I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.
(Shel Silverstein)
__________
OPENING IN PRAYER
We have gathered together this morning, Holy One,
because we sense your Presence yearning for us to be connected.
You are in us, in all creatures, in all matter,
and in all the vast spaces between the stars beyond and the atoms within.
You are not complete until we recognize such a deep and cosmic connection
and allow ourselves to be grounded and centered in our own unique place in so grand a design.
Forgive us when we hold ourselves aloof,
when we protect our privileges in a world of systemic isms that create the illusion of Others,
when we treat the Earth itself as an object to be exploited rather than as kin to be cherished.
Awaken us to the deep connection we have with you, with each other, and with all Creation.
Empower us to be agents of healing, reconciliation, justice, and peace in a divided world.
Speak to us this morning in the beauty around us,
in the words read and spoken and in the silences in between,
and in the delicate network of memory, aspiration, and love that holds us in this community.
In community with you we pray – Creator, Christ, Spirit, One.
Amen.
SCRIPTURE
Matthew 18:15-20
“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
TED’S REFLECTIONS
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY
“I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand!” With his typical sardonic wit, Mark Twain well expresses the gap between idealism and reality. And captures something we all feel sometimes when it comes to getting along with each other.
With his own brand of southern wit, Gordon Cosby, the founding minister of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC, once said in my presence something like this: “The church is where you are sometimes forced to be in community with people who bug you. Then one day it dawns on you that you are one of those people to somebody else!”
I also heard Gordon retell the story of one man who told him he was going to leave the church because he always seemed at odds with everyone else. “You can’t quit,” Gordon responded. “We need you in the group to help us learn how to be more human together.”
Community. Sometimes a great gift. Sometimes a real pain in one part of our anatomy or another. And maybe, considering Gordon’s story about the man who wanted to quit, the pain is one of the gifts of community as we learn the skills of more effective communication and the art of becoming a more fully realized human being. And such gifts from community is what I want to consider with you today.
“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” These words of Jesus speak to us about community – with one another and with the Christ-mystery at the heart of all existence.
These words strike me as an authentic memory of Jesus passed down to a later generation. The earlier words in this passage from Matthew’s Gospel don’t have the same authentic ring to me however. They don’t – at least to me – reflect the gracious spirit I usually hear in most of Jesus’ teaching: too many rules and too much judgement to truly reflect the Way Jesus taught. And there is explicit talk of the “church” in those earlier verses. And I am convinced that Jesus taught about how to live not about how to be religious. I am pretty convinced that Jesus never had any intention of starting a church. So, these few verses nearer the beginning sound to me like they come from the next generation when the early followers of Jesus were starting to get organized: turning his movement into an institution; developing rules and policies to deal with the nitty-gritty realities they were experiencing in living a committed life in community with each other.
But, despite my reservations about the authenticity of all these verses, they still have this enduring relevance for me: they speak of the importance of community. And this, I am sure, was certainly a core teaching from Jesus despite any additions from a later generation. So, reading and reflecting on this passage this past week has got me thinking about why community is important. What are its potential gifts despite its frustrations and pain? Let me share with you, then, some of the things I came up with as I was thinking about the importance of community in my preparations this past week. What I will say is probably a bit on the brief side because each of the points deserves a full treatment of its own. I’m apologizing for that but I suspect you will actually thank me for not giving you the whole boatload all in one go!
I think mutual support and encouragement is probably one of the first things we think of when it comes to being part of any community, including the church. In some ways it has been nice to sit back a bit from the regular routines of being a church during this pandemic – a Sabbath rest in a way from the tasks of keeping things running and the rough edges of close relationships. And, yet, probably what we have noticed and missed the most is precisely each other, and the way – despite our frustrations and aggravations – that we can count on someone being there for us when we need it: a listening ear or a soft but firm shoulder, some practical help, and maybe especially a steady hand when our lives get rocky as they do from time to time.
In his novel, “A Great Mischief”, Alistair McLean tells the story of a New Brunswick family who make their hard living in various ways from the land and the sea. At one point, the brothers are out in the woods looking for just the right tree to fall to make a spar pole for hauling their fish boat in and out of the water. They find just the right tree and saw it through. Except it doesn’t fall. Its branches interlaced with the branches of its neighbouring trees is holding it up as strong and straight as it was before. No manner of forcing or pulling could dislodge that tree from the support around it. At its best, a community of faith is like that: a network of support to hold us up when something comes along that threatens to cut our foundation out from under us.
And let me add one more dimension of mutual support in community that we might not always acknowledge. And that is accountability. We need each other to remind us to stay faithful to our commitments and best intentions. Not in an authoritarian or judgemental way but in a firm and gracious way. No group can get by without some kind of structures. And the best kind of structures an intentional community like a church can agree to are ones that make it impossible for us not to grow. We are in this together to learn how to become the most authentic human beings we can be and to encourage and support each other in healing from life’s hard turns in order to live into our full potential. Being a community of mutual support, encouragement, and accountability goes a long way in helping us on that journey of personal growth and self-realization.
And so does our sharing of gifts – my second reflection on the importance of community. No one of us has all the experience and talents needed to turn a church into a life-giving, liberating community. We need each other’s gifts to complement our own.
Many years ago I was asked to direct a summer theatre school for a small group of young indigenous adults from across Canada. I felt completely inadequate to the task but I took it on anyway and it worked out beautifully. It worked because I was able to pull together a staff of people whose experiences in theatre were different from mine so that, together, we were able to teach the classes and help the students write, produce, and perform an entirely original play in one month. And one other thing I did was to bring in a person at the very beginning to build caring, trust, and community amongst this group of strangers so that, very quickly, we were able to release the commitment, energy, and creativity needed to make this little community work.
I’m talking about synergy here. How the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. How the individual gifts shared in a caring and trusting community makes wonders happen beyond the ability and expectation of any one member. In a community of faith we need each other for mutual support, encouragement, and accountability. And for the unique experience and gifts each of us lends to the creative process of being a church.
When all is said and done, however, I think the primary gift of community is rooted in our innate human need for meaningful connection and belonging as creatures within Creation.
I remember as a teenager how much I treasured my team jacket when our softball team won the BC Championship. I wore that jacket for years until it wore itself off me. Not only did it signal that I had contributed to something special but it made me feel special to present myself as someone who belonged on that team. For other youth – maybe not having such healthy ways to connect – their deep-seated need for belonging may account for gangs and even for graffiti tagging: “Notice me. I too exist even if you overlook me. If you won’t let me be a legitimate part of this community, I will assert my presence in ways that will force you to notice me and will make me feel wanted at least somewhere.”
Why else would we feel loneliness if we were not hard-wired to be connected and belong in meaningful ways? To belong in a family, in a circle of friends, in the neighbourhood and community in which we live, in various peer groups and volunteer associations and collegial circles, and all the rest. And maybe, more deeply, to feel intimately connected to the land, to the Earth itself, to the vast and intricate network of Creation. And maybe, even more deeply, to the Heartbeat and Source of Creation.
Perhaps communities of faith above all – like this little group circled around our labyrinth and listening in here and there in other places – exist to help us experience the reality that we are not alone but deeply connected, that we are interwoven as an essential thread in the tapestry of creation. Not a waste of space but a moment in time and space to which everything else that is, was, and will be is a nexus. Without any one of us, the whole tapestry runs the risk of unravelling.
I know and confess that I often hold back from abandoned commitment to any particular community. I wonder why. Maybe because I don’t want to relinquish too much of my own independence. Maybe as a way of protecting myself from the frequent frustrations and occasional hurt that comes with having my life interwoven and sometimes tangled up with others. I also wonder what I might be missing from not allowing myself to go deeper. I wonder what I may be withholding from others by my measured and reticent commitment.
For Further Reflection:
A quotation to ponder from Gordon Cosby
“… this is our primary calling as Christians … to call forth the gifts of other people, to set them free, to throw the lifeline to them and be the one who, under God, helps a person discover that for which s/he was created…. I think we begin to be really helpful in calling forth the gifts of others when we understand and employ our own charisma, when we ourselves are functioning in freedom, when our ‘oughtness’ is eliminated and we can have the time of our lives doing what we want to do. ”
Questions for further reflection:
- What are some other reasons why community is important?
- How important is community to me?
PRAYER OF COMMITMENT
The Lord’s Prayer as rendered by J. Burklo: https://rainbowcathedral.wordpress.com
Dear One,
closer to us than our own hearts,
farther from us than the most distant star,
you are beyond naming.
May your powerful presence become obvious
not only in the undeniable glory of the sky,
but also in the seemingly base and common processes of the earth.
Give us what we need, day by day,
to keep body and soul together,
because clever as you have made us,
we still owe our existence to you.
We recognize that to be reconciled with you,
we must live peaceably and justly with other human beings,
putting hate and bitterness behind us.
We are torn between our faith in your goodness
and our awareness of the evil in your creation,
so deliver us from the temptation to despair.
Yours alone is the universe and all its majesty and beauty.
So it is. Amen.
CONCLUDING BLESSING
Epiphany: A poem by Madeleine L’Engle, The Weather of the Heart, Shaw Publishers, 197
Unclench your fists.
Hold out your hands.
Take mine.
Let us hold each other.
Thus is God’s Glory
Manifest.
Peace to You.
Amen
