Sermon: "Church is Messy and Holy" (Oct. 1, 2017)

Pentecost 17A – Reformation Series Week 1

“Church is Messy and Holy” (The Church and the Christian Life)

October 1, 2017

Exodus 17:1-7; 1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Matthew 20:20-28

             Let me ask you: how would you define holy?

            I think this is a really hard question. I’ve tried to define it, in various settings, but I’ve never been entirely satisfied with the result. So, when I was putting together this October series focusing on a different Reformation theme each week leading up to the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, and I decided that today’s theme would be, “Church is Messy and Holy,” I really had to think about it. Does anyone want to take a stab at it? What makes something “holy”?

            Okay, well then I’m going to put that part on hold for now, and focus instead of the first part of today’s theme: the Church is Messy. This is a reality of which we are all too familiar, even as we might try to deny it. I haven’t been a pastor for very long yet, but I’ll tell you, every time any conflict arises, or someone acts in a way someone else doesn’t like, I hear the same refrain: “Shouldn’t people who claim to be Christians act better than this?” It’s also a refrain I hear frequently from people outside the church, as a reason for them not to be involved: “Christians are hypocrites,” they say. “They claim to be all about love, but instead, they are mean and judgmental.”

People both in and out of the Church, it seems, have an expectation that when you are a part of the Church of Christ, you should have it together, be loving and kind, and never make a mistake.

It’s not a realistic expectation. God’s people were never perfect. Just look at today’s story from Exodus. This is a part of the 40 years in the wilderness narrative, which is characterized by God’s chosen people relentlessly grumbling and complaining, blaming Moses for their woes, and not appreciating the many ways that God provides. (I mean really, water out of a rock? That’s pretty cool!) But isn’t that just how people are, whether believers or not? We complain, we blame, we don’t examine our own hearts, we don’t take the time to be grateful, we miss God’s gracious love in our lives.

You could fast forward a few thousand years and see more of human nature in our Gospel reading: two men try to take a higher position than their cohorts, believing themselves to be better or more important. Don’t we always want to get ahead? My friends, all of this – the complaining, the blaming, the self-centeredness, the overlooking of God’s grace – all of it is human nature, and no church membership will take that away. And so, the Church, like all human institutions, is messy.

The Church is also messy because it is made up of people who are so different from each other. Often we lift up these differences as “gifts” – we all have different gifts to offer, and each of those gifts contributes to the body of Christ, like Paul writes in today’s lesson from Corinthians. It’s a lovely way to see it, and I believe it is true… but we also know that differences can be a real challenge. We have different life experiences, political persuasions, values, ages, incomes, needs – and all these differences can be the cause of any number of issues that arise between us. And yet, we still come here and join together as one Church. And sometimes, issues do indeed arise. And so, the Church is messy. In fact, sometimes, the Church – and the people in it – is more than messy. Sometimes, it is broken.

But this is where that second part comes back in: the Church is messy, but the Church is also holy. Or as Luther would say it, we are all sinners, but at the same time, we are also saints. So let me ask you again: having spent some time thinking about how messy the Church is, how would you define the Church also as holy?

Here’s an illustration: if you are on social media, you may have noticed that people don’t tend to post pictures of their worst moments, unless it is for comic effect. You would never publicly post about a fight you had with your spouse, or about your child’s bad day at school, or your financial problems. Instead, we post about the best moments, trying to give the world a sense not of our brokenness, but of our wholeness, right? Well, turns out, not always. There are some who push against this norm, and instead try to reframe the perceived imperfections of their lives. Like, posting a picture of their living room cluttered with toys and unfolded laundry, and the family sitting together and smiling on the couch with the caption, “Perfection.”

Perfection? I don’t know about that. That’s not typically how I describe my living room, anyway! But, I might call that holy. Because I think that holiness is when, into the brokenness of human life, there is also an in-breaking of love, and compassion, and bonding, and connection. It is when, even in places you might not think to look, God is present. And that is also something that happens – you guessed it – in the Church.

            You come to worship hopeless and dejected, but in the scripture that day you hear a word of hope. The sermon seems to have been written just for you, providing the salve you needed.

            Your friend is very sick, and feeling scared and losing hope that she will ever recover. You visit her, lift her spirits, and you hold hands and you pray together. As you finish the prayer, you see tears forming in your friend’s eyes, and you know that some level of healing has occurred.

            You watch the news in horror as you see places in this country devastated by hurricanes. You come together with fellow believers and put aside all your differences to work together to fill flood cleanup buckets and hygiene kits to help those in need.

            You limp forward to the altar – your bad hip is acting up again – and someone comes to hold your hand so you don’t fall. Side-by-side you receive the bread of life and the wine of salvation.

            You have behaved in a way of which you are not proud. You felt you were doing or saying the right thing at the time, but have come to realize your words and actions caused pain, not good. You come to worship and hear those words, “Your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” You are restored.

            All of these moments in the Church's life are holy. And each of them are what the Church is really about: it is about seeing and experiencing, in the midst of the inevitable messiness and brokenness of life, that God is indeed there, offering hope, forgiveness, healing, and life.

            Luther defines the Church as the place where the gospel is purely preached. The gospel is this: that you, in all your brokenness and messiness, are loved, forgiven, restored, and valued by a God who gave everything for your sake. I can certainly preach that message from the pulpit, and try to. But I think there is more to the Church than that. There is this wonderful quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. He says, “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” You see, preaching the gospel is not just something that happens in 10-12 minutes on a Sunday morning. The real preaching of the gospel happens in the movement of the Sprit in the believer’s heart, and the actions that spring out of that movement. The real preaching happens when we see what Jesus tells his disciples in today’s Gospel reading: “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” he says, “and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” The real preaching happens when you fill those flood buckets this afternoon, or scrape paint off of a handicapped woman’s house, or when you pray with a friend in need, or when you put your own needs and well-being aside for the sake of someone less fortunate than you. That is the Church. That is the gospel being purely preached to the world. That is the oh-so-messy and broken, and yet still so holy, Church.

            Let us pray… Lord Christ, we give you thanks for the messiness of your Church, that it gives us a place to practice preaching and living out your gospel. And we give thanks for the holiness of your Church, that it is a place where we can come again and again to hear your life-giving word, receive the sacraments, and learn to live a life of servanthood. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: God's just (not fair) economy (Sept. 24, 2017)

Pentecost 16A

September 24, 2017

Matthew 20:1-16

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Someone once said, “Whenever Jesus told a parable, he lit a stick of dynamite and covered it with a story.” In other words, Jesus’ parables blow apart everything we think we understand about God and how the world works. That’s certainly true in the parable we just heard. Jesus even says as much in that last line he slips in there: “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” What Jesus has to say is going to turn everything you thought you knew completely on its head. So for example, this is a parable about economics, about a business owner and how he treats his workers. And by noticing how things get blown up and turned on their heads, we start to get a sense not of our own understanding of how the economy works, but of what God’s economics look like.

            There are several ways that this parable of the generous landowner blows our worldview to smithereens. The first is in the motive of the landowner. We in America are quite familiar and even comfortable with capitalism as our economic system. It makes sense, and for the most part, it works, because it motivates us to work hard and succeed. So if you are a business owner – or in this parable, a landowner – then you will strive to make shrewd business choices, because that benefits you. You will have only as many workers as you need in order to get the work done, and you will pay them what is hopefully a fair wage for the work they do so that they will be motivated to return to work day after day and be loyal to you. Capitalism is, in the end, centered around the needs of the business owners, the bosses, and in theory, when they benefit, so do the workers.

            But here’s the dynamite: this parable instead centers around the needs of the workers. Maybe you filled in the gaps in your mind as to why the landowner went out looking for more workers. I know I have always assumed it was because he needed more workers – why else would he go looking? But it doesn’t say that. It just says he went out and saw more people in need of work, and so offered them jobs. It says he asked them why they weren’t working, and when they said it was because no one had hired them, he gave them jobs. Several times during the day this happens – he keeps going out, not to satisfy his need for workers, but to satisfy the people’s need for work.

            So what does this show us about God’s economy? It shows us that faithful living is motivated by the needs of the less powerful. It shows us that in God’s economy, those who are powerful – the proverbial landowners – go out in search of those in need, listen to what those needs are, and satisfy them, even over and above their own needs. Of course, we understand in this parable that the landowner is an analogy for God – who we know will always seek us out and provide our needs. But this isn’t a bad thing to keep in mind when we find ourselves in the more powerful position as well.

            The second stick of dynamite hits in the motives of the workers. The first workers have a chance to bargain with the landowner, and to agree with him about what they will be paid: a denarius each, which is the going rate for a day’s labor. The next batch are told only that they will be paid “whatever is right.” Those hired toward the end of the day aren’t told how much they will be paid or even that they will be paid at all! The take the job simply on trust of the landowner, that they will be treated fairly.

            Would that trust be well-placed in today’s world, especially the agricultural world? Sometimes, sure. But by no means always. I was reading this week about the town of Immokalee, FL. Immokalee is where 1/3 of our tomatoes are grown (90% during the winter), where many of the tomatoes you would get on your sandwich at Subway or your burger at McDonald’s are grown. The town is almost entirely migrant workers. It is located in Collier County, which was one of the hardest hit areas in Irma’s path. You can imagine a town of migrant workers didn’t fare too well. I have been to

Tomato pickers in Immokalee, FL

Immokalee – Collier County is where I did my pastoral internship – so I was reading this week about how they are doing after the hurricane. And I was reminded about the horrific conditions under which those tomato pickers live. Twelve-hour days with no breaks for food or even drink. No tents for shade. And they get paid a whopping two pennies per pound of tomatoes picked (the same ones we pay $1-4 per pound for), and that pay hasn’t gone up in over 30 years. Would a worker in Immokalee blindly follow a landowner into the field, trusting that they will be paid fairly for their work? Doubtful. And this situation is unfortunately not unique to Immokalee. (Click here to learn what workers are doing about this!) 

            And yet in God’s economy, those in need can trust the landowner, because he is generous and just. We, the workers, can trust in God, the landowner, because we know that he will always provide us what we need, even when the rest of the world will not.

            The third stick of dynamite is for the economy of compensation, and this is the one that really gets our goat. The landowner pays in reverse order, first paying the workers who arrived last. To their surprise and delight, they are paid a full day’s wage, despite only working an hour! Surely the other workers seeing this are thinking, “Our lucky day! If those guys got paid a full day’s wage for only one hour, just think what we will be paid!” But then to their shock, they are paid exactly the same. And their gut reaction is the same as mine would be in that situation: “But that’s not fair! I worked hard all day, and in the scorching heat, by the way, so I should get paid more than that guy!” The landowner’s response, in essence is, “Who said I was in the business of fairness? I’m in the business of justice.” Didn’t he say as much with the second batch of workers, that he would pay them not what was fair, but what was right? And so he did – he paid them exactly what they needed: a full day’s wage.

            You see, God’s economy is not about being fair. Capitalism is fair: you work hard, and you get what you earn. And sure, it works… sometimes. It motivates hard work… sometimes. And then, sometimes the deck is stacked in such a way that the same hard work for one person only pays half or three quarters as much for another person. See, fairness gets murky really fast.

            But God’s justice goes beyond fairness. In God’s just economy, people get what they need, regardless of whether they have earned it. When God is the landowner, and we are the workers, God seeks us out to learn our needs. We, the workers can trust that God is good and just. And we can be certain that we will always get from God exactly what it is we need – whether that is just the right amount of bread in the wilderness, or a day’s wage for whatever we were able to work, or the forgiveness of our sins, whether big or small, or the knowledge of love and belonging that we receive at the font.

            God’s economy doesn’t work well as a business practice. This parable is not a model for a business owner to follow. It really isn’t a practical economic system for this world. Still, this parable allows us to see into a world, for a moment, that operates on generosity rather than greed, ambition and competition. It allows us to imagine and see a world in which all are valued for what they can contribute – even those who stand ignored or discarded by society. It shows us the generosity of a God who lifts up the dignity of each person, regardless of their circumstances, and who offers all of us, every day, exactly the grace that we need to live.

            Let us pray… Generous God, your justice doesn’t always make sense in a world driven by greed and competition. Help us to pursue it anyway, in the way we see and treat one another, especially those among us who feel their needs are ignored and discarded. Help us to see the dignity of all people, not through our earthly eyes, but through the eyes of your just economy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Marching out of captivity (Sept 17, 2017)

Pentecost 15A

September 17, 2017

Exodus 14:19-31

Matthew 18:21-35

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            The last couple weeks we have been hearing during worship the Moses story. Today is the most dramatic moment of that story – the crossing of the Red Sea – and the event for which the entire book of Exodus is named. But before we get into that, let’s look at how we got here.

            Back during the summer, we heard the story of Genesis – the creation of the first humans, the fall into sin, and the beginnings of the people who would become the Israelites, God’s chosen people. We had Abraham and Sarah, then Isaac and Rebecca, then Jacob and his four women, who would bear 12 sons, who would become the 12 tribes of Israel. But one of those sons, Joseph, was disliked by the other boys. So they sold him into slavery, and long story short, he ended up in Egypt, where he became an advisor to the Pharaoh. Because of Joseph’s visions and his wisdom, Joseph was able to save Egypt from the seven-year famine. Because Egypt was the only place around that had food, people traveled from all over to get food from Egypt – including, the very brothers who had sold Joseph into slavery! When Joseph sees his brothers in need, he is merciful and forgiving, and not only gives them what they need, but invites them to come live in Egypt, where they will have plenty of food to eat for the duration of the famine. Happy ending!

            But of course, that wasn’t the ending. Because many years pass, and a king arises who did not know Joseph and all he had done for Egypt, and who didn’t care one bit for Joseph’s family, the Israelites. In fact, the Israelites were by now so numerous that they had become a bit of a nuisance, so Pharaoh decided to make them his slaves. God’s chosen people now found themselves oppressed by the ruling power of this foreign country. But God had a plan. In fact, all of this was lead-up for the great plan God had to show His people in dramatic fashion just how far God would go for freedom.

            The past couple weeks, we have seen Moses arise as a key player in the plan. God called him from out of a burning bush, asking him to go tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go – go out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of oppression, and into new life. Well, Pharaoh wasn’t too keen on that idea – having the Hebrews as slaves was essential to the operation of his kingdom, after all! But God, through Moses, was relentless, sending ten plagues upon Egypt until finally, after killing all the firstborns of Egypt except those of the Israelites, Pharaoh agrees to let them go. And that is where we find ourselves today.

            The next part of the story is known by Sunday School kids everywhere: the Israelites follow Moses out of Egypt and toward the Red Sea, but then Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army after them. When they arrive at the sea, Moses parts the sea, and the Israelites walk safely across dry land between walls of water, but when Pharaoh’s army comes after them, the sea comes back together and the whole army is drowned. God has saved the Israelites from slavery! He has marched them right out of the hands of the oppressor, and into freedom! They are so taken by the event (and who wouldn’t be??) that they sing and dance right there on the shore.

            This would become the defining event for the Jewish faith. This is their Easter story. It is the story retold at the Passover festival, the story referred to as evidence of God’s care, God’s love, God’s desire that we would live lives of freedom.

            And freedom, of course, is also the goal and purpose of our Christian faith. That’s why Jesus died – to save us and free us from our sins. That said, I think that phrase could use some unpacking, because it is kind of a weird phrase, isn’t it? Free us from our sins? What does that even mean?

            Today’s Gospel text can shed some light on this. It begins with this question from Peter, “Jesus, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” I bet he was expecting some kudos for that – seven times is a lot of times to forgive someone! Of course Jesus blows it out of the water, suggesting instead a ridiculous number of times one should forgive: 77 times! Maybe you’re like me, in that when you hear that you imagine it means you should forgive someone every time they do something, as many as 77 times (or really, that number implies more, so many times you lose count).

But this week a different meaning occurred to me. Sometimes people do things that are fairly easy to forgive. So you forgive them, and move on. But sometimes, an offense is so deeply wounding, that you have to forgive it again and again, every day. Or, maybe you think you have forgiven it, and you go weeks without thinking about it, but suddenly it comes up to bite you and you have to do that hard work of forgiving again. What I’m saying is that, like a recovering addict who every day has to make the decision not to drink or smoke or overeat or whatever, sometimes you have to wake up every day and decide to forgive, the same offense, over and over again, 77 times or more.

It’s a lot of work. Is it worth it? In the parable Jesus tells, he shows us that it absolutely is. Because when we are unable to forgive, it can be torture. Holding onto a grudge can eat away at you, poison your closest relationships, affect your mood and even your physical health. We read this last line in Jesus’ parable about how our Heavenly Father will torture us until we are willing to forgive, and squirm at just how ungodly that seems – but really, isn’t it true? Not forgiving is indeed torturous! Like that Anne Lamott quote, “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison, and waiting for the rat to die.” Maybe it hurts the offender a little bit, to know you have not forgiven them, but ultimately, the one withholding forgiveness bears a much heavier burden.

In fact, we could call that a certain sort of captivity. “We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves,” we pray. Our unforgiveness holds us hostage, oppresses us, makes us a slave to its torment. It plagues us, over and over.

Until… Until God comes and says, “I want freedom for you.” And to the one who holds us captive, God says, “Let my people go – away from you and into freedom!” And God marches us out of slavery, away from the oppressor. God parts the sea that would have trapped us and let the enemy overcome us, and then leads the way through the waters of baptism, and behind us drowns our sin and all that had oppressed us.

In Christ, God shows us the way of forgiveness. God shows us what it means to be forgiven, how it feels, how it brings freedom… so that we, in turn would be equipped to live into that life of freedom by forgiving others: forgiving others for small offenses that are once and done, forgiving them for that nagging behavior that doesn’t seem to stop, and yes, even forgiving them for those offenses that cut us so deeply that every day requires a decision to forgive them again. And we do it, because not to thrusts us right back into that place of slavery and oppression, and because of Christ, we simply cannot go back there. Christ died so that we would not have to be stuck there. Christ rose so that we could see that ours is a God who is free – from sin, from death – and wants us, too, to be free from those things. And Christ continues to walk with us – emboldening and strengthening us for the difficult but life-restoring work of forgiving “those who trespass against us,” just as have been forgiven.

            Let us pray… God of freedom, you marched the Israelites away from that which enslaved them, and you promise to lead us, too, away from the sin that would enslave us. Teach us to forgive, as you have forgiven us, so that we would live into the life of freedom that you promise us, again and again. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Managing conflict the Christian way (Sept. 10, 2017)

Pentecost 14A

September 10, 2017

Matthew 18:15-20

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            My little Grace loves her baby brother very much and likes to spend time with him. But sometimes, like all little brothers, he annoys her – usually by either holding onto a corner of her blankie, or by crawling up on her while she is trying to enjoy some lap time with one of her parents. These occurrences usually result in Grace swatting at him, saying, “No, Isaac!” This is 2-year-old conflict management.

Getting along is hard.

            Give them a few years and it might be more like what I witnessed at their daycare last week. Four school-age kids were playing on the playground, but when I walked out, I saw one of them standing on one side of the yard, pouting in the general direction of the other three, who stood staring her down from the play structure. I asked what was going on, and so began a flood of, “She said… they said… she stole the chalk… they were mean…” etc. I suggested everyone owed someone else an apology, and they stared at me blankly. I asked if everyone could think of one thing they had done that might have hurt someone else’s feelings, and they resorted once again to telling me what the offending party had done. This is elementary age conflict management.

            Surely by the time we get to be adults, we are better at this, right? And definitely we in the church, in a place that gathers around the promise of love and forgiveness – we have found a way to be in a community without conflict, right? Ah, not so. Anyone who has been around the church – or any community, really – knows that conflict is very much a part of being in any community. For all of the gifts that community and relationship have to offer us, it is very hard work, and no one is immune to conflict: not couples who are madly in love, not best friends, not extended families, and no, not even the church. We may not swat at each other and say, “No!” but we still lash out at each other, and often in more painful ways. We may not ostracize each other from the play structure or steal each other’s sidewalk chalk, but we ostracize each other and steal each other’s reputations by gossiping about each other, rather than confronting issues head on, and we point fingers rather than noticing our own part in the brokenness. Or sometimes, like my sweet, affable Isaac, we just go along our way, ignoring conflicts, until finally one small thing sets us off, and we can’t take it anymore and start screaming. Conflict management may change form as we grow in years and maturity, but it is always difficult.

            That is why Jesus offers us this bit of instruction on how to manage the conflicts that arise within the beloved community of the church. The first thing to notice here, is just that Jesus felt the need to say this at all. Because Jesus knows being a part of a church community does not immunize us from conflict. When we gather in community, it is not a matter of if, but when challenges arise. What makes the church unique is not whether there is conflict, but rather, how it is handled when there is.

            So Jesus’ first instruction is pretty simple: tell the person about it, right to their face. If someone wrongs you, “sins against you,” he says, tell them. In other words, don’t tell someone else about it. Don’t start the gossip chain. Don’t unload your anxiety about a situation onto someone who doesn’t need to be involved: go right to the source. And don’t do it passive aggressively, or active aggressively for that matter! Be direct, but be kind, be humble – and be willing to recognize your own role in the brokenness. Don’t assume you know the whole story – be willing to listen to the other person, and their particular pain, too. Usually difficult behavior comes out of some sort of brokenness that the offender is experiencing. I heard a sort of funny word for this this week: don’t confront them, but “care-front” them. Bring sandwiches, and speak to each other with care and compassion. This is the stuff of relationship building. It is confronting someone who has wronged you with the understanding that both parties are in bondage to sin and cannot free themselves, and both need daily forgiveness. If you are able to hear each other and recognize your mutual pain, Jesus says, you will have regained that relationship.

            Sometimes, though, even a good sandwich and all the best hopes and intentions in the world don’t result in a good conversation. So Jesus offers another suggestion: bring in a neutral third party. If misunderstanding and inadequate communication is still a problem, ask someone to help you understand each other. This is the role of community, is it not? To care for one another, to help each be our best selves, to hold each other accountable. Again, helping others to communicate with one another lovingly, seeking to understand each other’s mutual brokenness, is hard work – how much easier it would be just to take sides! – but it is the work that the church is called to.

            Yet even this does not always work. Jesus’ next suggestion really ups the ante: bring it to the whole church. Let everyone who has pledged to follow Jesus listen with care to those involved, surrounding them in love and compassion, even while striving to hold everyone accountable.

            And sometimes, even this won’t work. Jesus’ next word sounds at first very harsh: “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let that one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Our first thought is: hold on, Jesus, let that one be like the enemy? Like these despised members of society? Does he mean we should kick them out of the community? But that doesn’t sound like Jesus!

            Ah, and you see, that’s the key. That doesn’t sound like Jesus. Because how does Jesus treat tax collectors? He welcomes them and eats with them! Matthew himself, the author of this gospel, was a tax collector! How does Jesus treat Gentiles? He heals them and loves them and welcomes them! Remember the story we heard a couple weeks ago about the Canaanite woman who wanted a few crumbs from the table, and wanted her daughter to be healed? Jesus said her faith was great, and healed her daughter! When Jesus invites us to treat someone with whom we are struggling to be in relationship like a tax collector or a Gentile, he is inviting us to treat these outsiders like he does: with the same love and compassion as you would anyone else in the community. In fact, perhaps even with more, because Jesus is always one to reach beyond boundaries – geographical, religious, and emotional – to the one who is vulnerable and in need.

            In this way, Jesus’ advice to the church in today’s reading is not meant to be a legalistic formula for dealing with church conflict. Really, his advice is simpler than that: love one another. Love one another with all that you have, and try everything you can to be in loving relationship with one another. Reach out. Listen. Surround the person with loving community. When you’ve tried everything, still never stop loving them with the love of Christ.

            That’s a pretty tall order. It is only possible because of this last line in our text today: “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus says, “I am there among you.” We’ve heard this line so many times before, but seeing it here, in its context, makes all the difference. Jesus makes this promise right on the tails of talking about the challenges and requirements of living in Christian community – he makes it because he knows how difficult community can be. Rewarding, yes, and life-giving, and healing, but also a whole lot of work, and very trying at times. And so he promises: I am with you in that important work. When you strive for love, strive for relationship, strive for compassion and building up and growth – I am with you. When your humanity and brokenness rubs each other the wrong way – I am with you. When you are challenged and discouraged by each other – I am with you. Whenever you are together in my name – I am with you. And I will not leave you alone.

            This strikes me as especially important at this time, as the kids head back to school, and the Sunday School starts up again, and the program year, and all of the fall activities that are a lot of fun, but have the potential to suck us dry and make us feel stressed and strung out. For all the gifts of all these things starting up again, when we are stressed and overworked we are all that much more susceptible to snapping at each other. As we interact with more people, meet new people, find ourselves in new communities… these words from Jesus are even more important to remember: not only to do everything in our power to build loving, healing relationships with one another, and to reach out especially to those marginalized and vulnerable, but to remember that in all we do together in Jesus’ name, we do it also with Jesus’ presence, and with the promise of his own self-giving love, his grace, and his joy.

            Let us pray… God of community, you call us into loving, compassionate, forgiving relationships with one another. Give us the wisdom to build these relationships, to nurture them and help them grow, and when we struggle, remind us that you are there with us, loving us and forgiving us, as we continue to strive to live your loving way in the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.