Commit to Community

Commit to Community

Genesis 2:15-24

Luke 5:17-26

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to each and every one of you in the name of our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am Steve Garrabrant, and I am blessed to serve as Vicar here at Gloria Dei and the Head of School at Lutheran South Academy.

We are in the Being Challenge sermon series, and the first habit of Jesus that we are going to look at in our study is a commitment to community. And, there is no better place to look at the importance of community than when God creates man. You see, in Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” In the very beginning of God’s creation, and when He forms man from the dust of the ground, He is in communion with the Trinity. God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in consultation together—in perfect community—as man is wonderfully and perfectly made.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone…”

Everything about God’s creation was good and perfect. But for man, it was not good for him to be alone. And so, God said, “I will make him a helper fit for him.” And so, the first surgery occurs. God puts man into a deep sleep, and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman.

Man needed to not be alone. Man needed a helper. Man needed community.

And so, God creates community in His perfect creation.

And, so man leaves his parents to be with his wife’s family. And family units grew. And families became clans. And clans became societies. And, so we have the sociological formation of community—all with the basic understanding that the root formation of community is that it is not good that man or woman should be alone.

And so, family units came together in their clans, and in their religious unity, a community as a congregation came into being. Community…valued by God…created by God…ordained by God.

There is a great beauty in having community. Where we live…where we interact…where we share joys and struggles, celebrations and pain…there we have community…there we need community because it is not good that man or woman should be alone.

Let me tell you about a story of community in action.

16 years ago, our family—my wife Rachel, our 4 year old Jonah, and our 3 year old Eli were exercising together—doing a beach body workout before we were going to see Thomas the Tank Engine! The kids had their 1 pound dumbbells. I was sweating. Silas was 6 months old watching from afar in his pack-in-play. And, Rachel was working hard…bound and determined to lose some post-partem baby weight. And, then it happened.

Rachel got sick. Her hands locked up. She struggled to breathe. My 30 year old wife was having a massive heart attack.

Our local rural hospital in southeast Michigan needed to life light her to a level 1 trauma center in Toledo, Ohio. The pilot of the life flight helicopter must have seen the fear on my face in that tiny emergency room. He looked at me and said, “Do you want to ride with us?” An argument broke out with rules and regulations being thrown about by hospital officials and the pilot, and he said, “It’s my chopper, and if he wants to ride, he’s going with us.”

One of the nurses on that life light chopper was a member of one of the local Lutheran churches. She knew my family—I was the principal of a small Lutheran high school in that small town. There were no secrets in that community.

A 45 minute car ride took 6 minutes by chopper. Critical minutes. They took Rachel by gurney to a heart cath lab to see how bad it was. They took me to the waiting room in the basement. A single lamp. No one else. All alone that Saturday morning was I. No, it was not good for man to be alone.

Minutes seemed like hours. Hours seemed like an eternity. Finally, a doctor and nurse came to that dungeon of a waiting room. Rachel had coded during the heart cath procedure. Her left anterior descending artery had dissected before the very eyes of the doctor. They paddled her to no success. A team of medical personnel performed CPR on her for 45 minutes by the time the doctor came to tell me what was happening. He said they were going to continue to do CPR until the cardiovascular surgeon on call could arrive to do surgery. They were bound and determined to do all they could for a 30 year old woman and a mother of 3 little boys.

During the emergency 8 hour quadruple bi-pass surgery, family members came to be with me at the hospital. It is not good for man to be alone, and so the community of family was welcomed and needed. Several pastors of the churches that our Lutheran high school serviced came as well. Parents of students joined them. The community rallied in prayer there at the hospital and from afar. Prayer vigils were taking place by loved ones around the nation.

After surgery like that when the heart is on a by-pass machine, they fill the heart full of blood so that it starts beating again. A nurse came to tell me that they were unsuccessful doing so for two times. She said they were going to try one more time, and if it didn’t work, I would have to make a decision—to let me wife go or put her on a machine to assist her heart in hopes of a heart transplant.

I was crushed. I was terrified. I looked to Rachel’s mom, and with tears I said that I could not let her go. “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” she said. I’ll never forget her saying that.

What seemed like an eternity, the nurse returned, and said they were closing up Rachel. I didn’t know what that meant at first. But she let me know her heart started on the third try. But, they told me they didn’t know the extent of the damage to the body with CPR having taken place for as long as it did. Not sure if she would ever wake up. Not sure if organs got enough blood. Not sure of anything. Told me not to get my hopes up.

I imagine that they never thought she was going to survive that first night after such an ordeal. They let about 15 of us—family, pastors, and school parents into her ICU room to see her. Our pastor offered up a prayer while I held Rachel’s fluid swollen hand, and then I leaned over and kissed her forehead. At the moment her eyes opened, and a nurse pushed me out of the way and grabbed her hand and tried to ask Rachel questions in hopes of a nod for an answer. Other nurses ushered us out of the room.

It was a long recovery for Rachel. 9 days in the ICU. She finally got home the day before Mother’s Day. What a blessed present for her.

It was a long recovery for my family. At one point, we weren’t sure Rachel was going to make it during her recovery. Her numbers didn’t look good. Couldn’t come off the ventilator. A lot of uncertainty. The first time I went home to see the boys, I went to see Jonah and Eli in their shared bedroom. We were all sitting on the bed. I told them that their mommy was sick, and I didn’t know when she’d be able to come home. Jonah just sat there and stared off into introspective silence. Eli just clung to me and squeezed me as tight as he could. And he and I cried and cried and cried. We needed each other. There is strength in community.

Luke chapter 5 tells of a similar story of a commitment to community.

Jesus is in a house. A crowd has gathered around him. They have heard and seen and witnessed his healing power. And some men were bringing a man on mat who was paralyzed in hopes of having Jesus heal him. But the crowd was immense. They could not find a way in. So, finding no way to bring the paralyzed man into the house because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down on his mat through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”

And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your mat and go home.” And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

Friends, you see, it is not good for man…or for woman…to be alone. Man needs community. We need community. This paralyzed man had an amazing community of friends. He had friends that were going to do whatever possible to get their paralyzed friend to Jesus.

One of the days while Rachel was in the ICU, one of the CPR tag team nurses came to check on her. That’s when I got to meet her. She told me we just couldn’t let a 30 year old go. Just as that CPR tag team was going to do whatever possible to buy time for Rachel…to keep her alive for the surgeon to arrive, that paralyzed man’s friends were going to do whatever they could to get that man to Jesus.

Just as the life flight pilot broke every rule and regulation so that I could accompany my fragile wife to the hospital, that paralyzed man’s friends were willing to destroy property…break laws…upset social boundaries…so that their friend could get to Jesus.

Friends, here is why community is so important…we need each other…because each of us has our own mat.

The paralyzed man was stuck on his mat…

Rachel’s mat was her fragile heart…

My mat was fear of being along…

Years later, 3 year old Eli grew to be an angry kid in elementary school. He would lash out and say things that I knew he didn’t mean. He would punish me and Rachel with anger…and we couldn’t figure out why. You see, my son Eli’s mat was PTSD due to the fear of losing his mommy…and once we figured that out…I was going to do whatever I could to help him. Just as the paralyzed man’s friends would go through a tile roof, I would go through a brick wall for my kid. And so for months, every Wednesday night I drove Eli an hour one way to see a Christian counselor at a Lutheran church to help him process his fear and help him to learn the tools and strategies of dealing with his fear. I was going to do everything possible because of my love for my son to help him. I cherished that time. 2 hours in the car…a Burger King meal…and time to just be together…because he needed me and I loved him so.

Friends, we each have a mat. Our mats differ for sure. But there is a commonality in each of our mats…a woven thread in my mat, and your mat, and your mat, and your mat…in all of our mats…a woven thread of sin. And God who ordained community since the very beginning of creation…knows that it is not good for man to be alone…and in our sin we are alone and separated from God…and so He in His overwhelming never ending love sent His son to carry our mats to the cross…to carry our struggles, our fears, our hurts, our sin to the cross. And our Lord looks at us says, your sins are forgiven, pick up your mat and live in community with Me!