Together

Scripture Readings

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Psalm 133

1 How very good and pleasant it is

when kindred live together in unity!

2 It is like the precious oil on the head,

running down upon the beard,

on the beard of Aaron,

running down over the collar of his robes.

3 It is like the dew of Hermon,

which falls on the mountains of Zion.

For there the LORD ordained his blessing,

life forevermore.

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition 2 Corinthians 6

6 As we work together with him, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,

“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,

and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”

Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: in great endurance, afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 in purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true, 9 as unknown and yet are well known, as dying and look—we are alive, as punished and yet not killed, 10 as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything.

11 We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. 12 There is no restriction in our affections but only in yours. 13 In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.

WWTW

Introduction- Shared Experiences

The Eclipse

Back in April, we had this wonderful shared moment.

The eclipse.

Listening to the church and sermon podcasts back then, just about everyone was talking about the eclipse in their sermons, so I didn’t want to.

But now enough time has passed, I think I can get away with it!

We had this beautiful shared moment together!

Everyone was looking for the glasses on Amazon.

Everyone was looking up at the sky.

We all experienced it in different ways to be sure, but it was a common and shared experience.

It was something we did together.

Those experiences are rare these days, aren’t they?

The Super Bowl

Even this isn’t quite the attraction it used to be.

But you can almost be assured that on Monday morning we’re going to be talking about Roller Skating Usher or who may or may not be dating Taylor Swift.

Maybe, just maybe, if you’re really paying attention, you might even talk about football!

Again, we all might experience this differently.

But we all seem to experience it together, and then have a discussion about it afterwords.

The Moon Landing

Think about it: everyone in the nation, if not the world, was tuned in to see Neil Armstrong take that one small step for man, and that giant leap for mankind.

Perhaps that’s what’s best for these kinds of shared experiences, that they have the capacity to take your breath away a little bit.

Even the Super Bowl- I kind of wondered how much these guys have to practice to be able to pull off the athletic feats they do, both in the game and the halftime show.

You are left with a sense of wonder, amazement, and joy.

Today’s scripture is actually suggesting those moments happen far more than we are aware,

And better yet, we get to enjoy them together.

A thousand directions

Paul and his struggles with the Corinthian Church

Paul is one of the founding pastors of this church in Corinth.

And I know this will sound shocking to our modern ears, as we have completely gotten this sorted out.

But churches…sometimes they have problems!

New churches come with difficulty.

Particularly at this point in Church history, they are asking some really hard questions:

What traditions from our Jewish past do we have to hold on to?

If the Law is really fulfilled in Christ, doesn’t that mean that we’re free to do whatever we’d like?

Who is our leader, and what do we do if we have like four or five leaders?

What if those leaders are offering contradictory advice and visions?

Everyone seemed to have their own answers to the problems.

Paul. Apollos. Peter. Christ.

The church has divided itself into different camps, each with different visions of what’s going on around them.

We have something similiar going on now:

Because of our media and social media landscape, we’ve done an expert job of creating our own echo chambers where everyone just agrees with us.

We’ve made a cultural establishment of going where we want to, and making sure that no one is going to challenge us.

So imagine that someone came along and suggested that there’s one right path forward.

Maybe it has a little bit of something for this side, and a little bit of something for that side.

Which really just means that it upsets people on every side, right?

That’s what Paul did here in 1 and 2 Corinthians.

The missing “letter of tears”

In fact, scholars think that there is a third letter of Corinthians that’s lost to time, something that came in-between these two, and is called the “letter of tears.”

Paul trying to bring the disperate groups together caused some pretty substantial pain in the Church, which is a big piece of what Paul is trying to set right in this letter.

What Paul is trying to do…

Paul is trying to create genuine Christian community.

“As we work together with him.”

There is a myth, then as now, that there is a possibility of a personal only faith.

Shocking as this might appear to most, the phrase “Personal relationship with Jesus” appears absolutely nowhere in the Bible.

It’s not a concept that anyone in scripture is advocating for.

To be sure, we have a relationship with Jesus, and yes, Scripture would tell us that God is as close to us as a dear friend.

But what isn’t in there is this idea of a “you and me Jesus” faith alone.

We were always meant to do this together.

We were always meant to express our faith together.

We were always meant to live our faith together.

We were always meant to ponder our faith together.

We were always meant to practice our faith together.

And in fact, why should we wait?

The acceptable time: the day of salvation.

This is a tough one to read as a world class procrastinator!

Kairos- God speaking into our time.

There has been this understanding, really in all of scripture, that the way we experience time and the way God experiences time are quite different.

God stands outside the bounds and constraints and restrictions of our time.

Which, kind of makes sense for the eternal one, but has the nasty tendency to melt our brains if we think about it for too long.

The word “Kairos” that Paul uses here is used repeatedly in the New Testament to indicate the appointed time for God’s purpose on our world, and in our timeline.

It’s like those moments when God breaks through our time, and shows us what God is up to in the world.

Paul is saying he’d do anything to see that together.

It’s like he’s addicted to seeing God break through, and see God at work in our world.

Like, what would you do for a Klondike bar?

Beatings? No problem.

Calamities? I eat those for breakfast.

Sleepless nights? Bring it on.

Kind of puts some of our hardships into context, huh?

Last week I told a story about me hurting myself in an embarrassing way.

And I guess the rest of the sermon didn’t land, because that seems to be the only thing anyone could talk about after the service!

But still, as I was preparing for this one, I thought back to how much time I spent complaining about the “hardship” I experienced in that, and compared to Paul I’m getting off pretty easy.

So much of our lives can be that way, and I think it’s because we loose perspective.

When our hardships are getting in the way of our own goals and ambitions, they become impossible to overcome no matter how small they are.

When our hardships are getting in the way of our desire to see God at work in the world, we might just find that we have an enormous capacity to endure much more than we imagined.

All of this should work together to open our hearts.

Paul ends this passage inviting the Corinthian church to open their hearts up.

And it turns out, when we get together, when we have a common and shared experience, our hearts do funny things…

The hearts of the church.

Music and the heart.

The music that plays before a concert.

I had the opportunity a while back to talk to a sound engineer who toured with a national act, and was in charge of the music that plays before the concert begins.

Scientists have discovered that when humans are together in a room where music is being played, our heart rates will eventually over time start to sync up.

We’ll all have our hearts beating at roughly the same time.

This sound guy said that they use that knowledge to craft the experience of the concert.

If you pay close attention, as you get closer and closer to the concert starting, the music they play will get faster and faster and more and more intense.

The objective is to actually ramp up everybody’s heart rate in the room, to literally build excitement.

Our experience of worship.

It turns out that this happens to us every Sunday.

Whether you attend the traditional service or the contemporary, when we gather together and sing songs and pray prayers in unison, our hearts start to synchronize.

We actually start to work together with God in those moments, as Paul starts this passage.

We become a united community.

What’s beautiful about that is how much doesn’t matter about it:

It doesn’t matter if you’re democrat or republican: in this room our hearts will beat together.

It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female: in this room our hearts will beat together.

It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor: in this room our hearts will beat together.

I think what Paul would wonder is what I would wonder:

Sustained connection.

How could we take that unity out in to the world?

How could we make that a sustained connection, something that we could keep alive not just for an hour a week, but each and every moment of our lives?

Ultimately this requires training.

Trained to see.

Get out there.

A little while ago a friend of mine suckered me in to doing a race on my bike.

I don’t like racing.

I’d rather meander and go at my own pace and take in all the sights.

But I was racing.

About 100 people did this particular race.

I kid you not, I came in 99th.

And it was a sprint finish with the dude who was in 100th.

So I started complaining, as one does, about how slow I was.

And my friend’s response was perfect:

“Well, you beat the pants off the guy who’s still at home on his couch!”

In other words, getting out there is the ultimate good.

It’s true for our faith too.

We should be out in our communities on a regular basis, not just walking through our lives but noticing where God is on the move.

We should engage with our brothers and sisters in the community about our faith, and how we have come to know the love of God in Christ.

We should hear the stories of God breaking in to our time, and delighting as Paul did in what God is doing.

And maybe you’re hearing me say that, and you’re scared.

What if I don’t represent Christ well?

What if I don’t know how to speak eloquently about my faith?

What if I embarrass myself, or my church, or my faith?

I don’t know, maybe those things will happen.

But you’ll be the pants off the folks who are still in the pews and never take their faith outside.

Let’s get out there!

But…

With open hearts.

The world desperately needs this.

So many folks are walking around with closed hearts.

Maybe it’s because they’ve been hurt before.

Maybe it’s because they’ve decided that anger is easier than love (it is).

Maybe it’s because it’s just what everyone else is doing.

But I do know this…the last thing we need are more closed hearts.

If we go out into our world to experience God’s Kairos together, and we do it from a place of judgement or vindication or just telling everyone else how they’re getting it wrong, then we’d be better to stay home.

What we need, what the world out there needs, is open hearted Christians working together.

We need people who are willing to listen, even to stories that are outside your experience.

We need people who are willing to care, to legitimately carry concern for people, even those who are unknown to you.

We need people who are willing to encourage, to speak kindness, to lift others up, against the tide of those who would denigrate, to speak hatred, and to hold others back.

And by the by, this space is the practice room for that.

I don’t understand churches that are devoid of joy.

I don’t understand churches that are caught in cycles of overly-serious endeavors.

I don’t understand churches that are devoid of smiles.

Paul didn’t either.

Our hearts are open.

Are you ready to open your hearts wide too?

And once those babies are synced up in this work…

Let’s experience it together.

God is working in this world.

Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.

It’s happening all around us.

So like an eclipse, or a super bowl, or a moon landing…

What would happen if we trained ourselves to experience it together?

What would happen if our faith was less you and me Jesus, and more “did you see what Jesus is up to in the world?”

What would happen if our church was the place where we reported back to each other what we saw God doing in the world through the week?

What would happen if our worship were not the preparation to go out into the world, but rather the celebration for what we’ve already seen and heard while we were out there?

Beloved, we can do this.

We can become the beloved community that Paul imagined for us together.

Do it afraid.

Last week I suggested that things might change.

And now this week I’m suggesting that we get out there, and speak about our faith, and experience the world as God is breaking in together.

In other words, I’ve preached a couple of scary sermons back to back!

A few weeks back, I met a new friend here at the Church.

Kent Chevalier is the chaplain for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He came to Munchin to share his story, and trust me when I tell you that we’re going to have him back to preach, because our brother has some things to say!

But the piece of his story that he left us with has been hanging around in my head for a while now.

Do it afraid.

Yes, it might be scary to face down some change in our lives.

Yes, it might be scary to take our faith out in to the world.

Yes, it might be scary to share our faith together with others, particularly if we’re used to a private and personal faith.

My encouragement to us today is to do something with our faiths that scares us.

Not a lot. We don’t need panic attacks!

But what about a small little scary step?

Talk to someone in your life about your faith.

Invite someone from the church to your house to share a meal together.

Ask a question of someone about their faith, in an open hearted spirit of curiosity.

The truth is, the more we do this, the less scary things get.

And the truth is, we’ll never do scary things alone.

Because this faith, this beautiful and wonderful faith in Jesus Christ, is something that’s done better together.