A
Proper 17 22 Ord BFC 2017
Romans
12:1-8
September
3, 2017
One of the worst days of my life
happened almost 12 years ago. In the
same week it was decided that I would not have residential custody of my two
boys, Jacob and Abraham, I would have to load my car up to travel to my new
pastorate in North Hampton, New Hampshire.
For the two days it took me to travel from Wichita, Kansas, to the
seacoast of New Hampshire, I cried almost the whole way, pounding the wheel of
my car, and hoping against hope that I could and would still be their
father.
I
sometimes had a rough go of it North Hampton, New Hampshire. I followed a pastor of twenty-two years with
no real interim in a very conservative part of the world. As any pastor can attest to following a
“golden age” pastorate, everything you do in those situations is compared to
your predecessor. In the midst of so
much conflict, however, there were a number of people who looked out for me and
spent a great deal of time finding out what mattered to me and how they could
minister to me. In fact, the easiest
part of that ministry was during the summer when the boys would arrive and the
church and the community would embrace the boys far more than we could ever
hope or imagine.
I know I
say difficult things, and I’m not so naïve as to think that everyone can love
me. But I cannot stay long in a place
where I have to fight a congregation to love my kids.
When the boys were younger, and we would live
in Urbana, Illinois, Tracy and I would sometimes travel to Elkhart Lake,
Wisconsin, to return our two boys, to their mother and step-dad. It was always painful. I would drag their pillows into my room so I
could still smell them, still think of them as with me. And I would always, always have to have a
good cry. Those experiences reminded me
that we were not the only cocoon in which our boys lived and grew. They also lived and grew in the cocoon which
is the home of their mom and step-dad.
They lived and grew in the cocoon which was Elkhart-Lake Glenbeulah
Community Grade School and High School. They
lived and grew under the watchful eye of a paternal grandfather who became dear
to them. Throughout the years, Jacob and
Abraham and Sophia have had to live and grow in cocoons several communities
have provided them, Sophia now in the cocoon which is this church, Billings
First Congregational Church, Billings Senior High, and NOVA Center for the
Performing Arts.
And I am thankful, grateful, and discovering
that many of us are learning what it means to live and love in blended or
unique families. This church community
is important to my adolescent daughter because the Search Institute, an
independent nonprofit organization that does research to provide resources for
healthy communities, asserts that one of the greatest indicators for an
adolescent to have a safe passage into adulthood is the number of non-parent
adults who are involved in their lives through that passage.[1]
Beyond our
children, part of what we promise to the many families and communities that
send children, youth, and young adults our way is that we will be a cocoon for
these gifts, these Children of God, as they learn to live and love in Billings
and at Billings First Congregational Church.
Family is
no longer the most basic element of human connection for many of us. Perhaps it never was and we, romantically,
tried to make it so. My brother lives
in Denver, my oldest sister lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, and my
youngest sister lives in my hometown of Metamora. I will never build a local neighborhood, a
community, a church with brother or sisters.
If I am to build a neighborhood, a community, a church, I will have to
do that with the people who are given to me.
I believe Christian teaching suggests that the most basic element of
human connection is community.
Christina
Baldwin is the author of a book titled Calling
the Circle. Calling the Circle is a recognition that loving and growing
community life does not happen by chance.
Baldwin believes loving and growing community happens when we learn one
another’s stories. It is rough and
tumble. It is not easy. She writes, “The purpose of life is not personal
comfort; it’s to grow the soul.”[2] After reading Baldwin’s book, Calling the Circle, I decided to read
one of her other books titled, The Seven
Whispers: Listening to the Voice of the
Spirit.[3] One of the seven whispers Baldwin
believes we need to hear in our daily life is to “Love the folks in front of
you.” That seems like such a simple
notion. I even found myself rebelling
against the chapter without having read it because I thought it would cut
against the grain of the values I hold for world mission.
“Love the
folks in front of you”, however, is not about forgetting the world to love your
family and friends. This whisper is
about taking responsibility for where we are planted. Though I realize how thankful I am for the
people who offer this to me and my family, I am not so good at following
through on it myself. I find myself wishing
my family would move back, pining in love for friends I wish were closer, and church
members who would travel to be with me in this new church community so they
could tell you how great I am (After all, you can fool some of the people some
of the time.). Loving the folks in front
of you reminds us all to look for the blessings we receive from the folks who
are with us in pre-school, class, work, the neighborhood and for us to share
our blessings and gifts in return with these folk.
The
scripture verse read for us today reminded me that the early church was
struggling with that very issue.
Economics, oppression, natural disaster, and war had broken down the
family unit. This passage is reminiscent
of passages from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that seaport city where Rome
would routinely dump conquered people after conquered people. Into that deeply fractured, rootless, and
hopeless circumstance, Paul counsels them to especially love the weakest and
most vulnerable but to also recognize the spiritual gifts God has given them
all in their profound diversity. What
Jesus commands and Paul restates in Romans is to remember the qualities of love
and love the folks in front of you. Help
each other out financially, give hospitality to one another, rejoice at each
other’s triumphs, weep when one of you has spilled out their guts. Live in harmony and mutuality. Don’t look for payback, but overcome evil
with good. If Jesus and Paul tell this
to family and friends that already love one another, all they offer is
sentimental platitudes.
I think
the gospel message had more grit than sentimental platitudes. Jesus and Paul do not tell that to people who
already love one another. They say that
to a group of people who are looking around the table wondering why that tax
collector or that prostitute or, hey, hey, did someone say that Gentile or
Galatian, barbarian or savage was welcome here?
Yeah? That’s, like, the whole
project, Paul believes. Creating
community among the conquered is what Paul’s letters to the Corinthians are all
about. Yes, mish-mash and diversity of
First Century Rome may yearn for family and homeland, but the reality was that
they were going to need to make community for themselves in their new villages, cities, and faith communities.
Love the
folk in front of you. Isn’t that one of
the hardest things for a church in our day and age to do? Churches used to be filled with many of our
own family members! Even today, I must
run into one person or family a week who remarks, “Oh, we used to go or our
family used to go to your church!” (yearning) We pine for those friends who
no longer attend or have left town and think of them more as our church than
the people we see in church now! Many of
us feel it. (dreamily) After all, something
feels right with the world when those people, remembering a “fairer time”
return to church, (sigh) all gathered in one pew, on Christmas Eve, Palm
Sunday, or Easter Day! We feel all warm
and fuzzy! They’re back! And they loved
it! Maybe they’re back for good, maybe (in disappointment). . . oh, they’re not
coming.
But you
see, there are people in this congregation right now whom God has given us,
these people, who are hoping, praying, begging that this is the community who
will love the folk in front of them.
There are young adults who want to feel blessed and trying out what it
means to be leaders, lesbian mothers who want to know their kids are treasured,
people who are in pain who need a place to tell their story.
Here is
this good news. Where I see this
happening in our church and community life, and it is happening here in
profound ways, I see the Empire of Heaven being pieced together, the Beloved
Community midwifed, a community growing into the playful and loving delight of
working together in God’s garden. As we
begin another school year, another year of church activity, let us begin to
nurture neighborhoods, communities, this church by loving the folks in front of
us. Amen.
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