“Genuine Love”
Romans 9.12-21 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado 10 September 2023 A few weeks ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week at Ring Lake Ranch, an amazing ecumenical study center in Dubois, Wyoming. In a casual discussion with a Presbyterian colleague, she expressed her dismay with David Brooks, who writes for the New York Times and The Atlantic and does commentary on PBS Newshour. Brooks is the nominally conservative voice in those typically liberal settings. I always try to read commentary by David Brooks, because even when I don’t agree with him, he often has something important to say. The article that upset my friend was in this month’s Atlantic, called “How America Got Mean,” and the subtitle is “In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.” Part of my friend’s objection was that the church has often played the finger-wagging role of the “moralizer” in American society, and we have seen that play out in ways that you and I probably find repugnant, especially around issues of sexual orientation, social justice, and women’s rights. Brooks writes, “we would never want to go back to the training methods that prevailed for so long, rooted in so many thou shall nots and so much shaming, and riddled with so much racism and sexism. Yet a wise accounting should acknowledge that emphasizing moral formation meant focusing on an important question — WHAT IS LIFE FOR? — and teaching people how to bear up under inevitable difficulties. A culture invested in shaping character helped make people resilient by giving them ideals to cling to when times got hard.”[1] And don’t we all need resilience? Brooks’ article made me wonder how we in the United Church of Christ and particularly here at Plymouth have done in terms of moral formation not just of our young people, but of us grown-ups as well. The second step in our mission statement’s threefold challenge is where moral formation lives: inviting, transforming, and sending. Every one of us is ripe for spiritual and moral growth, whether we’re six or ninety-six. I think that we in the progressive church DO have something important to say about moral life, and we are at a critical moment in our nation’s history, as meanness, isolation, self-centeredness, unfettered dog-eat-dog capitalism, and a patent disregard for our fellow humans and the precious planet God has entrusted to us have become culturally normative. What WE have to say might sound vastly different than other Christians. The church as a whole and Plymouth in particular are in a unique position to help engage a journey of countercultural transformation that moves in the opposite direction of those unwelcome cultural norms. Our mission includes a strong commitment to social justice, but it’s more than that. Our mission includes spiritual connection to God, but it’s more than that. Our faith has a lot to say about the biggest questions we ask about what gives life meaning, how to find joy rather than simple self-satisfied happiness, how we are meant to relate with one another and be responsible stewards of God’s world and the wealth God has entrusted to us. If the voices of progressive churches like ours don’t fill the vacuum in moral formation, it will be filled by other voices: the siren song of advertising lures us toward the rocks of capitalistic ruin; the cry of “I, me, mine” will drown out “we, us, ours”; the out-of-balance individualism that takes no account of the other will win out over the value of real community. Here is what is filling the vacuum. David Brooks points out that “74 million people saw [the former president’s] morality and saw presidential timber.” That is a strong barometric reading of the moral outlook of a lot of Americans, and I find that even more telling than the individual character of the former president. So, my friends, as progressive Christians, where do we turn for a moral compass? What are the values you hope to inculcate in our youth and in the overall culture of our congregation? For me, the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes in the sixth chapter of Luke and the fifth chapter of Matthew are absolutely central. And I think the apostle Paul has some wisdom for us in this morning’s reading. Hear what he has to say: “Let love be genuine,” or as another translation puts it, “Love should be shown without pretending.” This is self-giving love (agape), not sentimental or romantic love. Genuine love is costly love; that means sometimes you put another person’s needs ahead of your own. Genuine love means being willing to sacrifice something for the good of the other. “Hate what is evil and hold fast to what is good.” I think we can get caught up in trying to define and identify evil, so you might want to focus on giving energy to what is good and encourage growth in people, communities, and creation. “Love each other with mutual affection,” is one translation, and Paul uses the Greek word philadelphia, fraternal love, so I think a good English parallel would be loving one another like family. I see that happening at Plymouth all the time, and not just for members of this congregation, but for those experiencing homelessness, refugees and immigrants, and CSU students. “Do not lag is zeal, be ardent in spirit, and serve the Lord.” In other words put your faith into practice…don’t just say one thing and do something else. We have an involvement fair today that invites you to become active in something that moves your faith forward. Paul knows that part of the human condition is suffering, but he isn’t satisfied to leave it at that. Rather, he encourages us to have hope, to be patient, and to keep on praying. He doesn’t say whether prayer changes God or changes us…but my experience is that it helps in either case. Extending hospitality to strangers is a foreign concept for many Americans, but it was a key value for life in the ancient Near East. When someone shows up at your door, you welcome them, feed them, and offer a place to rest. Part of what we strive to do at Plymouth is to offer an extravagant welcome to our guests on Sundays and also to provide a warm, homelike welcome to our Faith Family Hospitality guests experiencing homelessness. Paul encourages us to support one another financially. Generosity is a critically important value that doesn’t get much play in today’s American culture where we tend to focus not so much on what we can give as what we can get. And I see something deeply countercultural happening in this congregation as we are exceptionally generous in supporting Plymouth’s ministry and mission and even through our Share the Plate offering. Let’s boil all of that down. Paul is talking about loving one another. It’s about love…costly love. We all say that we want community, but it doesn’t form without genuine, costly love. Here is an important caveat, whether you are looking at Paul’s list or Jesus’ Beatitudes: Nobody does any of this stuff perfectly. Each one of us is a work in progress, so maybe we should focus on practice, not perfection. Yesterday, I saw something I’d never seen in person: along with forty-some pistols and rifles, two assault weapons came into our gun buy-back. I looked at them after they had been sawed into pieces and disassembled. I thought about Columbine and the theater in Aurora and the King Soopers in Boulder. It heart-rending to see these weapons and to think that they were designed for one purpose: killing human beings created in the image of God…in the image of love. The work RawTools does is a shining example of the kind of moral education and engagement that Brooks is talking about. It actually does take a village to raise a child. It takes a village to stand up and try to end gun violence. It takes a village to create systemic change. It takes a village to embody a community whose hallmarks are faith, love, justice, peace, generosity, and welcome. David Brooks concludes, “healthy moral ecologies don’t just happen. They have to be seeded and tended by people who think and talk in moral terms, who try to model and inculcate moral behavior, who understand that we have to build moral communities because on our own, we are all selfish and flawed. Moral formation is best when it’s humble. It means giving people the skills and habits that will help them be considerate to others in the complex situations of life. It means helping people behave in ways that make other people feel included, seen, and respected.” Welcome to our village! Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. Note: this sermon was preached at an outdoor service, so there is no video or podcast. Text is below. “Cause for Courage”
Matthew 14.22-34 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado August 13, 2023 Part of being human is encountering things that frighten us or keep us awake at night or make us worry about survival. It’s the stuff of the amygdala, the “reptilian brain” that instructs our hearts to beat and our lungs to breathe, and it also is where we get the fight, flight, or freeze response. Has there been a time for you when you’ve had that deer-in-the-headlights reaction where you feel as though you can’t think straight as a rush of adrenaline courses through your body? Most of us have had that sensation, even if we were not out on stormy seas in an open boat as the disciples were. One of those times for me was when my stepson, Jane Anne’s son Colin, took his own life five years ago. I was out having a beer with one of our members, Mike Byrne, and I got the call. Jane Anne was so shaken she couldn’t speak, so my son, Chris, had to tell me that tragic news. I remember freezing and then telling Mike, “I have to go home. Now.” I drove home through the February snow, and I have no memory of the rest of the evening. At about 2:00 a.m., our doorbell rang, and there was a policeman at the door. I invited him in, and he said that he needed to inform us of some bad news, and I called to Jane Anne to come downstairs. It’s weird and a bit traumatizing to have the police knock on your door in the middle of the night and to hear them make an official notification that Colin had died. We were in shock, and we thanked the officer for coming by. (I’m sure it was very difficult for him to inform us as next-of-kin.) Last week, I read this quote from James Finley in Richard Rohr’s daily email: “God is the presence that spares us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things.” God didn’t spare the disciples in the storm, but Jesus sustained them. Viktor Frankl, a brilliant psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz, identified three discreet phases in such circumstances: stimulus, time, and response. Our reptilian brain leaps in after a triggering event (the stimulus) and rushes us to a response. This is great if you are about to walk into the road, see an oncoming vehicle at the last second, and leap back out of the way. In such circumstances, the amygdala keeps us alive. But what makes us human is the ability to expand the time between stimulus and response, so that can use our prefrontal cortex to allow a more considered response. That very brief span of time between stimulus and response is where we can find a sense of liberty in how we respond, using our prefrontal cortex. What Frankl encourages us to do is practice being conscious of and lengthening the pause between stimulus and response. The disciples were so terrified of the storm and seeing a figure walking toward them across the water (that’s the stimulus) they panicked and thought Jesus was a “ghost.” (To be fair, that is a pretty frightening situation.) And when Jesus reassures them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid,” it allows them to pause, and Peter responds by asking Jesus to summon him out to walk on the water. Peter is now using his prefrontal cortex! Yay! When Peter steps out onto the water, the wind comes up and he becomes frightened. His amygdala kicks in, and in immediate response, Peter begins to get very wet ankles and knees. As he is sinking, Jesus grabs his hand and hoists him to the surface of the water, saying “You of little faith (trust), why did you doubt?” All of this makes me wonder if part of living into a life of faith involves disrupting that stimulus and response pattern slightly and inviting time in between to allow not just our logic but our faith to create a more considered response. I’ve never thought this before, but I wonder if faith (trust) resides in our prefrontal cortex, as well as metaphorically in our hearts. Trust isn’t something that just happens; we have to learn it. We develop trust in God through our own devotional lives and spiritual practice, whether that’s praying or meditating or journaling or reading scripture. It takes time to build faith that will last a lifetime. Fear may be the opposite of faith. And when you think of what fear creates in our world — hatred, greed, racism, self-centeredness, sexism, Christian nationalism, and war — it is antithetical to faith, which I think of as developing a relationship of deep trust with God. Part of what helped Jane Anne and me to regain our equilibrium after Colin’s death was to trust that we were being held…held by God and held by this community of faith. All we had to do is look in our backyard, where the prayer flags you all made for us were flying near our back fence, and we knew you were there with us. I am grateful. Thank you for surrounding us with God’s love and yours. James Finley writes, “God depends on us to protect ourselves and each other, to be nurturing, loving, protective people. When suffering is there, God depends on us to reach out and touch the suffering with love, that it might dissolve in love.” We don’t have to go it alone. There is a force infinitely more loving and powerful that anything we can imagine. And relationship helps tether us to that force and become part of that force. In those moments of life’s greatest intensity, we can invite our faith to come to the fore. Jan Richardson, a wonderful artist and minister, who suddenly and unexpectedly lost her husband Gary several years ago writes this, using images from Matthew’s story of Jesus on the waves: “Eight months have passed since Gary’s death: a moment, an aching eternity. I can tell you that I know what it means to be borne up when the waters overwhelm. I know the grace of hands that reach out to carry and console and give courage. I am learning—again, anew—what faith is, how this word that we sometimes toss around so casually holds depths within depths that will draw us beyond nearly everything we once believed. This is some of what I know right now about faith: That faith is not something I can summon by a sheer act of will. That it lives and breathes in the community that encompasses us. That I cannot force faith but can ask for it, can pray that it will make its way to me and bear me up over the next wave, and the next. That it comes. That I can lean into it. That it will propel me not only toward the Christ who calls me, but also back toward the boat that holds my life, incomprehensible in both its pain and its grace. What are you knowing about faith right now? Where is it bearing you?” And Jan Richardson offers this “Blessing that Bears the Wind, the Wave” That we will risk the drenching by which we are drawn toward the voice that calls us, the love that catches us, the faith that carries us beyond the wind, the wave.[1] Dear friends, we are here to be the hands of Jesus to one another, to support and uplift one another. “Don’t be afraid; my love is stronger. My love is stronger than your fear. Don’t be afraid my love is stronger, and I have promised, promised to be always near.” Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. [1] Jan Richardson, at janrichardson.com, used by permission. Note: there were technical difficulties while streaming this service, so there is no video or podcast. Text is below. “Abundance Enough”
Matthew 14.13-21 by Hal Chorpenning Plymouth Congregational UCC, 6 August 2023 The miraculous story from Matthew’s gospel is one of the best-known in the New Testament, in fact Mark, Luke, and John repeat their own versions of the story. Fishes and loaves. What an image: being able to take a small quantity of very simple food and to nourish 10,000 people. (This story is usually called “Feeding the 5,000,” but they forget to count the women and children, so I’m rounding up.) Over the years, this story has yielded many different interpretations. One way to look at it is that it happened exactly the way the gospel writer recorded it: that Jesus took two fish and five loaves and magically multiplied them sufficiently so that every one of the people present had enough to eat their fill. Another way to interpret it is less physical and more spiritual: that what nourished the 10,000 was not having a full belly, but rather having a spirit that was topped off by a meal with Jesus. It wasn’t so much that Jesus increased the volume of food there. Rather, he qualitatively increased the food, enabling it to meet the spiritual needs of the people. A third interpretation has to do with the sacramental value of the meal. You probably know that in the Protestant tradition, we celebrate two sacraments: communion and baptism. But I would argue that this story of fishes and loaves provides scriptural rationale for opening the door for the third Protestant sacrament: the potluck supper. (I’m only half kidding; I really think that we can come to know each other and God through a common meal shared with those we journey with.) Do you remember what it was like to eat together at church after Covid began to decline? It was joyous! And we’ll do that next Sunday following our outdoor worship. The fourth way of interpreting this wonderful story is that it shows that God is active here on earth sharing abundance. Just as God provided manna to the Hebrew people wandering in the desert, God also provides sustenance through the ministry of Jesus. Unlike the second interpretation – the spiritual nurture – this fourth way of looking at the miracle is about God helping to meet our most basic needs as animals: we have got to eat. It’s no accident that the two recognized sacraments both involve basic hygiene and nutrition functions: bathing and eating. It’s just a part of who we are as embodied beings. And it can be a wonderful part of who we are and who God created us to be. The Psalmist writes, that “the Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”[1] And an integral part of God’s compassion is providing enough food to go around. It is we who are responsible for distribution of what God has entrusted to us. It’s interesting to try and imagine Jesus’ thinking in this story. What is it that is driving Jesus? Is it pity? hospitality? simple generosity? The dominant motive of Jesus is a force that emanates deep in the gut: compassion. The Latin roots of the word mean “to suffer with:” cum + patior. But the Greek word is splagchnizomai (splag-knidz-o-my) which is a feeling so deep it grows out of your belly. It’s the same compassion that God shows to all people. God – and Jesus – didn’t just provide enough: they provided abundantly. That is the reason there 12 baskets of leftovers after feeding all those hungry people. And God continues to provide for humanity abundantly. What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate world hunger? That might sound even more miraculous than feeding the 10,000 with two fish and five loaves.
As Christians, in a very tangible sense, we acknowledge that whatever we have is not even ours to begin with: it’s God’s. All we have is given to us as a gift, entrusted to us as stewards. Whatever wealth we have on hand now is only ours in the short term. Do you remember that old song, “We give you but your own, whate’r the gift may be, all that we have is yours alone, we give it gratefully?” That’s not idle chatter; it’s real. What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate world hunger? Peter Singer writes, “In the world as it is now, I can see no escape from the conclusion that each one of us with wealth surplus to his or her essential needs should be giving most of it to help people suffering from poverty so dire as to be life-threatening. That’s right: I’m saying that you shouldn’t buy that new car, take that cruise, redecorate the house or get that pricey new suit. After all, a $1,000 suit could save five children’s lives. ... Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you’re spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away.”[2] Okay, that’s a pretty radical suggestion. But I have a concern with this, and it’s a problem of enormous proportion in every church I know: we want to do charity, not justice. Charity is giving something you have to someone who needs it. Charity makes me feel good, and it might meet the other’s need in the short term. But, ultimately, the answer is not about me and my feelings. It’s about God’s world and God’s children. What happens when compassion – not pity – comes into the equation? When that gut-wrenching, suffering-with, feeling grows inside us? When we respond not as somebody who is one step above another, but shoulder to shoulder with those who are suffering? We’re more apt to respond with justice, rather than with charity. We’ve moved beyond the need for band-aids: we need major surgery: systemic solutions to answer world hunger. And we have the ability and the resources to do it. I would like every person here to write down this web address: bread.org That’s the website for Bread for the World, which is a Christian-based citizen’s group lobbying Congress to help make systemic changes to end world hunger. It’s also a great resource for information on hunger here in the U.S. and around the world. So, what can we do? How can we be good stewards of all we’ve been given? We can start with prayer. Not just prayer for more food for those who need it, but by confessing our own overconsumption. We can pray to help discern our true needs from our wants. The next time you say the Lord’s Prayer, take the “give us this day our daily bread” part seriously. We can share what we have through the UCC’s One Great Hour of Sharing offering, which comes around every spring. We can put pressure on our elected representatives not only to do our fair share, but to help put into place sustainable structures and systems that provide food for all. As we come to the communion table together, let each of us, as we taste the bread, think of those who don’t have that privilege today. And let us rededicate ourselves, as stewards of God’s world, to help create a miracle in our midst. What kind of miracle would it be if we could use God’s abundant gifts to eradicate world hunger? Amen. [1] Psalm 145.9 [2] NYT, 5 September 1999.
“Overwhelming Abundance”
Psalm 23 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado 9 July 2023 How many of you learned this psalm by heart when you were in Sunday school? It’s probably the best-known psalm and by many the most beloved. One of my favorite sung versions is by Bobby McFerrin, and we used part of his paraphrase as our Call to Worship. It is one that we sometimes hear during a memorial service as a comfort, knowing that the Lord is our shepherd, our guide, our protector. In fact, on those occasions, I will sometimes use the King James or Revised Standard Version, since it is what many folks grew up hearing and that familiarity can bring comfort. The opening verse talks about having everything we need. Hear these different translations: “I shall not want,” “I have all I need,” “I lack nothing.” How does that sit with you? Does it ring true? Do you have everything you need? Maybe if you are just starting out or things are really tight financially, it could be that you don’t have all you need…or at least all the things you want. As the prophet Mick Jagger once sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” The rub is distinguishing the one from the other. So, what do we really need? Food, shelter, medical care, education, spiritual connection. We also have a whole host of wants. If we didn’t, it would decimate the advertising industry, which wants us the leap into Prime Days on Amazon, buy a new car with have a four-figure monthly auto loan payment, and to ask our doctor if Lunextra[1] is right for you. Nothing keeps the wheels of advertising spinning like fear of inadequacy. “Never let them see you sweat.” “Be all that you can be.” “The best a man can get.” “Maybe she’s born with it…maybe it’s Maybelline.” And the other thing advertisers like to do is to weave a web of scarcity that ensnares unsuspecting viewers. I literally read this on a blog this week: “Scarcity isn’t just another marketing hack—it’s a psychological phenomenon you can use to make more revenue.” Americans are bombarded by advertising, and much of it is designed to make us want things we don’t really need or didn’t even know we wanted. Imagine the climate impact of doing away with all the things we buy as a result of advertising and how much simpler we could live. Most of us would agree that the best things in life…aren’t things. In The Covenanted Self, biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, “The reality of drought or low production or famine…produces a sense of scarcity, a deep, fearful, anxious conviction that there is not enough to go around, and that no more will be given. The proper response, given that anxiety, is to keep everything you have…. The myth of scarcity that can drive the economy is not based on economic analysis, but on anxiety.” Anxiety is rooted in fear, and yet at our core, we know that “even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no danger because you are with us.” How many times in the biblical narratives do we hear the command, “Fear not!”? And yet, too often we do give into fear and allow it to drive our decision-making. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it requires intention and attention to see the world differently: as a world provided with plenty rather than scarcity. God has provided abundantly, but it is how we respond and share God’s abundance that makes the difference in peoples’ lives. Brueggeman writes, “I propose that the lyric of abundance that is evoked by the generosity of the Creator, sits deeply against the myth of scarcity. The lyric of abundance asserts that because the world is held in the hand of the generative, generous God, scarcity is not true. I mean this not as a pious, religious sentiment, but as a claim about the economy.” How do you sense that in your own life? Is your cup overflowing with God’s abundance? I have a hunch that many of us don’t slow down enough to consider that question deeply. Where is your cup so full that it spills over? When we were visiting my son, Cameron, in Japan before the pandemic, I was surprised at the method of pouring sake for a guest. As a deep gesture of hospitality, someone else always pours the sake into your glass for you. And while there are all kinds of sake cups, the one I saw most frequently in Japan was a set that contained a glass and a small wooden box, called a masu. Now, you may wonder what this has to do with the 23rd Psalm and abundance. When a host is pouring sake into your glass, she or he pours it to overflowing, so that it exceeds the capacity of the glass and spills into the masu. This is a gesture of abundance, and the first time I saw it, I couldn’t help but say, “My cup overflows!” Literally! Abundance in God’s world is never a question of there being enough, but rather a question of distribution, so that all have the basic needs met. Some of us have too much and others have too little. How we balance that out is a question of good stewardship: how we live with and share God’s abundance. Even within the life of our congregation, we work this way. Rather than charging a membership fee or dues, we ask one another to do our best to live and give faithfully in response to God’s gift of abundance. If we did have dues at Plymouth, they would be about $4,100 a year per family. That may surprise you, but it takes a lot to do mission, keep the lights and air conditioning on, plan and gather for worship, provide pastoral care, build community, be a voice in public square, and educate our children and teens and adults. Because not all of us can afford that amount, those among us who can give more must do so to support the community. How has God filled your cup to overflowing? Stop for a moment and think about how God has shown up abundantly in your life and in the life of our congregation. Most of us have enough to eat, a place to sleep, available healthcare, a career or retirement. Most of us have enough and then some. [pause] And now I invite you to silently offer thanks to God for whatever abundance has been made available to you. And in the spirit of continuing your meditation, I’d like to share a short film with you from Brother David Steindl-Rast, an elderly Austrian Trappist monk who has a profound relationship with gratitude. https://vimeo.com/223300973 May you continue to see your cup neither as half-full or half-empty, but as overflowing with God’s abundance. And as Brother David says, “May your gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you.” Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. [1] Not a real drug name
“Interdependence Day”
Matthew 10.24-38 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado July 2, 2023 I love the United States. As we near Independence Day, I acknowledge that we are up to our neck in problems. Yet, I don’t think that we are beyond redemption. One of the key issues we need to address is refocusing on the collective good, which is at the heart of divisive politics, wealth disparity, and climate change, among others. And it’s slow work. You may wonder what that has to do with the rather difficult text Jim read from Matthew’s gospel. There is quite a mix of things going on: Jesus tells us that we have individual worth, and that God knows even the number of hairs on our heads (a significantly lower number for some of us than for others). The next section seems bizarre, because of Jesus’ nonviolence. Where does this “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword” thing come from? It draws on and echoes the prophet Micah, who encourages us not to put ultimate faith in the people, even our families, but rather to put our trust in God. What Jesus is talking about is reshaping our family ties in order to build the new community of his followers. Think about the fishermen who were Jesus’ first disciples. Jesus tells them to leave their nets and follow him. That isn’t easy either for the disciples or for the families they left behind. How’s that for supporting “family values?” (Whenever one of our more conservative brethren trots out that phrase it makes me wonder if they’ve ever read the four gospels.) What Jesus is doing is ripping the fabric of society. This is subversive, unpopular stuff. But as he deconstructs the traditional family unit, he is putting something else in its place. Two chapters later, as a crowd surrounds Jesus and his own mother and brothers are trying to squeeze their way in to see Jesus, he quips, “’Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’” This new family eventually becomes the church. We are the family of Jesus when we do the will of God, and the best way to judge the will of God is by looking to the words and the way of Jesus. Sometimes we even refer to “our church family.” Last week, Don and Sherry Bundy sent me a link to a really interesting New York Times opinion piece called, “What Churches Offer that ‘Nones’ Still Long For.”[1] Nones, by the way, are people who have no religious affiliation, and one scholar surmises that one in five is an Atheist (who is sure God doesn’t exist), a second is an Agnostic (who questions the existence of God), and the other three are unaligned with any particular faith tradition but think that God is there. Clearly, that is a diverse group of people. A key asset that churches, mosques, synagogues offer is community. And in an age of detachment and isolation, it’s more important than ever. In the article, one young man in his 20s tells of losing his job and asking his congregation to pray for him during their prayers of the people. After the service was over, another member came us and said, “Son, if you need a job, you can come work for me tomorrow.” The journalist continues: “While that might sound like a scene from a Frank Capra movie, church really does wind up being one of the few places that people from different walks of life can interact with and help one another.” She continues, “I asked every sociologist I interviewed whether communities created around secular activities outside of houses of worship could give the same level of wraparound support that churches, temples, and mosques are able to offer. Nearly across the board, the answer was no.” Intergenerational community doesn’t just happen, it has to be created and sustained. Faith communities that draw on multiple generations can do amazing cross-fertilization among their members. As you heard Brooklyn say a few weeks ago, teens who have older folks in their lives (who know their names) tend to have a far easier road ahead than those who do not. Getting to know some teens might be a blessing to some of you who are elders and might be experiencing a sense of loneliness and isolation. Here is something the article’s author misses: it takes work to create and sustain community. It doesn’t just happen; we have to be intentional about being engaged and involved. It takes each of us committing ourselves to get involved in the community. A lot of that happens behind the scenes here, so you may not know that a member of your Plymouth family had to go by Wilbur’s to buy port and to Whole Foods to buy bread and then prepare today’s communion. Nobody waves a magic wand…people work to make that happen. You may wonder how our trees and shrubs get trimmed and the windows washed and the weeds pulled…members work to make that happen. You may not realize that there are members of our congregation — Faith Community Nurses, Stephen Ministers, Congregational Visitors — who add to the pastoral care provided by our ministers. Perhaps you’ve wondered who makes decisions that affect the congregation, and there are six boards as well as a Leadership Council who do that as volunteers. That takes time and commitment. There are so many more volunteers who make this congregation vital, and each of them helps create community. That investment of time and intention creates what Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam calls “social capital” in his book, Bowling Alone. Here is a clip from a new documentary about Putnam’s work and ways we can recover some social capital. [View trailer for “Join or Die.”]. Here is the rub: we have become a nation of people who have shifted so far toward radical individualism and independence that we’ve lost the communal compass bearing guiding our society. We forget that we are in this together. We have lost the thread of our INTERdependence that held together a disparate nation. But Putnam asserts that we can turn the tables by leveraging our involvement in community organizations like churches. This is crucially important for our society. I’d like to go back to the scripture for today, because it helps us understand why churches are different than the Lion’s Club, Soroptimists, Kiwanis, or soccer league, or youth theater — all of which are great! The New York Times article states, “A soccer team can’t provide spiritual solace in the face of death, it probably doesn’t have a weekly charitable call and there’s no sense of connection to a heritage that goes back generations.” But there is something even deeper that the journalist doesn’t capture. Church is different, because we have formed and are forming a different type of community that exists because Jesus called us to become part of this new, INTERdependent community that cares for one another, for the widow and the orphan, the alien and the stranger. And we do it as an expression of our love of God. One Sunday about six months ago, a young Palestinian man named Darwish came into our church needing food, shelter, and guidance. The first thing that happened was that Brooklyn and Mike McBride made him a cappuccino…an even better start than offering a cup of cold water that Jesus mentions. Then Darwish talked with Jane Anne and a group of concerned folks who helped him get student housing, work on an asylum application, got him healthcare, greeted his wife and son when they arrived from Jordan. And today, he has been accepted into a Ph.D. program at CSU in the College of Engineering. Nobody asked if Darwish was a Christian or if he had any interest in becoming one. Each person on “Team Darwish” acted from a sense of Christlike compassion, and it changed Darwish’s life. We are a community that has incredible potential to grow in our faith, our commitment, our involvement…our INTERdependence. Isn’t that the kind of faith community you want to be a part of? Don’t we embrace the values and vision you want your children and grandchildren to inherit? We simply cannot do such things all on our own. We need a strong, committed community to help all of us live into our Christian faith, as an INTERdependent community bound together by covenant. Christianity is a team sport! Here is another secret: We can’t do any of this without you. The magic only happens when we all pull together as a family of faith. If you want to be part of the movement, if you want to get more involved, we can help! We have an easy-to-access online tool called Ministry Match, which links your desire to help with places where it’s needed. It takes less than five minutes to sign up and enter your preferences at plymouthucc.org/ministrymatch. So, even as we celebrate our nation’s independence from Great Britain, I invite you to celebrate INTERdependence Day here at Plymouth. Right here, right now. Amen. © 2023 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. [1] “What Churches Offer that ‘Nones’ Still Long For” by Jessica Grose in New York Times, June 28, 2023 |
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