People are Living in Community
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People are Living in Community
People are Living in Community
Not yesterday, but the Saturday before, a vigil was held at Mattocks Park here in El Dorado for Octavius Critton, the El Dorado High School senior who was murdered just days before the start of the school year. Folks gathered because they were scared, because they were upset that gun violence still continues to be a reality in our community, they gathered to pray and ask for God to bring healing and peace. Octavius’ cousin, who lives just down the road from where he lived, was there, telling reporters that she doesn’t feel like she can continue to live in this community because of what happened. She doesn’t feel safe anymore. There with the rest of the vigil attendees was our Mayor, Veronica Smith-Creer. To the group she made the following remarks: “It may not be politically correct to say, but we need to get back to God, and we need to understand the true value of life. If we’re not willing to do that, there’s going to continue to be gun violence and there’s going to continue to be evil and there’s going to continue to be hate. …You don’t fight hate with hate; you fight hate with love.”
Scripture lesson:
The New Revised Standard Version Unity in the Body of Christ
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
Prayer
There is so much disunity in the world. I don’t know if it’s better or worse than it ever was, but it is a reality now. The Methodist church split back in the early 1800s over the issue of whether church members were allowed to own slaves. The church reunited after the American Civil War, but even then they were uncomfortable with the presence of blacks in the church, so they segregated the black people into a separate group in the United States called the “Central Conference.” They simply traded northern churches and southern churches for white churches and black churches. Today, we aren’t any different. I mean, come on y’all, there are two churches in El Dorado that bear the name “First Baptist.” You can guess what the difference is between the two.
But racial disunity isn’t the only form of disunity in the world. It may be the one most visible to us in our communities, but there are others, and they affect us every day. The vast majority of people would never point a gun at someone to kill them, unless they were defending their own lives. But we still struggle with the way our attitudes and behaviors hurt people. This is especially true in the church. Hurt feelings, isolation, and petty disagreements, are unfortunately a normal part of the day to day life of some churches. But none of that happens here, right? No one has ever been offended, put down, pushed aside, ignored, or wrongly accused in the life of this congregation, right? We’ve never been impatient or unforgiving towards others here at St. Paul, have we?
This whole month we’ve been learning the characteristics of a biblical church, a church where we put God’s word first in our lives. Today we’ll consider another “mark” of a biblical church: In a biblical church, people are living in community. Today’s Christians throw this word around quite a bit, especially when they want to talk about the kind of loving, supportive fellowship within the church that is idealized in God’s word, especially the New Testament. Like in , “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
Community. It’s something most if not all people want. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to be where people know us, love us, and want us to be there. We want life without all the drama, backstabbing, and other stupidity that goes on in the world when people just won’t get along with each other. What’s more, we know church is supposed to be a place where this kind of foolishness doesn’t happen. After all, we are Christians, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we be different than other people? Shouldn’t we treat people different than others do? Let me ask you another question: Do YOU want St. Paul UMC to be a place where people experience real community? When people come here, do they experience a love more powerful than anything they’ve known before? A love the world cannot give them?
Community. It’s something most if not all people want. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to be where people know us, love us, and want us to be there.
Community the way God intended it to be is possible in the church today. It is possible in THIS church today. But it is up to every one of us. In this morning’s passage, Paul describes a process for creating “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” that is, community. This process has four steps, each one builds upon the other.
But before I get into it, I want you to know what’s at stake. Why is community important? Why is important for the members of the church to live in peace and unity with one another? 1. Unity is the greatest sign of health in a congregation. Unity is the way we know that we agree on the reason why we are here. 2. Dis-unity harms the church and harms us. If we can’t get along with one another, and love one another, it hurts the witness of the church and hurts us. 3. Unity is a sign that we are living for God and not ourselves. When we live our lives for God and not ourselves, then there is no limit to what the church can accomplish.
This is important stuff my friends. We need to work on this, not just now, but all the time. This is where Paul’s process for promoting community comes in. He described four practices which lead to community: (1) Humility; (2) Gentleness; (3) Patience; and (4) Forbearance. Let’s consider each one, how each promotes the next, and then I’ll have a few thoughts at the end.
Humility: humility is the opposite of pride. When we are prideful, we insist on our own way, we push and we nag and we think we know better. But all we really do is push people away. Think about it for a second: who are the people who you most easily get along with? Who are the most like-able people you know? These are the folks who you feel like you can be-friend immediately. These are the folks who respect us. They treat us the way we think we ought to be treated. Humility, then, could be described as giving respect to others, recognizing that every person we meet is a person created by God and having sacred worth. To be humble, we must recognize that we don’t know it all. We aren’t the center of the universe. There are other people around us, people God created us to love and respect. When we adopt this attitude of humility, recognizing that we aren’t the most important person in the room, that there are others around us who are worth our time and attention, then we can move on to the 2nd practice that promotes community:
Gentleness: some of your bibles may use an old word for this, “meekness.” One commentator noted how the ancient philosophers thought gentleness was one of the greatest human virtues. To be gentle, first and foremost, is NOT to be weak. Rather, a gentle person is someone who has their strength under control. The ancients talked about gentleness as the balance between being too angry and never being angry at all. I guess you could say a person who never gets angry, who doesn’t care about the bad stuff that happens in the world, has no heart. She is apathetic. But a person who gets excessively angry all the time about any and everything has no soul. He probably needs anger management! He also probably needs to suspend his facebook account. So then, Paul teaches in God’s word, we are to seek to be balanced in our emotions, not swaying too far in one direction or another. A person who is gentle is centered. When we are centered, we aren’t as affected by the people and things that used to cause a reaction. This Christlike attitude leads to the third and four practices Paul describes:
Patience and Forbearance: the word Paul uses for patience is makrothymia, which in a nutshell means “patience towards annoying people.” I can hear you saying: “But Brother David, they’re so aggravating. Why do I have to put up with all that stupid?” You don’t, I guess. But don’t forget all the times you have been a a whole lot-o stupid, and yet God still loves you. (pause) This is where forbearance comes in: Forbearance is an agreement we all make with one another within the community, that we will be tolerant of one another’s foibles and faults, for the sake of one another and for the sake of unity in the community.
So, if we commit to being humble, giving respect to others because they are God’s creation; if we balance our anger; if we are patient with one another and agree to love one another even though we all do dumb things. If we do these things, there is no limit to what this church can do. We can accomplish what God created the church to be: a loving gathering of God’s children gathered for worship, fellowship, and service.
In other words: when
All these things, guided by love, are what creates unity in the church. I know we all want to live in unity with one another. Do you want to live in unity with one another? Ok, then prove it! Turn to your neighbor, or someone else in the church. Or, maybe you are feeling God urging you to go to someone in the church with whom you have had a disagreement in the past.
Now, look that person right in the eye and repeat after me: “God made you. God loves you. And so do I. I love you! I love you even when you do stupid things. For the sake of unity, I will do everything in my power, to get along with you, for the sake of the gospel.”
Remember what mayor Smith-Creer said at the rally? She said: “It may not be politically correct to say, but we need to get back to God, and we need to understand the true value of life. If we’re not willing to do that, there’s going to continue to be gun violence and there’s going to continue to be evil and there’s going to continue to be hate. …You don’t fight hate with hate; you fight hate with love.”
Right here, in this room, this is where we can begin the fight against hate. If we can’t get it right here, how can we ever expect them to get it right out there? Or, as Paul wrote from his prison cell: “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.