Communitarianism...

Comunitarianism
Well, I had shared a little over 3 years ago that I make words up…Sometimes I can take credit for personally making up the word and sometimes I’ve borrowed from someone else…I would love to take credit for the word “communitarianism” but unfortunately it’s not my word…It is a word that Randy Pausch uses in his book, The Last Lecture…As an important part of creating a legacy for bother ourselves as individuals, and especially for us as a church, He challenges us to be a communitarianist…
So, what does it mean to practice communitarianism or to be a communitarianist? It’s certainly not an easy word to say! But if you think about the ways that you label yourself or maybe how others have labeled you…Maybe you’re an omnivore or a vegetarian…a Democrat or Republican…a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan…an introvert or an extrovert…And I’m sure that you can think of the labels that have been placed on you throughout your life…But have you ever been called a communitarianist or considered becoming a communitarianist? Well, let’s talk about what that means…
So, the best way to start to define communitarianist would be to break the word down…Which maybe some of you have already done? What do you see in the word “communitarianist?” Wait for responses…Good! I’m glad that you picked up on the word Community within communitarianist! So, if community is in there and –ism or –ist usually means that you practice whatever it is that’s being defined…So a communitarianist would be one who practices community!
Practicing community…Now community is something that’s talked about quite a bit and it’s referred to in many different ways…In fact, I’ve used the idea of community in several sermons over the past few years…So, what is community? Community is more than a group of people coming together…Community is a group that comes together for a common goal…A community can develop over a particular justice issue or event…And those are important to have as community…In his book Soul Craving, Erwin Rapheous Mcadams boldly states that he is an addict…He is an addict of people—he says that he needs to be in contact with people so much that it is like an addiction…As a matter of fact he accuses each person of having that same addiction…As a human being we are all addicted to being in community…He argues that if you don’t need to be in community of any kind, then you have lost your human-ness…And losing our human-ness is a very dangerous place to be! Because we weren’t created to be anything other than humans…And therefore we weren’t created to be anything but in community. Which clearly means that community is important for the Church, but what does community mean in the church?
Well, let me be absolutely clear about community in the church…The church is not a social club…The church is not a group of people gathered randomly or just to see one another and catch up on one another’s lives…While that’s not a bad thing and something that we should be doing as a church, it’s not the sole purpose of the church. The mission of the church is to make and create disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world…That is the common goal that we all have when we come together…The Church is a gathered body of believers…The church itself is meant to be a community…Now, we didn’t have any of the book of Acts used this morning in worship, but when you read the book of Acts, you will discover that book is written about the growth of the Early Christian Church…It is a story about building community around the goal of making and creating disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Believers met in one another’s homes…They spent time in the temple, then they spent just as much time in one another’s homes, breaking bread…Not only did they worship together in the temple, but they also spent just as much time together outside of the temple, breaking bread together in one another’s homes…Church wasn’t just something that they did on Saturday, but it was a way of life…They weren’t just in community with one other in worship, but they were in intentional Christian community for their entire beings…
But community isn’t something “new” or something that is only found in the New Testament, but community is something that is throughout the entire Bible! Think about the 10 commandments for a moment…The first 4 commandments are all about our relationship with God—You shall have no other Gods before me; You shall not worship any idols; You shall not use the name of the Lord in vain; Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy…All are commandments about how we relate to God and stay in community with God…The other six are about how we are in community with others—Honor your father & mother; You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness (lie); You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor…All are commandments about how we relate with others…
Now the book of Deuteronomy, one of the places that the 10 commandments are found, contains many of the laws that the Israelites, the Jewish people, followed and still follow today…Passages like ours this morning—If there is anyone in your community who is in need, help them out…Another commandment of how we are to be in community and relationship with others…Now the Jewish people practiced community within a select group—they were the Chosen People of God…As Christians, we don’t practice community with a select group of people…Because as Jesus said in Matthew—“When I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me something to drink, when I was naked you gave me clothing, when I was a stranger you welcomed me, when I was sick and in prison you visited me…Because whatever you did to the least of these you did to me…” Jesus didn’t say that our community should be an exclusive group where only a few are invited and welcomed and cared for, but our community is made of up all people. All people are included in community…Jesus didn’t say, “love people as long as they look like you…smell like you…talk like you…think like you…” Actually Jesus said, whatever you do to these, you do to me…Are we welcoming Jesus into community with us?
When we enter into Christian community—when we enter into relationship with one another through the church—in service to God, we enter into a Holy Friendship…Now Holy Friendship is different than “plain friendship”…It’s a friendship that goes beyond caring for one another’s physical bodies or even emotions, but goes into caring for one another’s souls…Holy Friendship is the kind of community that we as the church are called to be in with one another…In May, my covenant group came and joined in worship and some of you may have heard about our experience with Holy Friendship…We all love each other dearly and have often dropped everything that we’re doing to care for one another…But we also challenge one another and hold one another accountable…And it’s completely different that criticizing one another for doing something or not doing something, but it’s making sure that we understand what we’re doing and the right reasons and to make sure that whatever it is that is happening is faithful to our call as pastors and our call as Christians…It’s not always a comfortable place to be in to be held accountable and it’s not always comfortable to hold someone else accountable, but in the view of our holy friendship, it’s not something that we avoid just because it’s not comfortable, but because we’ve covenanted together that it’s something that we do…We’re communitarianists together!
One of the things that I know about myself is that when I have been hurt, I very rarely let the person who hurt me see it…I very rarely let anyone see it really…I was at a meeting recently and one of the members of my covenant group happened to be there with me…Throughout the course of this meeting, I was hurt in ways that I thought I was stronger than...I felt rejected, ignored, devalued, and unimportant… My heart was absolutely broken in ways that I wasn't expecting my heart to break…As I was trying to deal with these emotions on my own, one of my covenant group members came to share in my pain…As I sobbed on his shoulder and poured out pain that I didn’t even know I was feeling, he heard every word…Sometimes he offered something to say and other times it was another few kleenexes…I’m not sure how long I cried there with him, but it was enough to go through almost a box of kleenex…As I wore myself out and have poured out all of my pain—literally and figuratively, onto his shoulders...I came to the point where I said, “well, now all that’s left to do is suck it up and deal with it.” And he offered me another kleenex and quietly said, “Can I offer something else? Instead of sucking it up…Offer it up…Give it to God.” In all of the pain, that wasn’t what first came to my mind and it took someone who was intentionally caring for my body, mind, and soul to remind me…Someone who was in intentional community with me and not just because we had some of the same interests, but because we are bonded through the same God and the same common goal of making and creating disciples for Jesus Christ…In that conversation, I experienced community in ways that I didn’t know were possible…
During Lent, we looked at 6 critical choices that Rev. Paul Nixon offers in his book, I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church. One of the choices in there is choosing community over isolation… As human beings we are addicted to community…We are meant to be communitarianists…As the church, we are called to be in Christian community—united around the common goal of making and creating disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world…We are meant to be held accountable…We are meant to be in community…Where have we not allowed ourselves to be in community and instead chosen isolation? Maybe it was intentional or maybe it was unintentional…Have we shut ourselves out from the rest of the world? Have we shut ourselves out from one another? We are meant not just to share a pew space with one another on Sunday morning, but we are meant to share our lives with one another…We are meant to be in community with one another, we are meant to be in Holy Friendship…We are meant to experience God’s grace together…We are meant to laugh together, to cry together, to share together… Healing happens in community as we share where are hearts and lives have been broken...Hope is more beautiful in community...We are meant to be in Christian community with each other…We are meant to be communitarianists…