Community

As we are cleaning up after the hurricane, we sought wisdom of staff at Episcopal Relief and Development, a wonderful organization that has deep experience in response to all kinds of disaster, nearby and far away. (Note: If you want to make a donation to a faithful, well-run organization, I recommend them unreservedly.)

The wise staff person leading the call shared that after a disaster like this hurricane, people need the CIA. Not the Central Intelligence Agency. Not the Culinary Institute of America. The three things people need? Community. Information. Agency.

As it turns out, yesterday I was asked to lead a class at church on words of faith that guide us in the spiritual journey. The word I was assigned? Community. Surrounded by the effects of the storm, we discussed the importance of community. I’ve been privileged to see that community at work over the past week. Groups of folks walking around the neighborhood to clear the road of trees. An elderly retired gentleman delivering hot coffee door to door. Scores of folks coming together to cook meals with World Central Kitchen, serving tens of thousands of meals. (Google that organization to see the amazing work they’ve done here and elsewhere.) Churches organizing to offer whatever they could. Folks in our neck of the woods have been given the chance to see what community means. I have been inspired in a season when inspiration about our common life can be rare.

Ever since the Garden of Eden when the Lord God said that it was not good for a person to be alone, the biblical call to community has been strong. From one lone wandering Aramean named Abraham, God formed a people. The first Christians met together, sharing what they had, meeting weekly for worship. St. Paul spoke about what community looked like, most frequently describing the church as the body of Christ, his hands and feet, with different parts coming together, sometimes in greater harmony than others. Which leads me to note that community is not always easy.

Fact is, the community to which we are called as people of faith is not a club, although there may be wonderful social dimensions. It’s not a gaggle of friends, or a society of agreement. Which means community life is no breeze. Parker Palmer said: Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives. He echoes the wisdom of St. Benedict, who organized Christian communities under his monastic rule and noted that if one of the monks is really irritating, don’t kick him out, because the one who replaces him may well be worse.

Church as community, at its best, offers a test of the baptismal claim that Christ can be found in each person. We learn that Christ may come well disguised. The church offers a lab for discovering whether we can live into the command to love neighbor. It tests us to move beyond the adage: I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand. In an increasingly polarized world, where many retreat to gated communities, and TV’s are set to channels that ratify pre-existing ideas, the church gives us a chance to put Jesus’ challenge to love neighbor as self on trial.

Even this introvert has come to believe we can’t be a person of faith, a disciple of Jesus alone. We’re called to community. It sustains us. And it can heal the world. So when the storms of life come sweeping over us, community can be the rock onto which we hold. Give thanks for life in community, even for the annoying people God puts in our way. Bring yourself to community. Invite others in. Ask yourself what you can do this week to strengthen community. In times like this, we need it bad.

-Jay Sidebotham

There’s still time to register for the Discipleship Matters Conference

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

Monday, September 17, 2018

I suspect we each have memories that surface upon the anniversary of the 9/11/2001 attacks. For me, there are recollections from that time when I served at a church in Manhattan. I think of the numerous memorial services we conducted throughout the fall, services held not only at our church but in corporate conference rooms and fire houses.

There were services for Episcopalians. There were interfaith services. There were services for really religious people. There were services for a crowd of mixed traditions and theologies. There were services for people with no religious affiliation at all. There were services requested by grieving spouses. There were services commissioned by CEO’s for lost employees. In the face of an unprecedented demand for religious services of one kind or another, not knowing entirely how to find words, I remember that we turned again and again to Psalm 46, (above)

Last week, I was not only led to remember those months in Manhattan. We also spent the week awaiting Hurricane Florence here in North Carolina. I wrote this post in advance not sure of what Monday, September 17, would be like. And I had some time to write last week. I’ve heard it said that waiting for a hurricane is like being stalked by a turtle.

I confess that last week, I spent a sleepless night or two, imagining worrisome scenarios about this hurricane, probably not the most edifying thing to do. And then Psalm 46 came to mind. It had offered me comfort in the wake of terrorism exploding in my hometown. It had offered comfort in 2008 when the wheels seemed to come off the financial system. It had offered me comfort in countless pastoral situations, when it would have been easy to believe God was absent, or on vacation, or distracted, or dead. And it offered comfort as dire scenarios about this hurricane raced through my head in the wee hours of the morning.

I don’t remember many sermons, including my own, but a fine preacher I know offered a sermon after a natural disaster. In this case, the precipitating event was the tsunamis that caused devastation in South East Asia over ten years ago. She spoke of our need to be responsive to the thousands who experience these kinds of catastrophes wherever they happen around the globe. (That’s why I’m so grateful of the ministry of Episcopal Relief and Development.) She also brought it home by reminding us (as if we needed reminding) that probably each one of our lives is marked by personal tsunamis.

So wherever you are, whatever storms you have weathered, whatever storms loom, hear the ancient words of the psalmist: Be still and know that I am God. Hear the words of Jesus who in the face of tempest said: Peace, be still. Hear him speak that peace into your heart, allowing you to withstand even if you can’t always understand.

-Jay Sidebotham

There’s still time to register for the Discipleship Matters Conference

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

None-sense

An article in the Wall Street Journal last week focused on the “nones,” that growing group of folks who declare no religious affiliation, one of the fastest growing religious groups in our country. Apparently, there are efforts in this election season to harness the political power of the nones. The article highlighted the challenges of coordinating folks who are united by what they don’t believe, who define themselves by what they are not.

In the Episcopal Church, the stream in which I swim, one can find a lot of energy around how we define ourselves in comparison to others. We are not like those fundamentalists. We are different from Roman Catholics. We are not bleeding heart liberals. We are not reactionary conservatives.

Our denomination has no corner on that way of thinking. I knew one family who never set foot in church. They introduced themselves this way: “We are not the kind of people who say grace before meals.” The list could go on: We are not the kind of people who raise their hands in worship or sing praise music. We are not the kind of people who find spiritual nourishment in Anglican chant. We’re not like those people who insist on tithing or use the name Jesus every ten seconds or believe in salvation by historical critical method or believe in salvation by good taste. We’re better than all of that.

As I travel around the church and talk with people about their own spiritual commitments, I’m struck with how often we define ourselves defensively, perhaps reactively. I’m sensing that has limits as an organizing principle. As we work with congregations and pose questions about beliefs and practices, I often hear people say: “I can’t answer your question because that’s not my language.” When they say that, I channel the wisdom of one of my mentors who asked in response: “If that’s not your language, what is your language?”

For many of us, that’s a real question. Like any good question, it’s not new. Jesus told a parable, printed above, in which the Pharisee stands in the front pew and says: “Thank God I’m not like that low-life tax collector!” The tax collector kneeling in the back prays with self-awareness, knowing who God is, knowing who he is, and knowing how he needs to grow.

So ask yourself this week: What is the language I use to talk about what is important to me spiritually? You may well find an easy answer in comparing yourself to someone else. There’s some value in that. But go further and identify in your own mind the beliefs and practices that matter to you, where you give your heart and mind, and how that goes to work in your life. What will you affirm? What will you stand for?

I didn’t get to preach yesterday, so let me weigh in on one way to do that in particular, an insight from the Letter of James, that practical book which talks about faith at work, a book we’re exploring on Sundays. In yesterday’s passage, the writer challenges church members for favoring rich folks. (I know that never happens in church these days.) The writer says: Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? The point I want to make here is that the actions reveal belief. The actions convey the creed. The actions speak louder than words. For better or worse, the actions say what the person believes.

As you think about how you state your faith in positive terms, and not solely in reactivity, think as well about how your life conveys your creed, more specifically, how your life reveals in positive terms where you give your heart, how you stand for love.

-Jay Sidebotham

P.S. There’s still time to register for the Discipleship Matters Conference

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org

Here’s hoping you’re enjoying this Labor Day holiday, last gasp of summer.

It’s one of the few national holidays that has woven its way into the church calendar, along with Independence Day and Thanksgiving. There are prayers and scriptures chosen for Labor Day (cited above). Among those readings, we find a selection from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus teaches his disciples about what it means to put faith to work in the world. That selection invites us to consider the sacred quality of our varied vocations.

The passage challenges listeners to think about what they are working for, where they are devoting their efforts, where they are giving their hearts. It includes this line that always comes to me as huge, often unsettling, occasionally annoying challenge. Jesus says: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

It causes me to think about where I am giving my heart, not a bad question for Labor Day. It’s not always an easy one to answer, because in my ADHD spirituality, I’ve got a number of treasures I’m pursuing all at once, some pulling in opposite directions. The fact of the matter is, my heart is not in one place. In our service of Holy Eucharist, we pray for gladness and singleness of heart. I’m guessing the reason we pray for such is because I (we) haven’t quite gotten there yet. Kierkegaard said that purity of heart is to will one thing. Let me repeat: I haven’t gotten there yet. How about you?

A few centuries after Jesus offered his teaching, a desert father offered this equally rigorous challenge, a variation on the theme our Lord and Teacher struck in the Sermon on the Mount. Abba Poemem wrote: Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart. Again, it calls us to think about where we are giving our hearts, and to ponder and puzzle over pursuits that we know or at least suspect won’t satisfy our hearts. Think of those pursuits as spiritual junk-food. Delightfully delicious in the moment (I’m talking cool ranch Doritos) but hardly sustaining, marginally nourishing.

I can see why this passage is selected for Labor Day, as we are asked to reflect on the work we do, whether we get paid for it or not. The passage raises questions not only appropriate for the holiday. They are good questions to explore as we launch into the academic year, a new program year for many churches and schools and organizations. September has something of the feeling of new year, beckoning resolutions and intentions for the next chapter in the journey. It’s not a bad time to embrace Jesus’ question: Where are we giving our hearts? Where is our treasure? Do we give our hearts to that which will not satisfy our hearts?

Perhaps it’s a lifelong journey to arrive at purity of heart, to will one thing. Perhaps we won’t experience that until we reach the other side. But perhaps we can take a step to think about where our treasure lies, about where we are giving our heart.

With that in mind, reflect on this prayer about the work we are given to do, offered this Labor Day but good for just about any day:

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

-Jay Sidebotham

Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org