Community Church Sermons
Year C
August 1,
2010
Pentecost 10
It Still Takes a Village
Galatians 6:1-10
Rev. Rhonda A. Blevins
And me? I wasn’t out of the woods yet. My condition put me at great risk for a stroke following delivery, so I had to stay connected to an IV drip for 24-hours postpartum. The worst part of that intravenous therapy? 24 hours without seeing my newborn child. 24 hours for this new mother to lie unable to tend to her baby boy or care for him at his most vulnerable state. I felt helpless. I was completely dependent on other people to be his surrogate mother for one very long day. But, thanks be to God, he was surrounded with a team of medical professionals . . . a throng of MD’s and RN’s who nursed him to health. Now three years later that feeble, 4-pound bundle of cartilage and flesh is a now 40-pound boy full of energy and fire—all thanks to those strangers there in the NICU at Norton Suburban Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.
As I think back on that experience, the old African proverb comes to mind, “It takes a village to raise a child.” That was true for my family from the very first day of my son’s life, and it is just as true today as it was back at that hospital.
Just this week, my husband and I both had obligations that prevented us from spending the days with Jake. So we called on our village once again—this time our village of relatives and friends. Nicola on Monday, Harriet on Tuesday, Mom on Wednesday, Carol on Thursday. We needed help. We asked for help. We simply can’t do this thing on our own. It still takes a village.
But it takes a village to do more than raise a child. It takes a village to become the church.
Carry Each Other’s Burdens
Listen again to what the Apostle Paul said to those early Christians in the
church at Galatia, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will
fulfill the law of Christ,” [1]
The church at Galatia was in trouble. Real trouble. False teachings were trickling through the
assembly. Divisions were growing. Unity was in jeopardy. So in these final
lines of Paul’s letter to this vulnerable church he implores of them to not
“become weary in doing good.” “Do good to all people, especially
to those who belong to the family of believers.” “Do good to each other,” he’s saying. It
seems to me that Paul is suggesting that if the people of the church are busy
caring for one another, there’s not a lot of time left for the things that
divide whether doctrine, dogma, or dissent.
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in THIS way you will fulfill the law of
Christ.” Period.
And that’s my favorite image of the church. Not a building, not a steeple, not a creed or a set of beliefs, but people holding one another up, bearing one another’s burdens. And if we look deep enough into the lives of our brothers and sisters, it doesn’t take long to realize that we all bear our own set of burdens. Shannon Meadows posted a quote by Plato on Facebook a few days ago: “ do this thing on our own. I need you. You need me. It still takes a village.
The question this morning is “what kind of village will we be?”
This week I came across two real-life stories that I want to hold before you as vivid snapshots—pictures of the church—to illumine our life together.
Snapshot Number 1: Envision This Church If You Can
Meet Bob Sanders. Bob is the pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Oregon. In a recent sermon, Bob told his congregation about a powerful moment in his life when people rallied around him and his wife [2] His wife, Debbie, has long suffered with bi-polar disorder, a mood disorder sometimes called manic-depressive illness. He admitted that he doesn’t talk much about it because of the stigma about mental illness. He confessed that not talking about it makes it even harder to deal with because of the feelings of isolation that brings. Bob was sure to praise his wife for her diligent management of the illness over the years, and her faithfulness in taking her medications despite their often unpleasant side effects.
Bob told his congregation that he and Debbie were
able to manage the illness pretty well until a point in time when it started to
hit harder and more frequently. It’s apparently a progressive
illness. Severe symptoms began to hit Debbie
roughly every other month; the symptoms would last for several weeks. Then
they received a disturbing blow; Debbie’s doctor informed them that she could
no longer take the medication she’d been using to keep the illness in check
because it could destroy her kidneys. Bob asked the doctor what other medication
Debbie might use instead, the doctor shook his head in sadness saying, “There
are no good options.”
Bob and Debbie were devastated. They had no idea what to do next, what the
future would hold, how they would get through it. They knew that they
needed some friends, people who would come alongside them and be with them. They needed some burden-bearers. So
they made a list of twenty or so people who knew about their situation, people
who had journeyed with them through their difficult days, people
who had been there for them in the past. They sent an email saying something
to the effect of, “We simply can’t do this thing on our own.” They asked their
friends to be with them on one particular evening, and nearly every one of them
came. Bob and Debbie shared what they were going through – what the
doctors had told them and the fear they felt, the unknowns about the days to
come. Their friends gave them the gift of listening. They allowed Bob
and Debbie to pour out what they were experiencing. They asked questions,
but most of all, they listened.
When Bob and Debbie were finished sharing,
their friends had them sit down in the middle of the room. And then the
burden-bearers gathered around their friends.
They placed their hands upon this hurting couple, and they began to pray.
They prayed for nearly a half hour. They
asked God to grant Bob and Debbie strength.
The friends sought God’s guidance for ways they could be of help. As his friends prayed, Bob felt a “sense of
being lifted up, of being sustained and protected by the Presence of Jesus
Christ in and through the presence of these dear ones.” But as they prayed, Bob also realized that
out of those twenty or so friends who gathered around them – as they prayed and
as Bob listened to their voices, he realized that “almost every one of them had
their own burdens as well. Some had children in crisis. Some had
emotional illnesses of their own or in their family. Some were out of
work. Some had lost a loved one recently. And on and on it went.”
Bob was amazed that they could set aside their own burdens to help carry
his.
When the prayers came to a close, the friends
started working on practical ways they could help: who would provide food when
Debbie was too sick to cook, who would offer rides, who
would cover for Bob when he had obligations with the church, and so
forth. And despite the fact that Debbie’s illness grew worse, they felt
sustained, time and again, by these friends – their presence, their practical
help, their prayers. Bob insists they wouldn’t have made it without them.
Can you envision a church like Bob Sanders
describes? I want a church like that! Don’t you?
That’s quite a snapshot! A village of burden-bearers!
Snapshot Number 2: Envision This Church If You Can
Remember Anne Rice? The
bestselling novelist most known for Interview
with the Vampire? Anne announced this week that she has officially
renounced Christianity saying:
“Today
I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but
not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply
impossible for me to belong to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and
deservedly infamous group. For ten years I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an
outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. In the name of Christ I refuse
to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial
birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular
humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of
Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”
Can you envision a
church like Anne Rice describes? I would quit a church like that too! Wouldn’t
you?
In the first
snapshot, we see the church as a village of burden-bearers, but in this
snapshot, the church is a village of holy terrors!
What Kind of Village Will We Be?
So back to the question I posed earlier, “what kind of village—what kind of church--will we be?”
Will we be a village of burden-bearers? A caring people who rally around a hurting brother or sister, sustaining them through the darkest of days?
Or will we be a village of holy
terrors? A condemning people like Ms. Rice describes. Quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious.
It starts with me. It
starts with you. “Carry each other’s burdens,” Paul teaches, “and in
this way you will fulfill the law of Christ,”
Church, I hope we’ll always err on the side of care. You’re already doing it. Just keep on doing it! Because I still need you. You still need me. do this thing on our own.
Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.
-Charles Wesley
[1] Galatians 6:2 NIV.
[2] Bob Sanders, “Where We Bear One Another’s Burdens,” May 30, 2010, Lake Grove Presbyterian Church, Lake Oswego, Oregon. http://www.lakegrovepres.org/sermons/S2010/sermon_2010-05-30.htm