Togetherness: Discovering Together

 This week we explore our sacramental life as we think about the ways in which we discover God in our worship life together. How does our worship, particularly our sacraments, point us toward God and unite us ever more to one another.

Our readings from Ephesians and John help us reflect on baptism and communion in the life of the church and how these elements of our worship life together join us together and help us to discover God's will for our lives (see Ephesians 5:15-20 and John 6:51-58).

*    *    *

In our readings today, we continue the two themes we have been exploring over the last few weeks. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we continue reading about Paul’s understanding of the Christian life.  What does it mean to be a member of the Christian community? What should it look like?

In the Gospel of John, we continue to read Jesus’ exposition on the Bread of Life. Today’s reading from John is very carnal as Jesus doubles down on his talk of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. No wonder some outsiders during the days of the early church thought Christians were cannibals and vampires.

On the surface, these readings don’t seem to have much to do with each other, but as we dig into them, we find that both of them are reflections on the sacramental worship practices of the early Christian communities. For the gospel writer, a thorough understanding of Holy Communion is obviously on his mind as he relates this story of Jesus. For several weeks now in our readings, ever since the story of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus has been arguing with detractors about what it means to consume the bread that is his body and the wine that is his blood. It doesn’t take much for us to see the underlying connection to our celebrations of communion here. Our participation in Holy Communion is about participating in the same reality that Jesus is talking about here. It is about sharing and eating the bread from heaven. It is about receiving and drinking from the cup of blessing filled with the blood of Christ. 

Every time we come to this table, we are reminded of the meals that Jesus shared with his disciples, with his friends, and even with his enemies. He ate with all sorts. We also call to mind the heavenly banquet that we anticipate upon our arrival in heaven, a banquet laid out for all to take part in. As Jesus does throughout the passages that we have been reading, we are also reminded of the manna in the wilderness, bread provided by God to feed the Israelites as they fled captivity.

All of these scenes are called to mind as we gather at the table to share in the bread and the cup. Our prayers and our memories bring these other meals to mind, allowing us to imagine our own participation in all of these other meals. In the words of the well known hymn, we receive a “foretaste of glory divine.” (“Blessed Assurance,” UMH 369)

I want you to take a moment now to call to mind your most profound experiences of Holy Communion. Maybe it was a meal celebrated at the table in your current place of worship. Maybe it was an intimate gathering while on a retreat. Maybe it is your earliest memory of communion.

Now I want you to take a moment to think about other meals -- family dinners, birthday celebrations, working lunches. How are these meals similar? What makes them different?

One of the things I suspect we will begin to discover as we consider our memories is how difficult it can be to remain angry and disconnected from one another when we share food together. Food has the ability to unite us and connect us, just as surely as blood or shared interests can.

What happens when we taste the food together? Even better, what happens when we share the food together?

I touched on this some last week. I told you about the woman from San Francisco who was completely changed by her participation in Holy Communion.¹ Non-religious her entire life, her first time receiving the bread and cup completely changed her life and had a positive effect on the community around her as she lived into the changes in her own life.

What do we discover when we eat together, share together, work together?

As we have seen in the letter to the Ephesians over the last few weeks, this is exactly the kind of question that Paul is wrestling with. The section of Paul’s letter that we are reading today is a reflection on the ways that we are changed after our participation in our other primary sacrament in the church -- Baptism. In the preceding verses, Paul tells us that we have been changed by our experience, clothed in new garments, awakened into a new world. We have been claimed by Christ. These are all obvious allusions to our understanding of the changes that take place in us through our celebration of Baptism. 

In Baptism, we are claimed by God, made into new people. We pass through the waters, calling to mind Jesus' own baptism and his words about being washed and cleaned. We remember how Jesus washed the disciples' feet and how Peter demanded to be washed all over. As we pray over the waters, we are reminded of Jesus’ passage through the tomb and the parted waters that the ancient Israelites passed through on their way to freedom.

All of these images come into play as we celebrate the sacrament and as we read this passage from Paul today. Our passage immediately follows the reminder of our baptism. We could read it as, “because you have been baptized, be careful to live wisely” and so on. Because we have been redeemed, we should take care in how we live. Because we have been cleansed, we should take care in how we think. Because we have been claimed, we should take care in how we act. Being a Christian is both about being claimed by Christ, which is God’s act, as well as our claim to right and faithful living in response, which is our act.

Paul makes it clear that this is about our whole selves -- body, mind, and soul. It is about how we think, how we feel, how we act, and how we treat others. We are to act wisely instead of foolishly. Rather than remaining ignorant, we are called to “understand the Lord’s will” (Ephesians 5:17, CEB). Instead of getting drunk on wine, we should allow ourselves to be filled with the Spirit.

On the one hand, these are things we do on our own. We take the time to study God’s word, seeking God's will, to make sure we are not acting foolishly. We do our best to make sure our drinking does not lead to drunkenness. We seek out the Spirit’s guidance in our decisions and actions.

But these are also things that we do together. We look to each other for support when we are unsure how to act. We seek to discern and discover God’s will together so that we are not misled by our own willful thoughts. We seek to share in God’s Spirit together, both in our times of worship and in other times of our lives together. 

This is why Paul reminds us to speak to each other. He says specifically “speak to each other in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19, CEB). While not officially a sacrament like Communion and Baptism, our singing together can also call to mind and allow us to participate both mentally and emotionally in those things that have come before and in those things that are yet to be. “Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” remind us of the breadth of poetry that we find in the book of Psalms. Through the various Psalms, we find all manner of human experience on display and lifted up before God. We find joy, sorrow, vengeance, despair, grace. Almost any emotion or feeling we can have as a human we can find in our scriptures lifted up to God.

We are reminded of the choirs of angels that announced the birth of Jesus to the world.

We are reminded of all the times that Hebrew people sang in celebration -- of Miriam who sang as the Israelites passed through the waters of the Red Sea, of David who danced and made music before the Lord, of the songs of praise we find in Psalms and in other scriptures.

We are reminded of the angelic voices that continue to sing in heaven even now.

Through Paul’s words, all of these things are brought to mind. We are reminded to sing and make music before God and to always give thanks as we do. Again, these are things we might do on our own. But I think most of us recognize from experience how much sweeter it is when we do them together.

Of course, this reminder comes at a time when we must celebrate both together and apart. On the one hand, times like this remind us of the importance of our lives together -- the connections we feel when we are in the same spaces, the joy of singing together, the holiness of our sharing together at the table.

At the same time, the present realities of our world and community make gathering together physically perhaps unwise. How do we best show our love for one another and our communities in a time when being in physical proximity may be unhealthy or even dangerous? How do we continue to “speak to each other in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” when the very act of singing together can make others sick?

In the midst of an ongoing global health crisis, what are the ways that we as the church, as the Body of Christ still present in the world, can model both wisdom and understanding to the rest of the world?

What do we discover about God when we worship together?

What do we discover about ourselves?

How do we carry what we learn together out into the other days of our lives?

To help us think about what all of this continues to mean for us today, we closed our worship service with a hymn that I think may be familiar to many of you. I think at times, we may think of it as a song for kids, but “We Are the Church” is a reminder that, well, we are the church together. 

May we continue to seek out God's will together.

---

¹ See Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

Togetherness: Sustaining Together

This week, we continue to explore our Christian life together. What does this life together look like? What does it mean to be united in faith in the midst of our differences? As we live this life together, God continues to sustain us and keep us united. 

As we continue this conversation, we continue to look at the words of both Paul and the gospel-writer, John (Ephesians 4:25-5:2 and John 6:35, 41-51). In writing to the Christian community at Ephesus, Paul is obviously concerned with the ways in which the community of believers live and share together. John offers us a further look at Jesus reflecting on the Bread of Life and what it means for us to partake of his presence.

*     *     *

As I mentioned last week, Paul makes a shift here in the middle of the letter to the Ephesians. He transitions from his intentional praise of God and all that God has done for us to talking about what this new life we are called into looks like in practice. In other words, he starts talking about ethics.

I think most of us have some concept of what ethics is when we hear the word. We may think about ethical behavior or even systematized codes of ethics. The most simplified way we might think of ethics is the moral principles by which we govern our lives and our interactions with one another.

As we consider our readings from Ephesians over the last few weeks, we see that this is pretty much exactly what Paul is focusing on. God has called us into one body. God has called us, in the many forms and experiences we have, to join together in community, to be united with others in a single body made up of many different parts. 

Recognizing how difficult a thing this was (and perhaps always has been), Paul here gives us a simple list of what we should do and what we should not do. In some ways, this list calls to mind the Ten Commandments that any Jewish members of the community would have been aware of, but these simple rules are similar to ethical codes and morals that even non-Jewish members would recognize as beneficial to the community.

Get rid of lying and tell the truth.

Be angry with sinning but don’t remain angry with each other.

Don’t steal for a living but work for a living so that you have something to share.

Don’t speak in ways that tear down, but use words to build up one another.

Put aside bitterness, anger, and slander, and be kind, compassionate, and forgiving.

None of these things is terribly difficult, and yet we as people tend to have such a difficult time doing these simple things that would make life so much easier for everyone. To be honest, these are pretty good rules for living in community with others regardless of religious beliefs. Living with other people is easier if we tell the truth, share with one another, build one another up, and show kindness and compassion to one another.

Think about it. Try to imagine living as part of a community where the standards of living were to lie, steal, cheat, tear down, and destroy your neighbors. Not only does that not sound like a very pleasant way to live, it would be nearly impossible to accomplish anything as a community. How can a body that actively works against itself continue to grow and thrive?

Sadly, it may not be as difficult to imagine such a scenario as I wish it were.

But of course, the case that Paul is making is not just that we should act this way because it is the best way to live in community together, as good a reason as that may be. Paul’s argument is that we should act this way because God has forgiven us and offered us all the same grace. Now for those who are not believers, that may not sound like much of a reason, but we must remember that Paul is specifically writing to a Christian community made up of both Jewish and non-Jewish members. He wants them all to recognize that regardless of background they are called into the same community. And as those who have been called and believe, they are expected to be imitators of the one who has called them, who has joined them, who has nourished and sustained them.

“Be kind, compassionate, and forgiving to each other, in the same way God forgave you in Christ” (Ephesians 4:32, CEB).

It is not enough that this is simply a good way to live, but we as Christians have specifically been called to offer the same kindness, compassion, and forgiveness that we have received from God. Because we have received, we should share. 

Paul is speaking here explicitly of our lives together, but he is also reminding us that living our lives in this way will change the world. What happens when we are kind not only to those in our church and community, but those who are on the margins or even those who are actively opposed to goodness in the world?

What happens when we show compassion to those who are hurting without stopping to ask first if they are a Christian?

What happens when we forgive those who have hurt us even if we are not in community with them?

To be fair, this is not a blanket recommendation to forgive your abusers or to play nice with oppressors. As we read the story of Jesus that Paul is calling us to imitate, we see that when choices had to be made, Jesus always sided with those on the margins, those who were hurting, those who were oppressed over those who were in power. 

In situations where persons are being hurt, oppressed, or marginalized, where can we do the most good, offer the most kindness, show the most compassion?

Paul helps us think this through as he continues this line of thought.

“Therefore, imitate God like dearly loved children. Live your life with love, following the example of Christ…” (Ephesians 5:1-2, CEB).

As Christians, we have been called into a new way of living. No longer should we live as the world teaches us to live -- self-centered, self-serving, greedy, and judgmental. We should live lives in imitation of the one who came to show us that God loves us, wants to be in relationship with us, and wants us to live in positive relationships with one another. That is the model we see in the life that Jesus lived -- a self-giving love that calls us into communities of mutuality and care. We are sustained and nourished together in the community that we call the church.

Turning to our Gospel reading this week, we find Jesus continuing to talk about the nourishment that God provides to us. Following the miraculous feeding that Jesus accomplished, the people continue to follow him, seeking more signs and miracles. Jesus has been telling them that earthly bread will fill them for a time but will ultimately leave them hungry again. Instead, they must feast on the bread of life. This is a spiritually nourishing bread that satisfies the spiritual hunger of those who have felt empty and alone. Those who have been aching and feeling separate from God can once again know the fulfillment of that relationship. People do not need to live lives disconnected from God. We can feast on the bread of life. 

In the history of the church, we have considered this to be both physical and metaphorical nourishment. On the one hand, we might consider the mental and spiritual nourishment we receive in studying the life of Jesus. How can we be fed and nourished by what we read in the life of Jesus? How do the stories and teachings we find in the gospel stories feed us in ways that leave us feeling satisfied so that we cease to hunger and feel alone?

In a more physical sense, we also feast at the communion table. When we do, we are reminded of the ways in which we are connected to Christ and the ways in which we are connected to one another. We are nourished and made whole, and we return to the table regularly to be filled anew.

And when we take Paul’s injunction that we as the church are the body of Christ seriously, we may feel led to feed and nourish others as well. I heard a woman speak at the World Diakonia Fellowship in Atlanta back in 2009, I believe. This gathering was intended for those who identify with the servant ministry of the church from around the world and from all different denominations. But this particular speaker was a lay woman from San Francisco.¹ She had not been a believer or attended church for many years. In a new relationship, she started attending different churches. She was feeling that emptiness but couldn’t put a name to it. One Sunday, she was in an Episcopal Church. In receiving the bread and the cup at communion, she felt convicted. She was receiving the body and blood of Christ. At the same time, how was the body of Christ that is the church being offered to others in the same way? She became a member of that congregation and over the next few years started a food ministry in the church that was set up during the week on the communion table. Now, not only is the congregation fed and nourished from that table, so are others in the local community.

The psalmist tells us to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” When we read these stories, when we come to the table, we are reminded of how good God truly is. Paul reminds us that we are called to be imitators not only of Christ but of God. He reminds us that because we have been forgiven, we should also forgive. If we taste and see how good God is, how can we pass up sharing that goodness with others? 

Jesus tells us that this new life is for “whoever eats this bread.” It is not offered to only a few. It is not offered to a select group. It is offered to whoever will eat it. It is meant for everyone.

As a community called and nourished by God, we seek to live lives of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. We seek to imitate God’s goodness and to live lives of love just as Christ loved us. We seek to nourish the world because we have been fed by the bread of life, bread that is offered for all to partake.

We do this not just to make our church and community better, but that all the world may be made better through us.

---

¹ See Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion.

Togetherness: Living Together

 This month, we take our lead from the last two points from our July series. We are called to unity and we are also called to bring our differences into relationship with each other. Guided by our understanding of the Trinity, much of our Christian life together is caught up in the balance between unity and difference. 

This first week, we continue to take our cues primarily from Paul. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, he helps us think about what it looks like to live our lives together as the body of Christ (see Ephesians 4:1-16). We are united into one body, but we each bring something difference to the relationship. We each have a different part to play.

*    *    *

In the last two weeks, I talked briefly about the interplay between our unity and our differences. Through Jesus we are united in one body. But we bring our full selves with us, all that we have experienced and all that we are. Our lives together as Christians are lived in the tension between our unity and our differences.

This month, we will explore a bit more what this looks like in practice. How do we all fit together into one body? How do our differences help make us better?