Community Church Sermons
Year A
October 2, 2011
Pentecost 16
The Work of Community
Exodus
20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Philippians
3:4-14
Rev.
Dr. R. Tim Meadows
Associate
Pastor
This is World
Communion Sunday.
It is the sixth World Communion Sunday I have spent with you and
I've been fortunate enough to preach on many of them. Coming from a Baptist tradition of the
southern variety I did not know much about World Communion Sunday.
I've learned
a lot and I've shared most of that with you, as I'm sure you remember, you do
remember, don't you?
Well, anyway,
when I found out that I would be preaching again on this occasion, I hoped that
the lectionary readings would be unique and insightful, filled with new things
for me to share that you will remember.
At first, I
was quite chagrined to learn that the major readings for today were The Ten
Commandments and a testimony from Paul to the church at Philippi. What do either of these things possibly have
to offer on the subject of World Communion, I wondered?
As I mused
and cast about hoping to find some alternative text, better suited to the
occasion the light suddenly came on and the choice of these texts became clear.
The Ten
Commandments are simply instructions for how to live in communion with God,
covered by commandments 1 - 4, and how to live in communion with each
other, covered by commandments 5 - 10. They are not just arbitrary rules that
God decided on As we often
imagine. Rather, they focus on the things that are the most difficult struggles
in our human journey with God and with each other.
Paul's words
of biography to the Philippians are an important reminder of how we can never
move forward in our communion with each other until we get beyond a focus on
our past and ourselves.
So, what
benefit can we derive from these two segments of scripture for this World
Communion Sunday?
First, the
commandments. Carved in stone at their inception, they often remain that way
still. Negative, foreboding,
frightening, but in reality, they simply seek to guide our relationships along
healthy paths. The first four tell us
how to commune with God by recognizing God's worth, respecting God's name,
spending time with God in rest.
The last six
tell us how to commune with each other by recognizing our interdependence,
respecting each other's property rights, and practicing the truth.
These are the
building blocks to communion, so why do we struggle with the practice, and find
ourselves estranged in our relationship with God and each other? Because, the
commandments force us outside ourselves and insist that we acknowledge our
interconnection and dependence on God and others.
So, we find
ourselves in need of communion, but unwilling to do the work of communion. On
this World Communion Sunday what do you need to do to secure communion with God
and others that the Commandments can help you accomplish?
Looking to
Paul, we learn that communion is often stymied by our ego and past
accomplishments.
The church at
Philippi was among Paul's best and one of his favorites, filled with
accomplished people but as you read through his letter to them, it is clear that
they often struggled with the issues of strong personalities, well-fed egos,
and fervent opinions.
Sound like
any place you are familiar with? These things frequently strained the fabric of
community then and can still do so today.
On this World
Communion Sunday, if you were asked to evaluate how your personality, ego, and
opinions, were affecting your experience of and participation in community,
what would you find?
Does your
personality, ego, and opinions make your community a hospitable and welcoming
place for new people, or do those things make your community an anxious,
foreboding, and unwelcome place for both strangers and current participants?
So, we find
ourselves in need of communion but unwilling to do the work of communion when
it requires us to be honest about our personality, to check our ego, and to
accept that our hallowed opinions may be wrong.
On this World
Communion Sunday, what work do you need to do in this area that the testimony
of Paul can help you accomplish?
On this World
Communion Sunday, may God give us the grace to do the hard work of community.
May the table of the Lord be the starting place for us to love God and love our
neighbor.
May that love
move beyond the table and into the world, even to our enemies.
AMEN!