What On Earth Am I Here For (3): Comm-Unity

Community. When we break this word apart we have comm– and –unity.  The prefix “com” means with or together. So community means “with unity” or “together in unity.” We were made for community – to be together, in unity.

Years ago when I put up my first bird feeder I expected to see Cardinals – the beautiful North Carolina red bird. But I had never paid enough attention to notice anything about the rest of the birds. There were Cardinals and there were brown birds. But then the brown birds started coming – Chickadees and House Finches and Tufted Titmouses and Nuthatches and Wrens and Gold Finches and Woodpeckers. And I’ve even seen a Baltimore Oriole!

As I paid attention I discovered that even the Cardinals weren’t all the same. Some males are more vibrantly red than others. Some females are more brown. And they have their own personalities. Some birds chase everyone away from the feeder before they eat. Some birds hop from one hole to the next, looking for the tastiest morsel. God’s diversity is displayed every day right at my bird feeder.

We all know that human beings are equally diverse. We are black and white, tall and short, big and small, female and male. We are rich and poor, country folks and city folks, blue and red. God’s diversity is displayed for us every day right before our eyes. And, we are all created in the image of God!

Community. With unity.

Here’s the thing. We humans have a tendency to see our differences and divide into factions. You like light blue, I like Duke blue. And some of you like red. You like vanilla, I like chocolate. And some of you like strawberry or butter pecan. And while our ice cream preference may not divide us, the way we read scripture can. You say the Bible is inerrant; I say the Bible is the inspired word of God. You say “Thou shalt not kill” means even the ants deserve to live; I say it is okay to eat meat.

Friends, if we let our differences divide us we will eventually be left standing alone without community. Just consider all the greens in the crayon box. There’s bright green and bottle green and Christmas green; there’s pine green and sea foam green and pea green.  Crayola has 50 different greens! We are all different. Uniquely gifted. Created for a purpose. No two people are the same.

Community. With unity. Paul writes, “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³ making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He goes on to remind us, “⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

The truth is that being in community is hard. Making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is hard. Too often we are like children – we insist that we are right. It’s my way or the highway! And, because we are grown ups, instead of throwing a tantrum we simply choose to ignore the person who disagrees with us.

No wonder there are more than 3000 different denominations in the United States – never mind all the non-denominational churches. Martin Luther never set out to form a new church. He wanted to reform the Catholic Church. In the same way, John Wesley never set out to create a new denomination. He wanted to reform the Church of England. But our human tendency is to cling tightly to what we know. Our human tendency leads us to go our separate ways. And then we point our finger at “them” and say that “they” are wrong.

And here’s the thing. All of us are guilty of pointing a finger at the other. Of thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. Of undoing the very thing we were created for. Community. With unity.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called. There is nothing more rewarding. And there is nothing more difficult. Leading a life that is worthy of Jesus Christ calls for humility, not pride. It calls for gentleness, not arrogance. It calls for patience, not intolerance. It calls for love, not hate. One God and Father of us all.

Paul challenges us, “We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro,” choosing sides and building walls. As Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to a higher standard. We are called to work for peace and unity. We are called to grow up in every way into Christ, promoting the growth of the body of Christ and building one another up in love.

There’s nothing easy about this. Just consider speaking the truth in love to someone. Say, for example, that you have noticed that someone is making a poor choice. Why is it that we are more likely to go tell our friend about the poor choice that person is making than to go to the person and, with gentleness and in all humility, point out what they are doing? Why do we choose gossip over the hard work of speaking the truth in love? And why, when someone offends us, do we sometimes feel like we have the right to bully them instead of engaging them in meaningful conversation that is mutually edifying? Why do we tear down instead of building up? We all know there is nothing easy about speaking the truth in love. It takes practice. It takes trust. It takes humility. It takes discernment and prayer. It takes courage. It takes being in a loving relationship – and that takes time.

Christian maturity is a life-long journey. God wants us to grow up in every way to be like Christ. Martin Luther described maturity in this way: “This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way.”

Christian maturity is a life-long journey. We are becoming more and more like Christ. We are on the way. And, we are not alone. We have been given a community of people to share this journey – to love us – to cry with us – to hold us accountable. And we have each been given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Some of us are prophets; others are teachers. Some of us are good with numbers; others of us are good with people. Some of us love working with children; others of us love working with tools. Some of us have the wisdom that comes with experience; others of us are at the beginning of our Christian journey. And it takes all of us to be the body of Christ.

After worship today I have a meeting with the Lay Leadership Team. Our task is to prayerfully consider the leadership of this congregation for 2019. In a small church some people end up wearing several hats and sometimes we are missing the gifts we need. It sometimes feels like we are the body of Christ, but we have two hearts and we are missing a kidney or a foot. And we all know that if a foot is severed from the body it will shrivel up and die.

This brings me to our devotions for this week. You were formed for God’s family. On day 17, Rick Warren writes, “We are created for community, fashioned for fellowship, and formed for a family, and none of us can fulfill God’s purposes by ourselves” (132). He goes on to say “a Christian without a church home is like an organ without a body, a sheep without a flock, or a child without a family. It is an unnatural state” (134).

Now I feel a bit like I’m preaching to the choir, because you are here. You are participating in our daily devotions. You are part of a small group. You are doing your best to grow up in Christ – to become spiritually mature. But we all know people who are missing. People who have severed themselves from the body permanently. People who feel like an appendix – as if the body can take them or leave them. (By the way, there are no appendixes in the body of Christ!) People who go from one body to the next, never fully committing themselves to one body, one church home. People who fail to recognize that when they are missing we are incomplete.

Preached Sunday, September 23, 2018

For context read Ephesians 4:1-16

 

Consider this. You can’t really draw a tree with one green crayon. Every tree is made up of dozens of shades of green. And we can’t really be the body of Christ without all the diversity God has created.

I started today by talking about community. With unity. Together in unity. Notice the word isn’t com-uniformity. Unity is not uniformity. We are strongest when we embrace all of our God given gifts.

Eugene Petersen writes in The Message translation, “God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.”

Friends, here is the good news. Christ is the source of everything we do. Christ keeps us in step with each other. His very breath – the Holy Spirit, the wind from God – fills us and inspires us.  His very blood flows in us and through us. And together, as the body of Christ, each and every one of us can grow up, building one another up, becoming more godly, getting healthy, and growing into the body – the family – the community God has called us to become. Thanks be to God!