How many of you are on Facebook? How many know what it is, but are not on it? How many know nothing about it? What planet have you been living on? Facebook is a website that was launched in February of 2004. It was created by some college students led by a young man named Mark Zuckerburg, who is now the 16th richest person in the world with a net worth of 33.4 billion dollars. Basically, Facebook was meant to be a directory for Harvard students. The name comes from the school’s annual directory. It had everyone’s picture from the school and it was unofficially called “the face book.” It had head shots of everyone and it helped people to put a name with a face. However, it didn’t just stay at the school. In eleven years it has exploded. Today, there are over 1.49 billion users of Facebook.
The stated purpose of Facebook is to share and connect with the people in your life, and we do that by becoming “friends” with people on Facebook. If I want to become friends with someone I have to send a friend request. The person can decide to accept my friend request or not. On Facebook, we get to choose our friends. We can “decline” someone who wants to be our friend, and I have declined friend requests when I am not sure who the person is. But, if I know the person, I accept their friend request. That’s netted me 1,275 “friends” on Facebook. That’s my “network,” or “community,” and they can write on my wall, and I can write on their wall, and we can keep up with what’s going on in each other’s life…like I can really keep up with what’s happening in 1,275 people’s lives! Here’s the funny thing: I’ve probably never met 1/3 of the people who are my friends.
I’m never going to see all those Facebook friends I have “in person”. If I’m sick, they’re not coming to visit me. If I need money to help pay a bill, they wouldn’t be likely to help. If I was stranded on a highway at night, most of them are not coming to get me. They don’t really know me. They don’t know what I struggle with. They might not even LIKE me. On Facebook, they’re my friends. Probably nice people, but they’re not really my friends. They’re like the lady who telephoned a friend to ask how she was feeling.
“Terrible,” came the reply over the phone, “my head’s splitting and my back and legs are killing me. The house is a mess, and the kids are simply driving me crazy.”
Very sympathetically the caller said, “Listen, go and lie down, I’ll come over right away and cook lunch for you, clean up the house, and take care of the children while you get some rest. By the way, how is your husband Sam?”
“Sam?” the complaining housewife gasped. “My husband’s name isn’t Sam.”
“Oh dear,” exclaimed the first woman, “I must have dialed the wrong number.”
There was a long pause. “Does that mean you’re not coming over?”
We long for genuine relationships, not the sanitized, happy-is-life versions we get on Facebook. We long to be “connected” to people who know us and love us. It’s the way we were created. Very early in the Bible it says that Adam was created and something was missing. God looked and said, “It’s not good for man to be alone, I must create a helper that must be suitable for him,” and God created Eve. So, from the very beginning God created human beings for community. We’re not designed to be happy and contented on our own.
We find community in different places—at work, in the Rotary Club, at the country club, in the bridge club, in our families. But, there’s something different about the community of the church—or, at least there should be! We are God’s people—this moment and every moment. What makes the church different from the other places of community is that we are a community of believers, bound eternally through the power of the Holy Spirit with every person, everywhere who has put faith in Jesus Christ. We believe it is in Jesus Christ that we find hope, motivation and encouragement.
I love how Dietrich Bonhoeffer characterized this idea in his book Life Together. Bonhoeffer says, “The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”
Let me be candid a moment. It’s possible to be a believer in Jesus Christ without being attached to a community of faith, but it’s impossible to be a disciple of Jesus Christ without being attached to the Body of Christ—to a community of faith. The Christian faith is a communal faith. It is not meant to be lived alone. We need each other. The purpose of our gathering together is not about what we can get out of it, but rather to acknowledge what we can bring to it. First, we bring our worship to God, but secondly, we bring our weaknesses to be made stronger because of the strength of those around us. It is the place where your weakness is made strong by my strength.
We often fail to appreciate how important our relationships are with other Christians for growing spiritually and following Jesus Christ. The idea of living for Christ without living in community appeals to our sense of independence, but it is foreign to what Scripture teaches. Here’s what the Bible says: “love one another (John 15:12), serve one another (Galatians 5:13), bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), instruct one another (Romans 15:14), and encourage one another (Hebrews 10:25). Life, the disciple’s life is about relationships—ours with God, and ours with others.
Here at FUMC, Monroe, we’re all about connections. We even state it in our mission statement. What’s the first word? “Connecting!” Connecting people to new life, new hope and new beginnings through Jesus Christ. We acknowledge the importance of connection, and that’s exactly what the writer to the Hebrews was expressing as he penned the words of our text today. The connection had a three-fold purpose: 1) hope, 2) motivation, and 3) encouragement. Hope, motivation and encouragement came about as the people gathered together. It happened in community.
How do we do that? There are a number of ways. First is Sunday school. We have an abundance of Sunday school classes that provide a place of connection to God and to others. For students, our Rise Student Ministry accomplishes the same purpose. We do it through United Methodist Women, and now through our Men at Work lunch. We do it through After Hours, and the women’s study group, and now the men’s study group where the leaders are being intentional in creating a place to connect on a deeper level—a place to do life together for hope, motivation and encouragement. And, I’m working with a group now we’re calling The Class Meeting. What is a class meeting? I’ve been meeting with a group of 11 people weekly for eleven weeks to learn what it means to be a part of a Wesleyan class meeting. It’s part of a process of developing disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
John Wesley described the plan of discipleship in what he called The General Rules. As Christians, we are to (1) do no harm by avoiding evil of every kind; (2) do good to all people; and (3) attend upon all the ordinances of God like participating in worship, taking Communion, reading the Bible, praying, and more. The problem lies in knowing versus doing. The Class Meeting is designed to help us get from knowing to doing. The weekly class meetings had a singular purpose. Each person was asked to answer this question, “How does your soul prosper?” Today, we might say, “How is your spiritual life?” As people’s lives were changed, the Class Meeting ministry model began to spread across England, and later across what would become the United States. Through those early class meetings, Methodists found hope, motivation and encouragement, and they grew in their relationship with God and with each other. The same thing is happening today. It doesn’t happen overnight, but through answering that question together Class Meeting members grow closer to one another and closer to Christ. They begin to “watch over one another in love.” Watching over one another in love…that’s our desire at FUMC, Monroe. That is the power of community, transformative community…unlike Facebook where friends are often too easy to come by.
You’ll have your chance to connect to a class meeting coming in January. We hope to have the leadership structure in place to begin a series of class meetings after the holidays.
Beyond Sunday school, bible study and small groups, there is worship. Worship is where we connect together to connect with God. It is in worship that we hear the call of God to friendship with Him. See, that’s the best part...God sent us a friend request two thousand years ago on the cross of Jesus Christ. He calls us still. It is through this sacrament of Holy Communion that our invitation comes…
Hear this invitation…
