We Are All Special People

 

Ecumenical Service

Sunday, November 20

John 6:25-35 

First off, let me thank you all for being with us this evening. We are truly honored and blessed to have so many members of the Okaloosa County community gathered in this holy place. Tonight, we have come together in peace as one body to offer prayers of thanksgiving for the many blessings that fill our lives despite the chaos and turmoil of our global community. 

As well as acting as your host, I have also been asked to deliver tonight’s message. In preparation I, of course, have been in deep thought regarding the focus of my message. More importantly I have prayed relentlessly beseeching the Holy Spirit to infuse my muddled brain with a message that would be relevant to all of us as we consider the context of our world and our community as we move into 2023. 

Let me begin by saying that I recently had the good luck to participate in a South African travel seminar led by the Rev. Dr. Michael Battle, one of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s colleagues and a brilliant theologian in his own right. The point of the travel seminar was to study not only the ubuntu theology of the archbishop, but also to have an in-depth opportunity to learn about the ongoing struggles of black South Africans despite the abolishment of the apartheid movement and despite the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Tutu in 1995-2002.

I do not exaggerate when I tell you that the trip was life changing for me. I returned to the US with a renewed enthusiasm for spreading the word of God through the building of community. I came home understanding the absolute necessity of community if one is to encounter God acting in today’s world. The absolute necessity of community of we are to see the very image of God among us.

So, this evening I want to speak of community and its critical role in this very fragmented and chaotic global society in which so many are suffering, with little or no relief in sight. In which so many yearn for God’s redeeming love. In which so many hunger for a taste of hope through the presence of God, the bread of life, to come into their lives.

In the gospel according to Mark, Jesus clarifies for all who demand to know what the most important commandment is when he answered saying, “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Tonight, I want to suggest that if we are to grasp the full intent of God’s command to love our neighbor, we are called to understand and firmly embrace the concept of love of neighbor and the importance of how that love is revealed in and through the gift of community.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer the German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident who was executed at Flossenberg concentration camp just four days before the end of the Second World War in his book Life Together wrote, “The church is [God] existing as community. It is only through community that we are connected to God….On this presupposition rests everything that the Scriptures provide in the way of directions and precepts for the communal life…”

Bonhoeffer concludes these thoughts writing, “The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything between us recede, the more clearly and purely will [God]… become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through [God], but through [God] we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity…this is not an ideal but a divine reality.”  (Life Together. p 24, 26)

In his last published work, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote “…today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or together we will be forced to perish as fools.”

The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu viewed the critical importance of community through the African concept of ubuntu. Tutu defined ubuntu in saying “A person is a person through other persons. We need other human beings for us to learn how to be human, for none of us comes fully formed into the world…Ubuntu is the essence of being human…I am because I belong…I need other human beings to be human.” (Various presentations) 

An international leader in human rights and social justice, Tutu believed firmly that the building of community was increasingly important in addressing the challenges of our fragmented and chaotic global community. He said “We are living in an historic moment. We are each called to take part in a great transformation. Our survival as a species is threatened by global warming, economic meltdown, and an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. Yet these threats offer an opportunity to awaken an interconnected and beloved community.” (Various presentations)

In the Episcopal Church the gospel reading appointed for Thanksgiving Day is John 6:25-35, a story we might entitle “The Bread from Heaven.” This story is very much about finding God in and through community.

If you will recall, in search of Jesus, a crowd on the shores of Tiberias gets into small boats and crosses the lake to Capernaum where they hope to find him. They have heard about the miracle of Jesus finding food for 5000 even though he had but five barley loaves and two fishes. The crowd wants to join in – to be fed similarly. But Jesus has their number. He says to them, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you…I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never by thirsty.”

Simply put the crowd is seeking a taste of bread, a morsel of fish, a magical and temporary fix to a passing hunger, but instead they find Jesus who instead offers them a different a kind of food. He offers them the bread of life. A way to fulfillment that brings love and peace not through the temporal fix of a small meal, but through an eternal peacefulness of the heart and soul. In these moments on the shores of Capernaum a community frantically seeking temporary fulfillment of their hunger instead recognizes God as the true bread of life. God as the way to eternal fulfillment. This desperately seeking community emerges as God’s fulfilled and sacred community.

Bonhoeffer, King, and Tutu while quite different in their theological approaches to the challenges of their contexts, all agree on one critical point – God is found in community. God is among us, whatever our current context might be. God is always present in all of us and through all of us. Once again quoting Bonhoeffer we recognize that, “…brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; rather it is a reality created by God in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in God alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it. (Life Together. P. 30)

My friends I know that there is not a person present who does not understand the urgent need for us as members of Okaloosa County to strengthen our communal bonds. To, as one, hear God’s voice as he guides our way and lights our path in the work of creating a community that reflects his peace and love. A community that lays aside barriers to unity and welcomes all. A community created in and strengthened by love. A community formed in the image of God. 

And, on the eve of our Thanksgiving celebrations, a community that offers the bread of life to all through inclusion, healing, and love. Let us remember we are all beloved children of God. All created in his image. All members of God’s kingdom now and forever.

In closing I offer one final quote from the late archbishop.

“In my theology there are no ordinary people. Each one of us, because we are God’s representative, God’s viceroy, God’s stand-in, and a God carrier – each one of us is a very special person.” (No Future Without Forgiveness. 109)

God Among us

 

SERMON

Luke 21:5-19

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022

 

Unbelievably I am now in my sixth year here at St. Simon’s. My time with you has passed by in a complete flash. Truly, I do not know where the time has gone and sadly along with time disappeared, many memories have been tucked away in the rush of dealing with the present. However, today’s gospel reading from Luke has caused me to retrieve many of those memories and to reflect on our six years together. In doing so, I am amazed at how much has happened in the life of our church family since my first trip to this altar on October 1, 2017.

Major events, like the Craft Fair and the Rummage Sale, have ended. Many, too many, beloved friends have died. Covid 19 terrified us all and closed our doors for months on end. Hurricane Sally pushed water into and through our entire building, leading to a year of disruption and repairs. And, finally many dear friends have moved away or are unable physically to join us as we gather.

I think that you will all agree – that’s a lot. A lot of trauma and grief for anyone, and certainly a lot for a church congregation struggling to maintain a solid vertical connection to God. Staying in touch with God is not always easy when life is beset by challenge after challenge. Obstacles to faith and hope.

And yet, my friends, despite these turbulent seas we are emerging as a body of Christ in faith and in hope that we will resume our energy and our focus as disciples of Christ. Already the servant work in our congregation and in our community has blossomed. We bring comfort and nourishment to the children at Elliott Point School. We share our congregational meals with the residents of One Hopeful Place and partner with other congregations in feeding the many homeless sheltered there on nights when the temperature dips below forty degrees. We partnered with Gregg Chapel to prepare two truckloads of hurricane supplies to send to the Port Charlotte area just a matter of days after hurricane Ian. Several weeks ago we collected 51 bags of non-perishable food items for our local food pantry Sharing and Caring in what will now be a quarterly Brown Bag Ministry. We are preparing to embark on a Blessing Bags ministry through which basic hygiene items with be regularly distributed to the over 475 homeless schoolchildren in Okaloosa County. And we have joyously resumed our potluck feasts on holidays and as a natural extension of special services. Our kitchen is back in full swing; the flower guild is more creative than ever, and the altar guild has polished every nook and cranny in the sacristy and will begin refurbishing some of our sacred items such as the Processional Cross.

My friends, I do believe that we have re-established our vertical relationship with God. We are answering his call to serve in peace through love, faith, and hope.

All this good work has not come about without, as I mentioned earlier, plowing through turbulent seas. Seas of angry, frustrated, and despairing words, and paralyzing moods of depression, anger, and a deep grief over the loss of precious time and the deaths of dear friends. But much like the sea captain in the hymn Amazing Grace: 

“The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures; he will my shield and portion be as long as life endures. Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come; ‘tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” 

St. Simon’s has overcome, and with God’s grace will continue to do so for many years to come.

Now you might ask what about Luke’s story of Jesus describing in distressing detail a future of bloody, death-filled times and the destruction of the temple is relevant to us sitting here 2000 years after the fact.

Think back. As you may remember, Jesus’ predictions in this story are based the disciples’ adoration of the magnificent Herodian temple in Jerusalem. A temple built by a Roman leader and a temple in which Roman Gods were worshipped along with the God of the Israelites. A temple that was ultimately a symbol of Rome’s oppressive power over the people of Israel.  Jesus warns his disciples that temporal symbols of wealth and power that might seem quite attractive in the here and now will ultimately fail and die away. He predicts that, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

The disciples, appropriately alarmed, frightened for their lives I would imagine, ask Jesus when and how they will know that this horrific situation is about to occur. Rather than providing a direct answer to these questions, Jesus responds with the directive, “Beware you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.” 

Jesus understands that in the time of destruction, chaos, and fear the disciples – just like any normal person, you and I included – will lose focus and grasp on to any promise of comfort and safety that they might come across. He warns them – do not lose your focus by being drawn to those who act like god, but who are truly deceivers seeking power to rule; to be a “would be” god. Stick with me, follow me, have faith in me, and I will lead you to the true God. The God of love, of hope and of salvation.

A little later in this same passage he warns the disciples that there will be additional dangers that they must face. Wars, insurrections, nation rising against nation, kingdoms against kingdoms, great earthquakes, dreadful portents or threats, and more. All times and situations in which one’s trust in God can be shaken, and in many cases, all faith lost. All times in which alternative leaders seeking power and control can intrude themselves into our lives gaining our trust and compounding evil upon evil.

Jesus goes on to describe scenarios in which the disciples will be detained, arrested, questioned, even put to death. Times in which they will have to testify to their allegiance to God, not to the power of the Roman Empire. Scary stuff. But then, Jesus offers comfort saying, “…I will give you words of wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” In other words, despite the turbulent seas, the tragedy, the loss of life, the horrific times of war and insurrection, natural disaster, betrayal by family members, and more we are to proceed in faith and courage understanding that “…not a hair on our head will perish. By our endurance we will gain our souls.”

“By our endurance we will gain our souls.”

Today’s gospel story is so relevant to our modern times. There is not one situation that Jesus describes which is not present in our world today. Insurrection and war in the Ukraine, in various African nations, in Syria, and throughout the Mideast rage without cease. Threats of nuclear warfare are now in every headline. Massive natural events such as earthquakes and hurricanes have caused the destruction of entire communities. As of May 2022, 100 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide. Propelled by the war in Ukraine and other deadly conflicts this data accounts for an increase of 10.7 million people displaced from the end of the previous year.

Child hunger affects millions of children worldwide, many of them living right here in the Florida Panhandle, and Covid is still with us stealthily spreading throughout our communities each and every day.

These are times in which Jesus tells us it is imperative to… “Follow me and not a hair on your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

This, my friends, brings me back to St. Simon’s – the community of St. Simon’s – and our corporate life together as we face a chaotic world filled with tragic events and strive to keep our vertical relationship with God. This is a challenge that faces us daily. One that we must meet together as we gather each week in communal worship and as we go into the world to seek and serve Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is just one of the many theologians who insists that we can only know God through communal worship. Bonhoeffer believed that we can only know God through God’s actions. And we can only make sense of God’s actions through worship because it is in worship that we are invited into the mystery of knowing God as the subject of our life together. We know God through adoring God together. 

It is in our church community that we find the presence of God among us and working with us. It is in our church community that we hear God’s call and find God’s presence. Our communal worship life together is essential to meeting the challenge of turbulent seas and chaotic lives.

As St. Simon’s emerges from the ashes of the Covid 19 era of isolation, I sense that the St. Simon’s community recognizes what Bonhoeffer taught. We know God through adoring God together. We know God’s will for us through our communal life of worship– because of St. Simon’s. And, perhaps most importantly we want to share our God through servant works with the rest of our community.

My friends, we possess something most precious to share with the world. Together, let us offer it to others.

I close with a brief quote from Bonhoeffer’s early work The Cost of Discipleship:

“The path of discipleship is narrow, and it is fatally easy to miss one’s way and stray from the path, even after years of discipleship…On either side of the path deep chasms yawn…The way is unutterably hard…if we are afraid for ourselves all the time it is an impossible way. But if we behold Jesus Christ going on before step by step, we shall not go astray…For he is himself the way, the narrow way…He, and he alone, is our journey’s end…The narrow way is bound to be right.”