“Life Together: Ministry” 2 Corinthians 6: 1-13

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians always amazes me. It has sections that are often quoted, chiefly a passage about love that is used as weddings. But if we read the surrounding chapters, we find that Paul needs to speak to the church in Corinth about love because they are behaving so poorly towards one another. Not acting as the church of Jesus Christ. 

By second Corinthians, where we find today’s scripture passage, it appears that the situation has not improved. Paul again writes to the church and essentially tells them to get their act together, because what is at stake is so high. At a first glance it may seem like Paul is concerned about his ministry - his authority. But really Paul is passionately pleading with the church to put the ministry of Jesus Christ first; its because the stakes are so high that Paul’s emotions are high.

The truth is sometimes we miss the point as the local church. Sometimes we get so caught up in the trivial, because it feels important to us at the time, that we surely miss the point. Our District Superintendent a few years ago shard the story of a church that fought over the color of new carpet for their sanctuary. I served a church that fought over nursery renovations. Another church over kitchen space and supplies. Do you see a pattern developing here? Sometimes we get so caught up in the physical building that we forget that we, together, are the body of Christ in ministry to the world. Our building is a wonderful tool that we are to be good stewards of, but it is not the church with a capital ‘C’.

Think about all of the things that you have heard of churches fighting over - money, calendars, space, special traditions, special worship services - I’m sure you could think of a few things to add to this list as well. None of those things are actually the Church. Yes, they are gifts and tools, we use to do the ministry and mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world - but when we get so caught up in them that we fight, we’ve missed the point. 

While we read bits and pieces of scripture during church and Bible Study and personal devotions, when the scripture was first given, it wasn’t written with chapters and verses and headings. This letter of Paul to the Church in. Corinth - was just that - a letter. It was meant to be a continual reading - and sometimes we miss the connections in studying scripture the way we do. This passage of scripture comes right after Paul reminding the church in chapter five that they are to be ambassadors for Christ -  a representative of Christ who speaks of and acts for his mission in the world. Not our mission, Christ’s mission, bringing the message of God’s grace. 

Instead, we find that the Church in Corinth misused and misunderstood that mission in just about every way possible. They fought about who was the greatest. They treated some members of the body of Christ as better than others. They even mistreated Timothy when he came bearing Paul’s message to them. 

But before we find ourselves scolding the Corinthians - I have to ask, have we ever acted that way? Have we always act as if we have a common ministry or do we sometimes argue about who’s the greatest? Maybe we don’t use that exact terminology - but isn’t that what’s at the root of most church fights - about how we spend money, who gets what what space on the calendar, even around special traditions and worship services, as well as building choices - we want our preferences to win. We may truly stand firm in the belief that we want what is best for the church - but when we think of the Church as our brothers and sisters, these people around us, engaged in mission together - is our preference really what is best or is it simply just a preference? 

Then we run the risk of taking our preferences a bit further by using them to categorize people - you are either with me or against me. Perhaps that is why the Corinthians treated Timothy so badly - they say him as being with Paul and against them. We create sides instead of letting the Spirit leads, and the division deepens. 

Another way we can create further division is by judging our brothers and sisters, using ourselves as the measuring stick. Dietrich Bohnhoffer writes, “Self-justification and judging others go hand in hand”. When we think that we are better than someone else - we often let others know it by our words and actions. We speak poorly of one another. And guess what Church, that behavior is known by the outside community. The Corinthians let their tongues tear one another down - and it wasn’t just them - we find James writing to a community of believers about this problem as well. And when the tongue runs ramped - it leaks out to non-believers. We may think our judgments and dirty laundry stays in house - but it doesn’t. Why would anyone want to come and be part of a community that treats one another poorly? 

So what is the way for the Corinthians, and for us, to truly engage in the mission and ministry of being ambassadors for Jesus Christ? First, we give ourselves away through active service. Being part of this community, the Church, the body of Christ, is not so much about asserting ourselves and our preferences, as it is about serving others. And what better way to learn to serve others in the world than to learn to serve each other? Active service is all about looking for the opportunities that God puts in our path to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. 

When I was in college I was on the ministry council for my building - we planned way to encourage students and encourage relationships. One evening, we were planning a cookout next to the building. I set up and was preparing everything when I got a phone call from a friend in need. I just sat with her for the next several hours listening, as she poured her heart out to me. I remember that the RA overseeing the event was not pleased with my absence until I said that this is what encouraging students and encouraging relationships looks like - listening to a friend in need. Serving one another with the opportunities that God puts in our path, even if it doesn’t neatly fit into our schedules. 

We serve one another when we truly listen Church. Not just listen until we get our turn to speak to make our point known, but rather listening from the heart, as a sign that we are bearing one another’s burdens. 

Second, we recognize that we are all in this together. There is no one greater in the chain of ministry than another - we are all linked together. When we find ourselves judging others or judging a situation, take time to ask -  am I truly serving God to bring God honor and glory or is this about honoring myself? Because we cannot put ourselves above others when we serve by thinking ourselves better than them.

Brothers and sisters, the truth is somewhere in our church history we have probably acted like the Corinthians - arguing about anything and everything, because we lost sight of our true mission and purpose. We need to refocus on what it means to be the body of Christ. Christian community isn’t about holding preferences and interests in common - its about serving God and witnessing to our faith. Its about mutual charity and servant leadership. May we seek to be the body of Christ - brothers and sisters - serving one another and serving the world as we make disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

“Life Together: A Day Alone” Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21

There are certain pieces of scripture that we reserve and only hear at very particular times of the year. We hear Jesus’s final words from the cross during Lent, usually on Good Friday. We hear the story of Jesus’s birth on Christmas Eve. And this particular text, a text where Jesus speaks about how to pray, we usually hear this on Ash Wednesday. In fact, this past Lent, Rev. Jim Hollister preached from this text on that exact day. However, this scripture has the power to echo through our lives year round, so we return to it this morning. 

For the last several weeks we have been talking about our life together as a community of faith through the lens of a book bearing the same name, Life Together, by Dietrich Bohnhoffer. So what in the word is a topic such as ‘the day alone’ doing in the midst of a book about community? Doing smack dab in the middle of a sermon series about being the body of Christ?

Bohnhoffer had the ability to speak Christian truths in such a way that they captured your heart and wouldn’t leave you alone. Two such truths lead us today in our exploration of this topic alongside Matthew, Chapter 6. “Let him who cannot be alone beware community” and “Let him who is not in community beware being alone.” Let that sink in for a moment. What exactly is Bohnhoffer saying? That all too often we misuse Christian fellowship in order to escape ourselves. Or we claim that our relationship to Christian community is pre-determined by our personality. 

An example from my own life. I am an introvert. Which means, as much as I love being around people, I prefer one on one to group settings, and that after a long time being with a lot of people, I need to recharge my batteries by being alone. Which is probably why some of the activities that I enjoy the most, reading, cross stitch, painting, are usually done in solitude. I was in a meeting with other pastors once when someone, very mistakenly, tried to claim that because I was an introvert I didn’t enjoy being around people and wasn’t rooted in community, and I lost it. For that simply isn’t true. At that time I was in a community doing a book study. I was very deeply grounded in a community of other pastors, sharing our lives together. He heard the word introvert and substituted the word loner, where I claimed the truth of being an introvert as a way of saying, this is how I need to recharge my batteries at the end of a long day. 

Unfortunately, that pastor, who later apologized to me, wasn’t the only one to make such distinctions. Too many people assume that those who seek out community are extroverted and those who want solitude are introverted. Bohnhoffer reminds us that we need both in our lives, no matter what our natural temperament. In fact, we should seek out that which may not come naturally to us as a spiritual discipline, and set aside any assumptions about who needs what in their lives. We all need community. We all need solitude. And we need them in balance. 

Just as we often misunderstand each other and what we need, so is this passage from Matthew, Chapter 6 often ripped from its context. Often when we hear this passage of scripture lifted up, it is done so with an admonishment to live our faith life in secret so that we don’t get sucked in to the temptation of living out our faith for show or for someone else. A great, straight forward interpretation. But what we miss out on, is that in the time of Jesus all faith life was public. This teaching of Jesus would have been radical. At that time keeping one’s religious practices to one self would have been completely counter cultural.

So I have to ask, what would be considered counter cultural today? I would venture to guess that the pendulum has swung pretty far to the other side. We hardly do anything to show our faith in public - so afraid of being called different in todays society, even though that is exactly who God is calling us to be. We don’t live our faith out in community, instead we focus so much on spiritual development in solitude that we sometimes forget the point. We think faith is something that isn’t to be discussed with other people, and as a result, even folks who deeply love Jesus don’t how to put words to what their faith means to them. Our religious doesn’t run the risk of becoming showy for most people, it runs the risk of not having meaning grounded in community. 

We need to seeking out a more balanced faith life - one where we pray both in public and in private. One where we don’t refuse to fast because we use this scripture to put down a meaningful and transformative spiritual practice, but instead fast regularly and with joy. One where we don’t give whats left over to God, but instead store up our treasure in heaven and give to God what God first gave us.

In this passage Jesus is essentially calling folks to examine why they do what they do. What internal inklings and convictions in their souls lead them to live their lives of faith. We run into trouble when we never take time to examine the heart behind our actions and beliefs, and instead just do what is comfortable or claim this is what we’ve always believed. Jesus is calling us to be just as countercultural in our faith actions today as he was calling the disciples two-thousand years ago - it just may look different. 

I have a dear friend who read Life Together around the same time I did in college. In fact, he read my copy, so the tattered pages bear both of our notes and markings, which has been enlightening to look back upon in preparing for this sermon series. My friend is just about as opposite from me as you can get. He is extroverted - drawing his energy from being around large groups of people and can draw large crowds into meaningful conversation, whereas I prefer small groups. After reading this book however, he challenged himself to spend more time in solitude as well, seeking the balance to this life that could come from drawing away from time to time into the silence. He wanted to bring checks and balances into his life so that he wasn’t misusing Christian community.

We misuse Christian community when we use it to escape ourselves or to give ourselves and excuse to leave our faith lives unexamined. Christian community is not meant to be a distraction from our lives, rather to usher us into the fullness of life. To come to a place where we can be fully known and speak words of life to one another, not simply idol chatter. 

But in order to be fully known we must first know ourselves. We must draw apart of silence, the mark of solitude, and let Jesus, the very Word of Life, speak into our hearts. We need times to draw apart, as Jesus instructs, not just to avoid hipcocracy, but to let God be the first one to speak a Word into our day and the last Word given to us at night. Silence in its very nature is waiting for God’s Word to come to us. Then when we know ourselves, we come back into community to ask what God is saying to us, both individually and corporately, through the words of Jesus. This model and quest of balancing the inner and the outer life, balancing solitude and community, is such a different endeavor, than coming into fellowship together, because we are so afraid to be alone or to get to know ourselves.

Matthew 6, asks us to be aware of the outward influences that come upon our inward life. It asks us to live a life of balance, a life of integrity where the inward and outward come together. May we take time this week to draw apart and simply listen to God speak into our lives, so that we can become counter-cultural again, fully known and fully alive. Amen. 

Life Together: The Day with Others - Matthew 18: 15-20

05/13/18 “Life Together: The Day with Others” Matt 18: 15-20

What is the purpose of the church - the body of Christ? Before we give a knee jerk answer, I want us to spend time deeply pondering this question. Both what it is and what it not, especially within the context on today’s scripture passage. 

This particular scripture passage on how to deal with conflict within the body of Christ, is part of a much larger section of scripture where Jesus is dealing with topics such as the Kingdom of God, life together as believers and eschatology - or what is to come. And plopped right into the middle of that larger section is this teaching about how to deal with one another within the church, which both speaks to how we treat each other as disciples and what our witness is the world around us. 

So what is the church? The church is not just a weekly gathering where we choose to come together to worship God - though worshipping God is certainly vital to who we are as Christians. The church is a fellowship of believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Let’s get that straight first and foremost. This is not my church. This is not your church. This isn’t even our church together. This is Christ’s church. So many of our arguments could be avoided if only we started with that particular belief. Second, church is not just something that happens on Sunday. If we are truly in fellowship with one another as the family of Christ, then whenever two or three of us are gathered, we are the church. Another way we could avoid some of our disagreements is to live into this idea of gathering together, because sometimes we find ourselves in fights because we assume that because someone sees us once a week that they know us and understand us, but that requires the true commitment of time and desiring to get to know one another. 

As a pastor one of the things that I require before I can marry anyone is five premarital sessions as a minimum. One is to plan the wedding service, but the rest are to talk about potential stumbling blocks in relationships. Do you know what one of the top ones is? Communication. Or rather the lack there of. When we start to assume that this person we are marrying is our soulmate, so therefore they must know what we are thinking to the point that it doesn’t need said - disaster is just around the corner. And that isn’t just true in marriage. It is also true in friendships. And in the fellowship that is the church. 

We also can bring on arguments, however, when we are so in tune with what another person within the fellowship thinks and feels, that we forget about Jesus. Have you ever been in a meeting or a conversation where it is clear with the Spirit is leading us in terms of mission and vision for the sake of Jesus Christ, only to have someone say “but have you talked to ‘Mrs. X’ or ‘Mr. Y’ about that”? I was at a training recently where the presenter cautioned us that when we are so caught up in protecting the feelings of other people, that we ignore the mission and calling of Jesus, we have ceased being the church. 

A last note about the church - it is not optional. If you are a believer, and claim that Jesus is the Lord and Savior of your life, then you are linked to other believers. You are linked with people around the world who may not look like you, speak the same language as you, or live like you do, but they are still your brother and sister in Christ - and you love them because of that. We don’t get to choose who we are siblings in Christ with, and that applies both globally and locally. We don’t get to choose who comes into our fellowship of local believers, because the Church belongs to Christ. 

But with all of that being said, conflict still exists in the body of Christ. In fact, church conflict has been a blemish since the time of Jesus. And honestly, as someone who has studied church history, I would say that most of the time, the blemish has become a stain - as we have not handed conflict in the way instructed by Christ. Instead of confronting folks in the loving and humble manner that honors Christ, we don’t like something, so we pack up our bags and leave - often to start a new church. That isn’t a reflection of the care Christ has for the body, nor is a good witness to those around us. 

What is Christ teaching then, about a different way, a better way, to hand disagreements in the church? First, we are to approach the person in a loving way on our own. We pull them aside and speak to them about how they have harmed us. Note - this isn’t about simply having a difference of opinions - we have to truly feel that we have been wronged to simply not just let it go. If that doesn’t work, next we bring in one or two other people - not to be on our side or to declare that we are right, but instead of bring the added benefit of an outside perspective. If that still doesn’t work, we bring it to a larger part of the body, in hopes of gaining added wisdom. 

But the truth is we rarely engage in this process today, and if we do engage in it - we often abuse it. One way that its abused is thinking that its the green light for ex-communicating people. The point of this process is never to break apart the body of Christ. And note what Christ says in this passage - to treat them as gentiles or tax collectors. Guess what? Jesus still interacted with the tax collectors and gentiles. He ate with them. He taught them. He spent time with them. This passage is not saying that we kick people out of the church so we can never speak with them again. 

Another way that this passage has been abused is using it as a reason why people have to forgive us. Forgiveness, especially when we have been deeply harmed, is not on a time line. We cannot make another person forgive us - instead we can only honestly ask for their forgiveness and give time and space for the relationship to be restored if it can be. Yes, as the church, we are called to forgive and heal, but we cannot make another person do that, nor is this passage a license for us to go to other believers in situations that do not involve us and ask why they can’t just forgive another person. Forgiveness is not something that can be demanded or in some cases even expected, yet we are still brothers and sisters in Christ.

The problem is that we have come to see the church as a voluntary association, not a family of believers bound by Christ as the head. So when we feel wronged, we simply leave this church community and go somewhere else. I have to ask, however, what that communicates? That conflict is stronger than the message of the cross? That being Christian we can address conflict just like the rest of the world? That we care more about being right than honoring Christ?

Perhaps we wouldn’t even need this process, brothers and sisters, if we truly understood what it means to be a Christ follower. This particular passage comes shortly after Jesus spoke to his disciples about his impending death. He knew that they would need one another after his passion. What if we thought more about why we need this body of believers instead of publicly calling people out and taking sides? What if we so desperately wanted to lived differently because we are disciples of Jesus that it marks every way that we interact with one another - including if conflict happens to arrive? How would our church be different? And what message would we be sending to the community around us? Amen. 

Life Together: Community

05/06/18 “Life Together: Community” Hebrews 10: 16-25

I graduated from a Christian college in western New York. I originally started out in college at the University of Pittsburg, but transferred for a variety of reasons. When I transferred, I thought that I wanted to go from a secular college to a Christian one, so I only looked at two colleges in that round. But what would shock me, more than I was able to wrap my mind around or admit for some time, is that when I got to a Christian college it wasn’t all that different from the secular one I left. I was yearning for a different type of life lived out by people of faith, and there was a great chasm between what I imagined in my mind and reality.

For the next five weeks together we are going to be talking about what it means to be in Christian community together. What it means to be Christian. How our lives are markedly different because of accepting the saving love of Jesus. But I also know that as we start this sermon series that there are also chasms of difference between the ideal of Christian life and how we live it sometimes. Let’s admit that as a confession before God and one another and then keep moving on towards the ideal God has laid out before us. Let us not get so caught up in the should haves and wants that we miss the gift that we have been given.

This sermon series is based off a book of Dietrich Bonhoeffer bearing the same name - Life Together. Bonhoeffer was a pastor, writer, and professor. This particular book emerged when he was running an underground seminary during World War 2 for those who didn’t agree with the state church, which was supporting Hitler. He writes in it about how we can be sustained, no matter what we face, through true Christian community. He believed that our faith life was meant to be lived out, and ended up being martyred. 

Sometimes it is a struggle to see the beauty of the gift that we have been offered in Christ which draws us into fellowship with one another. The book of Hebrews was written, not necessarily to one church in a particular location, such as Galatians of Ephesians, but rather those who came to know Christ through their Jewish faith, no matter where they may be located. 

Because that is the particular group that this author is writing to, the book is full of references to the Hebrew Scriptures, and similarly to the Gospel of Matthew, uses those references to make a case for Jesus Christ. 

Our scripture today starts with one of those references, which retells the epitome of the Jewish faith - the exodus story, where God made a new covenant with his people. This was a new beginning for the people of God, but not the end of their story. God brought them out of Egypt, made covenant with them to be their sovereign God, but they kept straying. They couldn’t wrap their minds and hearts around the love that God had for them. So they tried to make their own way. Their own gods. Their own kings and leaders to follow. But God would not give up them. God kept calling out to them through the prophets, reminding them of the covenant. Reminding them of God’s mercy and forgiveness, which was theirs if only they would turn back to God. Reminding them of the covenant that didn’t need outwards signs, because it was written on their minds and in their hearts. This was their message of hope. 

After the author of Hebrews reminds those receiving this letter of the goodness and grace of God’s covenant, he ties that to the covenant of Jesus Christ - the offering of Christ’s very self for us. That is what they are to cling to. That is what they are to find the promise of hope in. That Christ died for us and rose again.

We remember that Christ is the cornerstone of our hope every time we gather around the communion table. And we cling to the fact that Christ wash’s away our sins, every time we celebrate together a baptism. The sacraments remind us of the living hope our Savior offers. 

But for whatever reason, be in fear, be it distance, be it something else that we are not told about, the body of Christ the letter of Hebrews was addressing were no longer regularly gathering together for worship. They were starting to forget not only their covenant with God, but also the covenant we hold for each other in community. 

I have a similar concern for our church today. I fear that we are no longer meeting together. We live in a time when regular church attendance is considered twice a month - and that is for a variety of reasons. But unlike many others, I don’t blame the many reasons. Instead, I fear that as a church we have lost the force behind our compelling message. We have lost our ability to claim with all we are that Christ is our cornerstone and our hope. 

For so many years we made our Christian worship gathering what it is not. We have taken for granted being with other believers, to the point where we no longer cherished the community we had. No longer were able to articulate why coming together mattered. 

Instead, we took what Christ gave us as a gift of joy, and sometimes used it to bring others down. Or sometimes used it to keep others out. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of how Christ opened the curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple, thus giving us all access to God, when he gave his life on the cross. But we sometimes forget what that curtain was - a barrier between the people and God. And while by the loving grace of Jesus, that curtain is no longer a barrier, sometimes as churches we have created other ones. Things like you need to look like us or dress like us to come. Or you need to keep your children quiet. Or you have to have all the right beliefs before you can enter. We have put up so many road blocks and barriers that people have forgotten why we exist in the first place - to proclaim the hope of Jesus. 

Other times we have used Christian community to deeply wound one another. I think because we forget that we are still human, we expect more from church folks, and when those expectations are not met, we are hurt. Sometimes hurt to the point where we cease gathering together in community. And while we trust that God can forgive us, we often struggle with forgiving others or trusting others again even after we say that we have forgiven them. 

That is not the gift of community, Christian community, that Christ has come to offer us, Church. It is by grace alone that we are given the gift of this community. It is by grace that we are invited. It is by grace that it will be sustained. In the words of Bonhoffer, “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than that.”

That is what we exist for, Church. To have community through Jesus and in Jesus. It is not about judging one another. It is not about putting up barriers. It is about saying to someone, because Jesus loves me, I love you. And it is through this community that the gift of salvation is proclaimed. Everything else, the preferences, the pettiness, the bickering we can sometimes engage in - that is not what Christ died for and that is not who we are as the community of the Church. 

People, both inside and outside of the church, desire human community. Desire the love of God, that agape love that is all encompassing and beyond our wildest imaginations. Is that we are offering as this body of Christ? Or have we lost our way and made it about something else? What would Jesus say about our live in this community? Are we sharing his love and serving because of his love, or have we lost our way? Amen.