Created for Community

Pastor Meyer’s Sermon

 Sunday, August 19, 2007

Well, let’s have a little fun. We’re going to make a craft. If you see in the center of the pews, you will see a long pipe cleaner and you’ll see two short pipe cleaners. Please pass them down to your neighbors and what I’d like for you to do is to make a person. What you can do is the top part of the long pipe cleaner, make a circle. That will be the head, believe it or not. Then what you can do is with the shorter one, you can make a V. Just take the middle of the short one and wrap it around the long pipe cleaner. Have it point up for the hands and point down for the feet. And while you’re doing this, I want you to think about how we are created in God’s image. And I want you to look forward to what we’re going to be doing with this next week and we’re going to see how we’re not just individuals but we are also a community together worshiping God. So as you’re doing this, I am going to get some pipe cleaners so Pastor Burcham can do it.

[Video] “Today was pretty easy since it’s more of a picnic. We’re close so we walked and we’re going to take the kids swimming in a little while so we had to pack all the stuff for the swimming. Otherwise, there wasn’t a whole lot to prepare for this time.”

“There was some cleaning we had to do, getting the house in order. With two boys, sometimes the house isn’t always in perfect shape. So there was some of that. Just move things around. I suppose just make sure we had enough seating for everybody. I suppose just make sure if we’re going to do some things outside today with the kids, just make sure everything’s in order out there, things are picked up, the pool is full of water, that sort of thing. Just different things. I suppose just making sure we have the food ready, make sure you have all the things that go with it together.”

“We always eat. That’s part of what we do and so our community building, it’s time around the table so having a meal ready and prepped, something everybody likes is a big part of it.”

“It’s something that hopefully doesn’t take too long to prepare so when we meet as a group, we can eat and talk and socialize and then move to usually our bible studies after that.”

“Tonight is just more of a family get together so we’re not actually doing a bible study. If we were to do a bible study, then part of the prep work is to read it first before we come. But tonight since it’s just an outing, there wasn’t a lot of prep. It’s just like you’re getting ready to go see your friends. You’re excited to catch up and prepare mentally for the week with your fellow Christians.”

“Meeting new people at the church is why we signed up to do the group. Basically, we just wanted to meet more people who have the same religious values we do so we could kind of grow as a community within the church. Then I signed us up and asked Craig if he’d be willing to go and then we met a couple of times as a group. Getting together in the group the first couple of times was kind of hard, getting to know each other and then as the years have gone on, we’re a pretty close-knit little family.”

“Every opportunity to get to meet people at church and get to know them on a level more than just ‘Hi, hello. Nice to see you,’ it makes a big difference. Then you get to know the person. It just makes it more enjoyable coming to church. You hang around afterwards and just want to see who’s going to show up and we want to see them.”

The people in this video are actually members of Community Groups and they’re looking forward to spending time together but it takes work. And they were talking about the work that it takes and you know all about that. About getting ready for people to come over to the house. You know the drill where you have to mow the lawn and you have to get the house vacuumed, get the bathroom cleaned up, the room straightened up, the food bought and prepared. All those different things it takes to get things ready. It does take a lot of work and sometimes when you’re in the midst of getting this work done, you catch yourself saying, “Why am I doing this? Why am I doing all this work? Is it really all worth it?” But then you think about the anticipation of the night, of being able to get together with your friends and being able to enjoy an evening of good conversation, of good food shared with each other and laughter and sharing how things have been going during the week and playing with the kids and it’s just an overall enjoyable evening. And that anticipation, that looking forward to that time spent together, well, think about it. All that work doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, it all seems worth it.

And I imagine this same kind of conversation going on as God was creating Adam and Eve. And as He was creating the minds, He must have known these minds He was creating were going to start thinking on their own. They were going to start thinking that they can somehow become like God, that they would no longer need to trust in Him or to rely in Him. And as God was creating the bodies of Adam and Eve, he must have known that one day, He was going to have to send His Son into a similar body and He would live on this earth and He would suffer and He would die all because of the people He had created.

And He surely must have known as He was creating the hearts of Adam and Eve that these hearts would turn from Him, that they would lose their way and that He would have to send His Holy Spirit to help lead His people back to Him. And it seems like a lot of work to put in to creating these people, His creation. But you see, in Genesis 1, God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” You see, the entire bible proclaims the fact that God exists in community as the trinity, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And it is here in Genesis that we get a snapshot of this, we get a snapshot of how this triune God anticipated, looked forward to a relationship with Adam and Eve.

Now I know talking about the doctrine of the trinity seems like a snore and a bore and you’re probably wondering, “What does this have to do with my daily life?” But that’s just it. You see, the trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are in community with each other, desires to create each and every one of us to be in community with Him. God looked forward to being in community with Adam and Eve, to have a relationship with them, just as He looks forward to being a community with each and every one of us and to have a relationship with us. And the work to Him doesn’t really matter because to have a relationship with us, that’s His nature.

In fact, that’s where our gospel reading comes in for this morning. Because you see, the first thing Jesus did when He started His ministry was to do what? To create a community. To create a community of disciples around Him. Sure, He must have known those disciples, that community would bicker and complain and fight as to who was the greatest among them. Sure, He must have known they would not understand His teachings or understand some of the things He was saying. Sure, He must have known that creating this community, they, this community, would one day abandon Him. But despite all the work, despite all the work that Jesus did in being in community, the anticipation, the relationships made, that was part of Jesus’ nature.

And so when you think about it that way, to God, the work He did was just what He had to do. In fact, to Him, it was all worth it. So He called each and every one of us His treasured possessions. And so my friends, we’re not here alone just to have community with God. No, He desires for us to have community with each other. And Paul tells us that in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul writes, “The body is a unit. Though it is made up of many parts and though all its parts are many, they form one body so it is with Christ for we were all baptized by one spirit into one body whether Jews or Greek slaves or free, we were all given the one spirit to drink. Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.”

My friends, other people have touched us in our lives whether it be our parents or whether it be a neighbor or friend or a teacher, some have touched us in a most positive way. There are others who have made us cry but God has made us that way. He said that it’s not good for human beings to experience loneliness, to be outside of community. In our first reading for this morning from Genesis 2, God says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God made one human being and said, “They don’t come by themselves because they are created in my image.” You and I are created for community. We were made to have intimate relationships, to serve people lavishly, to share the stuff we have, to build into the lives of other people around us, to have people to whom we can share our deepest secrets and our deepest hurts and our deepest cares and concerns, to laugh and to praise and to cry and to pray with. That is what God had created for us.

And some of us are experiencing that in a Community Group. But here’s the weird truth about human beings that while we long for community, we also run from it. It’s been said that when humankind fell from grace, we inherited not only a tendency to hide from God but we also inherited a tendency to hide from one another. We struggle with this conflicting desire that, on one hand, we desire to be close to one another but on the other hand, we hold each other out at arm’s lengths. And we have learned to be suspicious of other people’s motives and, at times, we have been taken advantage of and so we’re afraid of being burned again. And so we set up these barriers and these barriers are very effective in insulating us from one another and becoming almost an obstacle to true community in the church.

That’s what Jesus prayed for while He was here on this earth. He prayed that we would be in true community and we listen in on that prayer in John 17. When Jesus prayed, He said, “I have given them the glory that you, Father, gave me that they may be one as we are one. I and them and you and me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me so that they may be one in community.”

A few years ago, at the Seattle Special Olympics, there were nine contestants, all who were physically or mentally challenged that were assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. And the gun went off and the contestants all started out but it wasn’t really so much a dash as it was a relish to even run the race and to try to finish and win. All except for one boy, one boy who had tripped and fallen and rolled over a couple of times and ended up on the ground crying. And the other contestants heard him crying and they looked back as they were running to see what was going on and they all, each and every one of them, stopped. And they turned around and they walked back and gathered around the boy on the ground crying. And one girl who had Down’s Syndrome leaned over and she kissed him and said, “That will make it feel better.” And then they all picked him up and all nine of them interlocked arms and they walked and crossed the finish line together. And the crowd that witnessed this at the Special Olympics stood up and they clapped and they cheered for over ten minutes and people who were there still talk about it even to this day. Why? Because they knew there’s something deeper about living in this world. And what matters in this life is more than just living life for ourselves. No, what really matters is sharing our life with others.

You see, it takes a lot of work to be part of a community but that’s how we’ve been created. And when you think about it that way, when you think about that’s what we’ve been created for, when you think about anticipating the relationships that are made, all that work, all that work to create community, it doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, it all seems worth it. Amen.

Copyright 2007 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church