Sermon for Suites by the Lake – September 22, 2007 – The Possibilities of Community
[This sermon was for a Retirement Community’s Chapel Service]
Thanks to W. Maynard Pittendreigh for some borrowed thoughts and some illustrations for this sermon.
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“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us” 1 John 4: 16b-17a
There’s a story about a farm boy who accidentally overturned his wagonload of wheat on the road. The farmer who lived nearby came to investigate. “Hey, Willis,” he called out, “Forget your troubles for a while and come and have dinner with us. Then I’ll help you overturn the wagon.” “That’s very nice of you,” Willis answered, “but I don’t think Dad would like me to.”
“Aw, come on, son!” the farmer insisted. “Well, okay,” the boy finally agreed, “but Dad won’t like it.”
After a hearty dinner, Willis thanked the host. “I feel a lot better now, but I know Dad’s going to be real upset.” “Don’t be silly!” said the neighbor. “By the way, where is he?” “Under the wagon,” replied Willis.
Willis and the Good Samaritan farmer lived in a different era than we do today. While we all want to be good neighbors, the meaning of “neighborliness” has changed as the culture around us has changed from community to cocooning, from country to city, from slow food to fast food, from the dining room to the TV room.
And there’s a real challenge for us to connect to others in a big city. But we need to connect. We need each other. We may find it easier to cocoon, to not bother to have relationships, but truth be told we need relationships. We need to be part of a community.
It is not God’s will for us to be alone and lonely. In fact, in the opening verses of Genesis, God makes that very observation – “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18). That speaks to the way we were made. Somehow it is in our DNA to be connected to others. We understand ourselves more thoroughly when we relate to others. We were not, apparently, created to be islands unto ourselves. Somehow in our createdness, we were meant to know and be known by others.
This community, Retirement Suites by the Lake, is unique. Each one here finds themselves in a new circumstance, with a new group of people, a new community. And the fact that life here is a fairly new experience opens up some real possibilities. There are real challenges when it comes to living in community with others, but there’s at least one very important possibility that I want to focus on today.
The building blocks of community are, of course, friendships. In this place there are so many opportunities for new friendships. Now, the biblical notion of friendship runs deep indeed. “A friend loves at all times,” says Proverbs. All of us have known rich friendships in our lives. We know the feeling of having good friends, people we can rely upon and people who rely upon us. Perhaps we’ve had the experience of being able to support another through difficult times.
Jackie Robinson was a baseball player from many years ago. He was a great player, but he is perhaps best known for having been the first African-American to play major league baseball. While breaking baseball’s "color barrier," he faced the boos and insults of crowds in every stadium. While playing one day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he committed an error. His own fans began to ridicule him. He stood at second base, humiliated, while the fans booed him.
That’s when shortstop "Pee Wee" Reese called for a time out and walked toward Robinson and stood next to him. This team mate from the Southern States -- a white man who in that time and place would have been the last person expected to do anything for Robinson -- stood there and put his arm around Jackie Robinson and faced the crowd.
The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that arm around his shoulder saved his career.
Paul said in the first letter to the Thessalonians, “So encourage one another and build each other up...” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
That’s the promise of friendship. Friends want what’s best for each other. There’s a permission to speak into each other’s lives, and hopefully to be able to offer the kind of encouragement that is welcome. There’s the opportunity to lift one another up, to, as the Scripture says, “Build one another up”. That’s an awesome thing if you think about it. We can add strength and happiness to another life. We can make a positive difference in another life.
Author Stu Weber illustrates the need for friendships to help us survive the tough times.
It’s the year 1967. The war in Vietnam was building to its peak, and one stop for young army officers was the U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning. A tough, battle tested sergeant stood before the young, anxious recruits. The sergeant told them that the next nine weeks would be the toughest they had ever experienced.
The sergeant talked about the war that was going on in Vietnam and he talked about killing and death. The sergeant talked about how training was tough because it was designed to save lives – the lives of the American soldiers. And he said he was going to do that by making them face their greatest fears, overcome their weaknesses and endure what they never dreamed possible.
Then the sergeant announced that they were about to start with step one. There was a pause, and all the soldiers feared the worst about what step one might be. But they were surprised with its simplicity.
He told the soldiers to find a buddy.
"This is step one," the sergeant growled. "You need to find yourself a Ranger buddy. You will stick together. You will never leave each other. You will encourage each other, and, as necessary, you will carry each other.
That sergeant could have been reading from St. Paul’s writings to the Galatians -- "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2)
Or maybe he was reading from the New Testament letter to the Philippians, Paul said, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:4)
Or perhaps the sergeant had read from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon in his wisdom made this observation: "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
The biggest challenge of being in a new community like this is to gather the courage to reach out to another, to connect in the simplest of ways with another human being.
And you know, there is a simple key for building friendships. It may seem to be counter-intuitive because when we decide that we want more connection with others, we do so often from our deeply felt sense of needing friends.
The key is to focus not on receiving, not on getting something from a new relationship. The key is to focus on giving…giving of ourselves, listening carefully to others. Thinking about and praying for others as we learn about them, as we learn of their needs and their hurts.
Jesus said this: "It makes you more happy to give something than to get something." That’s a newer translation of Jesus’ words. The one we may know better is this: “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.
A key benefit of living in a community such as this is the opportunity to invest in new friendships. Friendships are so deeply important because friends reflect back to us our worth. Our value. The fact that our lives have meaning and purpose. It’s actually pretty easy to begin to feel that that’s not the case. We can feel that our lives are kind of empty, which is not a good feeling of course.
A common thing that people do is to try build a sense of self-worth by being busy, by doing a lot of things, by accomplishing a lot or by acquiring a lot of material things. Author Richard A Bower says this: “Our worth comes not from the amount of our involvements, achievements, or possessions, but from the depth and care which we bring to each moment, place, and person in our lives."
I love that. What a challenge. To bring depth and care to every moment, every interaction and every person that we interact with in our community. The beautiful thing about this notion is that we can do this by just being ourselves. And choosing to focus on being a light in another’s life. A source of encouragement. Perhaps even a source of strength.
When this is our focus, how can we help but gain friends? How can we help but enter into a richer experience of life?
One last thought. Jean Vanier was born in Thorold, Ontario, the son of a great soldier, diplomat and later Governor General Georges Vanier and his wife Pauline Archer. Jean Vanier is the founder of L’Arche, an international organization that creates communities where people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them share life together. He has experienced a lot and written a lot on community. He is a person I greatly admire.
Jean Vanier said this: "To live in community is to discover and love the secret of what is unique in ourselves. This is how we become free. Then we no longer live according to the desires of others, or by an image of ourselves; we become free, free to love others as they are and not as we would like them to be." [Jean Vanier, "Community and Growth"]
So all of this talk about the possibilities of community, about friendship, about the new community that each of you is involved in creating in this place…it’s all about finding freedom. It’s about experiencing greater joy in life. It about knowing an dbeing known. It’s about loving and being loved.
I want to challenge each one here to take yourselves seriously as a member of this community. To invest depth and care into the people you talk to here. To be a friend to another. To listen. To love. To discover that secret of what is unique and wonderful about who you are by caring for the others here. God loves it when we choose to love others. When we do that we actually reflect His own nature, for the Bible says: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us” 1 John 4: 16b-17a
Let’s pray. God, thank you for the privilege that each one here today shares of living in this community. Thank you that you meet many of our needs through friendship. Thank you Jesus that you said it’s better to give than receive. That can make such a difference in our lives if we choose to act on it. And we do pray that you would inspire us to live in this way. For your honour and glory, and for the blessing of our neighbours. This we pray in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
