Community

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

February 12, 2017

6 Epiphany A

          When I was in seminary, every Monday night was pancake night.  Between our family of four and any number of our seminary friends, somewhere between 8-12 people would gather around our dining room table for a meal of chocolate chip and banana pancakes with peanut butter and syrup.  I honestly do not know how the tradition began, other than the fact that Don and I had two young children and pancakes made for a popular and inexpensive meal.  But somehow the pancakes became an event in themselves, and each Monday night a small community would gather for this simple meal and to share our lives.  Our children loved their grown up friends, and our friends loved being at a dinner table with children.  Over the course of two years, this group of friends shared not only the challenges and joys of seminary life but also the challenges of sickness and heartbreak and the joys of new life, accomplishment, and romance.  While we learned a lot of theology, scripture, church history and the other things a person goes to seminary to learn, we also learned about the power and importance of community.  

On the surface, this morning both Moses and Jesus make it sound like the life of faith is about following rules.  As the people stand at the edge of the Promised Land, after wandering in the wilderness for forty years, we hear Moses say “If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.”   Success of all kinds seems to hinge on obeying the laws.   Jesus takes the laws of Moses and intensifies them, telling the people that not only are they not to commit murder, they are not to be angry or even insult another person.  Not only are they not to commit adultery, they are not to even look at another person with lust.  And the penalties Jesus’ describes for breaking these challenging rules seem downright cruel.  The fires of hell, prison, tearing out an eye, cutting off a hand…where is the Jesus who said “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest?”  Jesus is wearing me out this morning and the life of faith seems very complicated.

          While both Moses and Jesus are talking about laws that God has given to order our lives, neither Moses nor Jesus believes that the life of faith is about following rules.  The life of faith is about living in community with God, each other, and the world around us.  For Moses, obedience to the law is not about how an individual is in individual relationship with God.  God’s commands describe the way faithful people are to be in community with God and each other.  God’s laws are designed so that the community is healthy and faithful.  And choosing to be in faithful community with God and each other is to choose life, even in the midst of adversity.

          The first words of Jesus’ public ministry were “Repent.  For the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”  Jesus is setting standards for the community that is the Kingdom of Heaven.  In the Kingdom of Heaven, even as experienced on earth, not only do people not murder each other, they treat each other with dignity and respect, choosing not to let anger and insult divide them.  Not only do people not commit adultery, they do not use their words or even their thoughts to objectify other human beings.  No one treats another person as property that can be cast aside, and people are as good as their word.  To live in a community built on these principles is to live in the Kingdom of Heaven.  As with the words of Moses this morning, the life of faith is not about following rules, but about living in faithful community with others and with God. 

          While Moses and Jesus may sound a bit extreme, especially given the dire consequences they both describe for those who make the wrong choice, the way of being in community that they describe is no different than the community we promise to be in our baptismal covenant.  We promise to live in community with God, each other, and the world around us by being faithful in worship and prayer, by resisting evil, by proclaiming the Good News with our words and our lives, by seeking and serving Christ in all people, and by respecting the dignity of every human being.  When we live together this way, we obey the commandments of God.  We don’t live this way in order to receive life, but because God has already given us life.  We live in faithful community as a to response to that gift and to support each other in our quest to live as people of the Kingdom of Heaven.  And because our lives will take twists and turns beyond our control, and we will experience both joys and sorrows we did nothing to deserve, and the life of faith will place demands on us that we cannot imagine, God tells us how to live in community in a way that will sustain us and give us life.  And in that community, we may just find the Jesus who said “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

                                                                             Amen.