Scripture: 1Corinthians 12:27-13:13
I decided not to just rush right into giving my sermon today and instead to keep a few moments of silence before saying anything. It’s my way of expressing appreciation for the gift that Beverly Seng—and the choir—have given us.
Beverly told me she was working on composing a piece based on our church covenant some time ago. I was of course excited that she was doing that and eager to hear the result. The plan at that time—I hope Beverly and the choir don’t mind me telling this story—was to have the choir sing this anthem composed especially for Sojourners on our first Sunday here, three weeks ago. That required Beverly to finish writing it before that and for her to say in her own mind that she was done, all of which happened. However, when the choir began rehearsing it, it also became apparent that this was not a piece you sight read, and that given how close February 6 already was and everyone’s schedule and the possibility of lost rehearsals, all things considered it seemed that it might be the best thing to put off the first singing for a few weeks, until the 27th, which is what Beverly then told me. I said, “That’s ok. We’ll wait.” In fact I said it would also fit in very well to what I was thinking about as a theme for that service, which was a little vague at that point (it was still January) but that I thought would have something to do with our covenant with each other and maybe finding some symbolic way to renew our ties to each other as members and friends of Sojourners. The 27th would be a fine day, I thought, and that’s what I’m thinking now.
Let me say a little more about what I’m thinking so far as this worship service is concerned. Last week the focus was at least in part on the capital campaign, which meant focusing on the financial gifts people had made or were going to make to the church. I said then that I believed we all pretty well understood that we would need the generosity of everyone, with the understanding that what generosity means for any person or family varies widely depending on their financial circumstances and on a whole bunch of other things. There is a kind of a covenant which exists among us as to our monetary gifts which I tried to state simply and then went on to talk about the capital campaign as part of a rite of passage for the church as we move into a more grown-up stage of our existence.
It has been clear to me all along though that we cannot stop there. Here too I think we are by and large, pretty much, I hope, on the same page. The gifts we need are not just financial. There are lots of other kinds of gifts. What could be a better demonstration of that than the music we have just heard. And as important as the financial giving is, and it is important, and we all know it is important, and I’m not trying to downgrade that in any way, but as important as those gifts are, the other kinds of gifts are even more important. And just as we have an implicit covenant that as many of us as possible will give as generously as possible, we also have a covenant that involves the sharing of those less tangible but crucially important gifts that we all have.
I’ve been involved in numerous conversations over the last few months where we have said to each other, “we’re going to need everyone”. Of course that is concretely and practically true, just as it is concretely and practically true that we need to raise a large amount of money. There are lots of things to do and lots of things to think through that simply were not there before. There are already several more committees than we have ever had before in a church that has not been fond of committees to begin with and has never had all of its committees fully manned and womanned at the same time. Just to get the basics done, all the different tasks that are necessary to keep us going, we need wide participation and the gifts of time and energy of many people.
But there’s a whole different way of looking at this too, that we have talked about in different ways but that is not so easy to turn into reality. It’s not just a question of laying out what slots need to be filled and what tasks need to be done and then asking for people who will contribute in those specific ways. It’s also a matter of trying to involve everyone in a way that grows out not so much of a diagram of what is needed but out of the spirit of what people have to offer. And the gifts we have to offer are not just whatever skills or specialized knowledge we may possess, though of course those things are good too, but our gifts are rooted most of all in who we are. And we need to be constantly working away at providing opportunities for us to bring who we are in some important way into the life of the church.
Maybe that sounds a little vague, not too clear how you go about doing this or even what I’m talking about. But I don’t want to just give up the thought because it’s vague. The life of Sojourners does not really thrive, it can limp along, but it does not thrive unless the giftedness of everyone is reflected and brought into play in some way in our life together. And it occurred to me that maybe one way for us today to renew our covenant with each other, whether as member or friend of the church, would be to make this sermon interactive and stop in the middle of it and ask you to respond to a few questions relating to all this.
Before I ask the first question, I need to say one more thing. It is easy to get lost in the details. The devil is in the details. I’ve heard it said that God is there too, but we succumb to the devil when we get lost in the details. I once had one of our denominational people say to me that moving into a building is a lot of work and churches have often taken the approach that they need to give themselves a couple of years just to deal with the details of it and get used to a new style of life and then you say to yourself, well let’s get back to work, to what we’re really all about. My response was that I wasn’t sure we could afford to take two years off from what is central to us, or that any church should do that. So I am saying now, less than a month into our life in this building, we can’t afford to take any time off from being ourselves, and certainly one of the important gifts we have to offer first to ourselves and then to each other is to be clear about who we are and who we hope to be as a church.
So I want to pose a question—well, one more thing before I pose the question. Since this banner has been hanging here a number of people have discovered or rediscovered that the image of Sojourner Truth is inscribed in the heart of the tree, which in turn represents the life of the congregation. Not just her name but her spirit lies at the center, at the heart of our life. So the question is…
What, for you, lies at the heart of the life of Sojourners church? What is it that you don’t want to get lost in the details, for yourself and for all of us? What lies along with Sojourner Truth at the heart of the life of this congregation?
If you are a visitor and don’t have a clue how to answer that question, I will suggest that you can participate by completing this sentence: I hope to find a church where at the heart of its life is…
That’s the first question. The second question is—well actually in the form of a statement, fill in the blank:
Given that the most important gifts we have to offer may not have much to do with committees or even with special skills or abilities, complete the following sentence as best you can:
The most important gift I would like to be able to offer to the church is in the area of…(this can be as specific or as general as you like.) Thinking not so much of what the church needs but of what is closest to your heart, what would you like to be able to offer to the life of Sojourners? (It doesn’t have to be realistic either. Sometimes the most worthwhile things take a little time to come about.)
I’m going to ask that we take 5 minutes or so to do this, to think about and then actually write down your responses to these questions and then hold on to them until the offering time when we can place them on the communion table representing the non-financial gifts that we all have to offer.
Break…
Just a couple of more quick thoughts before we conclude this part of the service that is labeled sermon but is somewhat unconventionally a sermon today. It is not the intention of this exercise that it be just an exercise where what you bring to the table will be a kind of symbolic gesture that will be put aside and forgotten. There will clearly need to be follow-up. In all honesty I don’t know right now how that is going to happen or what form it will take, but I will commit myself to it and will be happy to hear from anyone who would like to help with that.
But…it is also quite likely that we are going to fall short, fall way short of being all the things that you will say on your cards you think are or ought to be at the heart of our life as a congregation and fall way short of involving every person at the point where his or her feelings are most urgent or heartfelt. In fact, if what we hope for from ourselves is easily and fully achievable, then we are aiming too low. And even those things we may think of ourselves as being pretty good at are never to be taken for granted. To be inclusive, welcoming, or justice seeking for instance are the kinds of things that you can never say you’ve achieved. They are by their nature things that you can’t ever be proud of but are always aspiring to.
I decided on the passage from First Corinthians for this morning, partly just to rescue it from wedding ceremonies. It was written, after all, not with people about to be married in mind, but with a congregation in mind, and it was intended to address issues in the life of churches. And it resonated with me today in several ways. It continues the coming of age theme from last week, speaking somewhat cryptically but hinting at the process of growing up spiritually. It also says, if you include chapter 12, that there are all sorts of gifts in the church and all are valuable and indispensable to the whole. But what holds all the diversity of gifts people bring together is love. And love is not, in fact leaves no room for boasting or arrogance. To remind ourselves of who we are at the heart of our congregational life and to think of how something of everyone’s heart can be brought into some whole is not a cause for patting ourselves on the back but is more a humbling reminder of the direction we want to be headed.
So the Corinthians passage for a number of reasons seemed appropriate for today. I suspect it will be appropriate as well for all our days ahead. Amen.
Jim Bundy
February 27, 2005