Matthew 26: 26 – 29

Our sermon time began with a short film from The Work of the People, linked below.

 

(Video: Living As Community) 

 

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is a speaker and writer who also happens to be the associate minister at a traditionally black missionary Baptist congregation in Durham, NC. He is a leader in the red-letter Christian movement (a movement that seeks to center the words of Jesus as guidance for the fullness of our lives – living, working, playing, politicking and churching), and in the Poor People’s Campaign, a national call for moral revival that centers the voices of the 140 million who live in poverty in America. 

 

And judging from this video, he’s done a lot of thinking about what it means to live in Christian community.

 

…Which is something vitally different than “going to church.”

 

I think most of us are pretty comfortable going to church.

I think it is a much bigger stretch to imagine life in Christian community.

 

Part of what I appreciated about the video is the ordinariness of it.  I love that, in the midst of recording, Jonathan is greeted by a neighbor who is commenting on the baby strapped to his chest – clearly interrupting his train of thought.  And he acknowledges that neighbor.  Then he doesn’t start over, he keeps going. Jonathan references the one person in the community who will say the same thing they’ve said for the past 20 years.  We don’t kick them out. We live with them. We live alongside of them. Matter of fact. That person exists in every community – church or otherwise.

 

This is life.  Our relationships with one another, when we are attentive to them, will interrupt our agenda and our to do list and sometimes rub us the wrong way.  But we are called to relationship. And Jonathan is specifically seeking to build intentional community – where you don’t move out of the neighborhood to move up.  Where you share resources for yard and garden care. Where you might keep your storm door open so that kids from the neighborhood can come and go.  And he’s seeking to build that kind of community right where is ministry has planted him.  

 

I ask that you take some time this week to wonder about the things he’s said.  And to wonder what it might have to do with us.

 

This week we are further exploring a disciple’s commitment to sharing the life and witness of a community of fellow disciples.  This is work rooted in covenant – the promises God makes to us, the promises we make to God, and the promises we make to one another.  

 

Our scriptures for today help to paint a picture of how our covenantal journey with God has taken shape over millennia. When Moses received the 10 commandments, the people entered into a two-way covenant with God who promised a special place and a special relationship in return for their loyalty and commitment to a big set of rules.  That set of rules was intended to exemplify living in the world that centers love of God and one another. 

 

The prophet Jeremiah wrote about how the Israelites were to live even when they were removed from the land promised to them.  And the prophet envisioned a new way that God’s promises would be kept with God’s people, promises written on their hearts rather than a law code.  Jesus picks up on that theme as he approaches crucifixion, using the language of his blood as a sign of a “new covenant.”  That covenant would include those beyond the Jewish community, a fact established by his ministry in relationship to so many others. That covenant would move beyond the letter of the Law, prioritizing love for God and neighbor.

 

As a church, our life is framed by this understanding of covenant. We understand that we are included in this covenant and we live that out in a couple of very concrete liturgies.  

 

At baptism, a set of commitments are made by different parties.

The baptized, or those sponsoring those who cannot speak, renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject evil and repent of sin. They accept free will and the power that comes with that, promising to use that free will to resist evil, injustice and oppression.  And they confess Jesus as Savior, putting their whole trust in his grace.

 

Sponsors and parents take specific responsibility to nurture the baptized in the life of church, offering teaching and examples that help them to be guided by and to accept God’s grace for themselves. 

 

And then, as the full body of the church, we all promise aloud to the baptized that we will:

 

proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Jesus, surround one another with a community of love and forgiveness, so that we all might grow in our trust of God and be faithful in our service to others.  We promise to pray for one another, that we might all grow to be disciples who walk in the way that leads to Christ. 

 

That is the promise we make. 

That we will live out our lives in ways that testify to God’s work in the world.  

 

This is no small commitment. 

 

And when we gather at the table for communion, each time we receive the cup, we remember that Jesus is the new covenant, a promise from God to be with us always. In body and then in Spirit.  

 

We ask the Spirit to be with us and to make us “one with Christ, one with each other and one in ministry to all the world.”  

 

Watch how we symbolize that with our hands…one with Christ (reaching up), one with each other (reaching forward) and one in ministry to all the world (reaching left and right).  This is the cross shaped life – we are asking for the Holy Spirit to lead us and shape us and mold us into that cross shaped life.  (reiterate movement)

 

And we ask to be joined to live this way until Christ comes again and we feast with all.

 

Do we mean it?

 

How might we work so that these are not just words we say but commitments we live into each and every day?  Not just on Sunday. Not just on communion Sundays. Not just when we bring someone forth for baptism.  But every hour of every day.  As the focus of our lives?

 

Did I mention this discipleship thing is hard work? That it asks for nothing short of everything? 

 

Imagine a whole community really living that way day in and day out.

 

What a wonderful world.

 

May it be so.

Amen.

Sources: Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove video from The Work of the People, Language from the Baptismal Covenant I and The Great Thanksgiving in The United Methodist Hymnal.