Known & Needed

Psalm 133, Ephesians 2: 11 - 22

 

A church is a risky proposition. I mean, the building is open to the public for worship each Sunday. Anyone can show up.

 

In general, the mission of any church is understood to include welcoming the stranger, much like Jesus did. 

 

In other words, we who are calling ourselves the church should be prepared for anyone to show up. 

 

And we learned last week that we are like a body, comprised of many different interdependent parts, and no part is less worthy.  

 

I’ll say it again, anyone can show up…and be part of the whole. A necessary part of the body.

 

Those of us who have been part of a community for a while tend to get comfortable, begin to think it is our community, begin to see our preferences and our way of doing things as the way of being the community itself. As others show up, we anticipate they will fit into our vision, our way, our preferences, our community.

 

As I pondered this, something tugged at me. 

 

You see, when people show up here it is because God is doing something within them and within us that causes us to come together, to take up with one another if you will. People land here because they are drawn and once they come through the doors, something calls them to stay a while.

And if God is doing something within all of us, we are going to be changed, transformed. 

So newcomers and long-time members alike are becoming a new thing in relationship with the Triune God – Father, Son, Spirit.

 

Which means that we as a BODY are also being changed, transformed, becoming a new thing. 

 

Because new people show up with new questions, new experiences, new gifts, new ways of praying, singing, serving, worshiping…all of which are part of how God has been at work and is at work within them and within us.

 

And that newness triggers something in those who are already here – a response, a reaction, a next set of questions.

 

Now…let me do some framing here. 

 

It is not lost on me that the idea of “becoming” is important to us as the community of Faith, but we’re still focused in this series on the idea of being a place to “belong,” so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s remember that by God’s grace we are becoming a new thing while we continue to think about what it means for people to “belong” here at Faith.

 

This church was built on and has thrived with many folks coming and going over it’s almost 60 years.  And recently, I have really enjoyed conversations with a lot of people who started to participate in the life of Faith much more recently over the past two years. 

 

Here are some things I have observed:

As the world around us changes, so do the people who show up in our midst, longing for fellowship, for community, for a relationship with God, for a word about Jesus.

 

Some folks who arrive in our midst have NO experience with any church.

Some folks who arrive in our midst are seminary trained and have led churches or teach future leaders.

Some folks who arrive in our midst are coming from wildly different faith traditions – they grew up Catholic, or Baptist, or in non denominational churches. 

Some folks who arrive in our midst are cradle Methodists who have sought out a United Methodist congregation that is not caught up in the disaffiliation arguments plaguing much of our denomination.

Some folks who arrive in our midst do so only online.

Some folks who arrive in our midst know they will only be here for a short while.

 

And, as a community that has been established and had great seasons of thriving, some of us who have been around for a while have some “stuff” we bring to the table:

We haven’t had the experience of being a newcomer in community for a very long time.

We see the way things have been done and are pretty comfortable with it.

We are proud of our history – our history of great music, our history of good work in the community, our history of financial stability, our history here in this particular location in a building used in particular ways.

 

What is God up to in all of that?

And what does it mean to joyfully embrace all of that, to weather what feels like a lot of change, and to lean into asking God to walk us through it all?

 

The early churches knew well the struggles of experiencing growth and change, and that is evident in the letters written by Paul and by Paul’s disciples to churches throughout the Mediterranean that we read in the New Testament.

 

We heard today from a letter addressed to the church at Ephesus, probably written by a disciple of Paul’s late in the first century.  The letter challenges a community that is made up of both Jews and Gentiles …and without dwelling in too much detail, for those two communities to set aside all of the ways they were different to claim unity was a BIG piece of work. For those individuals with wildly different social identities to ‘belong’ to the same body, not just for the sake of numbers but for the sake of sharing Christ’s peace, Christ’s teaching, Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection…to arrive at that unity must have been constant work in community.

 

To be the body of Christ, to be part of the oneness described in the letter to the Ephesians, we have to find unity that takes in our uniqueness, our diversity, our crazy quilt of different colors and textures and histories and gifts. We have to find unity that takes all of that in and weaves it together to be a whole fabric. 

 

I believe it requires that we actually KNOW one another’s gifts and graces, stories and struggles. And it requires that we are willing to recognize our NEED for all of that in this one place at this moment in time. Because God is up to something.

 

The work of weaving in all of the parts that arrive, incorporating them into the design….that is the work of creating a place to belong. 

 

As a place to belong, we aren’t striving to be a monolith, but instead we are striving to be one body, united in Christ, one body sharing from one table, one body rich with the gifts of each individual in our community.

 

We can’t do our work of proclaiming justice or introducing people to the good news of Jesus unless we are unified as a body. 

 

We can’t ask people to bring only parts of themselves.

 

From working preacher (Israel Kamudzandu, St. Paul School of Theology):

The call of Ephesians 2: 11–22, is basically a summoning of all people to live together as children of one parent. If God is the parent of all humanity, polarization in all its forms should be avoided. In the face of racial tensions, the Church and its leaders as well as laity should seek to model hospitality…. 

 

For the 21st century Church, the task of building a multicultural church is urgent, because in and around the world, we are experiencing institutional racism, hostility toward others, tribalism, and white supremacy resurfacing in ways never seen before. Hence, the message of integration and appreciation of diversity is urgently needed.

 

We can’t ask people to bring only part of themselves. And we have to be willing to be transformed by what is showing up in our midst.

 

Today, we will share bread and wine – we share in the body of Christ and pray that it brings us together to actually BE the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Christ, the heart and mind of Christ beyond this location 24/7. 

 

Today, we invite all of our gifts to come together in this one place and by God’s power be transformed and transforming.

 

And we cannot help but to be changed by that.

We cannot help but be changed by that.

 

God is doing a new thing.

Do we not perceive it?

God is making a way in the wilderness.

Will we be part of that way making?