A PLACE TO BELONG

A PLACE TO BELONG Psalm 133:1; Acts 4:23, 32 July 25, 2010 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Do you play video games? Are you a willing participant in virtual reality? Estimates are there are over 40 million people now involved world-wide in virtual reality games and programs where alternate identities are assumed and acted out. There is mounting concern that some are actually damaging their real lives by obsessing over their "second" lives. That's always been a concern with videogames, but a field of study suggests that the boundary between virtual worlds and reality may be more porous than experts previously imagined. Almost half of men and more than half of women who play online games said their virtual friends were “equal to or better than their real-life friends,” according to a survey of 30,000 gamers conducted by Nick Yee, a recent PhD graduate from Stanford University. More than a quarter of all those gamers said the emotional highlight of the past week occurred in a computer world… Edward Castronova, associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, says, "There's a fuzziness that's emerging between the virtual world and the real world." How surreal that the unreal has overtaken the real! I’d like for us to take a few minutes this morning and consider the ideas of real relationships and real church. Along the way I want to raise our awareness to the danger of the church going virtual. That is, the very real possibility that the church, God’s community in which He calls His subjects to be the most liberated, genuine and real human beings in all of creation, may become as unreal as the world around us. God has revealed Himself in trinity—three distinct persons in one Godhead. This is a mystery beyond our full understanding, but it is helpful for us to marvel at the perfection of the trinity: the love, respect, unity and seamless cooperation among Father, Son and Spirit. The absolute union of plurality in unity can serve as a vision, a template of the kind of unity and community He calls His church into. Scriptures We have been hop scotching through the book of Psalms this summer and as I read through the Psalms not long ago, I promised myself I would bring a message from Psalm 133. But as I have studied the Psalm, I have continually found myself “stuck” at verse one. It’s as if I can’t go any farther into the psalm because of this urge to deal fully with the first verse’s theme of community. Read aloud with me… How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! The Message: How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! David authored this psalm, and if you’ll notice the notes in your study Bibles, it says it is one of the psalms of ascents. That is, it was often recited or sung by worshipers as they made the steep walk up to the holy city of Jerusalem on their way to Temple worship. They could see the Temple and they would thrill in anticipation of joining other worshipers, not only at the Temple, but even there on the way. I can remember as a child, when I walked to the Catholic church, across the Jefferson School yard and up Koerner Street to where the original church building was. On the schoolyard I had an open, almost panoramic view of several blocks, and I could see several of my classmates, and one or two families walking to Mass. And I do remember touching on this feeling—a sense of how cool it was, even comforting to know that all these people believed like I believed and we were all moving northward to our appointed time of worship. The next two verses find David describing the delight he experienced as he and others ascended Jerusalem’s hill—as precious as the poured oil that marked Aaron’s anointed priesthood, and as much a blessing as the early morning dew on the western mountainside. This oil running down Aaron’s beard and the dew settling on the pastures from heaven were symbolic to David of the blessings of God coming down from God. For some reason, when I throw the biblical idea of community life that forward to the New Testament, I am always led to think of the early church as it appears in the book of Acts. There the Christians partook of that same kind of joy at the prospect of being together for worship and fellowship. Acts 2:42 tells us they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. There in the pages of our New Testament history book, the Acts tells us of the excitement and the joy of the New Community serving and preaching and ministering and converting and healing, and so on. The Church was quickly becoming known as a most remarkable community of people. Two verses in chapter 4 help us get a feel for that intensity. Acts 4:23 – Just after Peter and John had been arrested, threatened and released, and through the whole ordeal, the rest of the church was holed up praying for them, it says, On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them… Would you take note of that interesting verbal phrase? They went back to their own people! That’s how Peter and John thought of their interceding friends; that’s how Luke the historian captures the sensibilities of this band of brothers; they didn’t leave the police station and stop by McDonalds, didn’t run a errands on the way across town—they hurried back to the community they loved, those who loved them. They came home to be among their own people. Their hearts still racing from the stress of their run-in with the religious authorities, they longed to sit down with their closest friends and tell them all about it: how frightening, challenging it all had been, how they’d felt the impact of their prayers for them, and how God worked it out for them.   Look at verse 32 in that same chapter. There we find a descriptive synopsis from Luke of what the church community was like. All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. Can you imagine their time together? I can. Peter and John ask for some bread and a drink because they’re hungry. Everyone crowds around, waiting to hear the details of all that happened. Their empathy was heightened by how fervently they had prayed for their brothers just minutes before. Suddenly they realized they loved them even more for what they went through on behalf of the entire church family! And surely, John and Peter, felt closer bonding with these brothers and sisters than they had ever before. That’s what the threat of persecution does to genuine disciples. It fires them up and draws them closer. The kids were fidgety, vying for the closest seats. They shared their story, and praise and thanksgiving erupted from the family! They asked God, not for safety, but for more boldness in the face of the threats, and just as someone closed with the words, in Jesus’ name, Amen, the whole house was shaken by the power of God. They must have felt what I suspect, that God wrapped His big hands around their meeting place and said, “Good praying, disciples!” The Church is Your Family May I make a point here? Your church is your family when you are a committed follower of Christ. Their love and encouragement endears you to them; the threat of the world’s hostility drives you to them; their interdependence with you makes you know you are an important part of the body of Christ. Eppling Reinartz used to say that people would often speak to him about their church. They would point out to him how they had a tireless pastor or an outstanding preacher; they would point to their new impressive facilities; in some instances they liked to brag about the fact that they had the largest budget in their history. But Dr. Reinartz said that the most moving word he ever heard said about the church came from an elderly lady who told him, “I love this church. When a person joins it, from that moment on they never have to bear another burden alone.” Maintaining Community is our Job Now, the Lord wants His church, including this church, to be strong and vibrant in our care for one another, our mutual encouragement and our mutual ministry to those around us. Look at those key words in Acts 4:32 – they shared everything! They knew personally a strong sense of belonging—belonging to God, sure, but also belonging to one another Brothers and sisters, if you want this church to be the church that God wants it to be, it will cost you. Just like anything worthwhile, and MORE than other worthwhile things, the church requires her members to liberally give of their time, their treasure and their abilities. Why? Because God intends His church to be a place for people to belong—both you and others we will reach. And make no mistake, each and every one of us has the power to affect the Just a little straight talk about being “a place to belong” I need to come straight at a couple as touching these words in our church’s by-line, “a place to belong and a place to become.” And I decided to twist it around a little and come at it through a side door, using a negative approach. Here we go, rapid-fire: Five things you can do to absolutely neutralize the sense of belonging in a church. First, if you want to destroy this vital sense of “belonging” in the church for yourself and others, then here’s what you do: never forfeit your personal comfort in order to make someone else comfortable. Journalist and author Bob Greene tells the following story in his book And You Know You Should Be Glad: A True Story of Lifelong Friendship: There are a handful of people, during your lifetime, who know you well enough to understand when the right thing to say is to say nothing at all. Those people—and there will be, at most, only a few of them—will be with you during your very worst times…. When, during an already painful juncture in my life, my wife died, I was so numb that I felt dead myself. In the hours after her death, as our children and I tried in vain to figure out what to do next, how to get from hour to hour, the phone must have been ringing, but I have no recollection of it. The next morning—one of those mornings when you awaken, blink to start the day, and then, a dispiriting second later, realize anew what has just happened and feel the boulder press you against the earth with such weight that you fear you will never be able to get up—the phone rang, and it was Jack. I didn't want to hear any voice—even his voice. I just wanted to cover myself with darkness. I knew he would be asking if there was anything he could do. But I should have known that he'd already done it. "I'm in Chicago," he said. I misunderstood him; I thought he was offering to come to Chicago. "I took the first flight this morning," he said. He had heard; he had flown in. "I know you probably don't want to see anyone," he said. "That's all right. I've checked into a hotel, and I'll just sit in the room in case you need me to do anything. I can do whatever you want, or I can do nothing." He meant it. He knew the best thing he could do was to be present in the same town; to tell me he was there. And he did just sit there—I assume he watched TV, or did some work, but he waited until I gathered the strength to say I needed him. He helped me with things no man ever wants to need help with; mostly he sat with me and knew I did not require conversation, did not welcome chatter, did not need anything beyond the knowledge he was there. He brought food for my children and, by sharing my silence, he got me through those days. Most who champion on-line chat rooms and message boards argue that such technology encourages community. The question, however, is just how healthy on-line community really is. Emboldened by anonymity, people often say things to others that they would never say face-to-face. Armed with a certain sense that "this isn't really the real world," people have little concern for the consequences of their actions or words. To put it simply: pseudo-, virtual community can often bring out the worst in us. Consider the devastating story of Abraham Biggs. The message board section of Biggs' favorite site, BodyBuilding.com, was his source of community—even family. The 19-year-old college student posted at least 2,300 messages, many of them chronicling his personal struggles. On November 19, 2008, after several messages that hinted at his desire to commit suicide, Biggs posted one final note, swallowed a medley of pills, and directed his on-line community to watch his death on a live video website. What is especially horrifying is what investigators discovered after the suicide. Many in Biggs' on-line family had actually encouraged him to take his life. In fact when officers finally found where Biggs was located, 181 people were watching the video, many of whom were typing "LOL"—"laugh out loud"—on the screen. In an interview with the New York Times about Biggs' death, Jeffrey Cole, a professor who studies technology's effects on society at the University of Southern California, said, "[Online communities] are like the crowd outside the building with the guy on the ledge. Sometimes there is someone who gets involved and tries to talk him down. Often the crowd chants, 'Jump, jump.' They can enable suicide or help prevent it." In the same interview, he later adds: "The anonymous nature of these communities only emboldens the meanness or callousness of the people on these sites. Rarely does it bring out greater compassion or consideration." When The Associated Press spoke to Biggs' father about the tragedy, he said, "As a human being, you don't watch someone in trouble and sit back and just watch." It was Christmas morning in 1998. Russ Robinson and his family climbed into their motor home. They were leaving the frigid winter climate of Chicago for the warmth of Phoenix, Arizona. Russ and his wife took turns driving all day and into the night. While cruising along in the darkness of a rural interstate highway, the headlights suddenly revealed a woman, dressed in black, walking in the middle of the road. Russ swerved, but it was too late. The motor home crashed into the woman. Her head hit the windshield. Her body smashed into the right side of the vehicle, tossing her into the ditch. Later, it was discovered that the woman had been drunk and was attempting to commit suicide. Despite the horrific collision, she survived. Russ was devastated. He pulled off the road, dialed 911, and nearly went into shock. Seconds later, he phoned a friend in his small group. Then his wife called someone in her group. The two groups gathered to pray. Russ writes: "Their prayer support helped me begin the road to emotional recovery. My community listened during long conversations while I tried to process confusing emotions. When I wrestled with God—seeking to make sense of the experience—people offered reassurance and other help. I needed people to pray with and for me, and I came to know what it was to have someone 'weep with those who weep' (Romans 12:15). I experienced how the body of Christ can extend real, personal hands to someone in pain." Relating his experience to the vital need for Christian community, Russ continues, "You need to invest in community today, so you can reap the benefits during tomorrow's seasons of deprivation and loss." I had been praying regularly with the deacons for one of our members. His wife, Pat, attended our small congregation faithfully, but John hadn't been to church in years. So every Sunday afternoon before the evening service, we prayed for ways to communicate our commitment to John and his family. It wasn't long before we received an answer. During the morning service one week, Pat told us through tears that John had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. A surgery was planned for the following week, and doctors were confident John would make a full recovery. The bad news was John would be out of work for months. He drove a log truck and was paid by the mile. There was no way he could recover while spending ten hours a day in a bumpy eighteen-wheeler, but if he didn't drive, John and Pat didn't get a paycheck. The congregation sprang immediately to action. There was no question whether the congregation would pitch in to support the family in their time of need. That afternoon in an emergency business meeting, we sat around a long folding table and our head deacon, a trucker himself, asked with his characteristic boldness, "How much can everyone give?" Some pledged $50 or $100 a month; one family committed to pay for utilities and another for groceries, whatever the cost. Beginning immediately, Anchor Baptist Church took responsibility for the wellbeing of one of its families. All bills were paid on time; there was a new supply of groceries on the front steps every weekend; some of the men made sure the lawn was mowed and other maintenance issues around the house were addressed. John has since rejoined the congregation. Months after his surgery John testified on a Sunday morning that the church's tireless care of his family had convinced him that the congregation did not simply want another warm body in the seats or an extra dollar in the offering plate; they were committed to sharing their lives and resources with him unconditionally. Questions can make hermits out of us, driving us into hiding. Yet the cave has no answers. Christ distributes courage through community; he dissipates doubts through fellowship. He never deposits all knowledge in one person but distributes pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to many. When you interlock your understanding with mine, and we share our discoveries, when we mix, mingle, confess and pray, Christ speaks. Max Lucado Where human frailty once served as a reason for me to withdraw from the church, with its unruly and divergent congregants, this is now what compels me back to spiritual community. I had overlooked one essential factor—that I am as finite and flawed as everyone else. —Carmen Renee Berry, U.S. author Nancy Ortberg shares a story of how her daughter's concern for the wider church community spoke a word of conviction into Nancy's own heart: One evening, my oldest daughter came home from a Sunday evening worship service. She had been deeply affected by the experience and in response had written on a piece of paper, "Help me not to be okay just because everything is okay with me." I was so moved by what she wrote that I tacked that piece of paper up on our corkboard in the kitchen as a reminder that in community it is always we. In community, if someone else is not okay, then to some degree, I am not okay. Nancy Ortberg, Looking for God     [ Back to Top]