BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF HONESTY

(Preached on Sunday, August 29, 2004)

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.                                                        -Romans 12:1

 

In the sermon last week, I evidently struck a nerve, based on some of the comments shared with me afterwards.

It seems many of us are aware that as a church, as a community, we would like more honesty, sharing, support.

There is a real longing in us for deeper and more real caring, fire, enthusiasm, excitement, communion.

But we are also not quite sure how to get there.

 

First, we need to understand that community is not so much something we create as something we are created by.

Human being is by its very nature communal being.

Almost all ancient people understood this.

Community is there before we appear and it remains long after we are gone.

Whether that coming and going is through birth and death, joining or resigning, moving in or moving out.

 

But in our society the individual reigns supreme.

To a great extent that view has resulted in an unhealthy narcissism and preoccupation with the self that has led to an idolatry of self.

As a result the individual is held in greater esteem than community.

In fact, community is misunderstood as a collection of individuals in service to the individual.

That is, I gather with others and work together in order to meet my needs better, and I remain affiliated with a group only as long as I perceive I am getting something out of it.

The rugged individualist, the “I did it my way” guy, is our hero and the legal rights and privileges of the individual are considered more important than communal rights, responsibility and obligation.

 

William Sloane Coffin suggests this problem has been developing for centuries.

“Socrates had it wrong: it’s finally not the unexamined but the uncommitted life that is not worth living.  Descartes was also mistaken: ‘Cogito, ergo sum?’ Nonsense. ‘Amo, ergo sum.’  There are no smaller packages in this world than people all wrapped up in themselves. 

St. Paul had it right: if we fail in love, we fail in all things else.”

 

So, understanding that we do not create community, but are part of communities and shaped by those communities, what can we do to open ourselves more to that shaping and to nurture those communities in such a way that they grow stronger and become ever more powerful in our lives?

As Coffin suggested from the Apostle Paul the guideline is to love, but how do we love?  And especially, how do we love in church?

 

Actually, Paul worked hard at helping the churches he founded understand how to do that.  All of his letters have sections that are highly practical in telling members how to love one another.  Perhaps one of the best of these sections is that chapter from Romans we read this morning, chapter 12.

Probably one of the best things we could do to help us grow as followers of Jesus and as members of this church, would be to write out this chapter on a sheet of paper and tape it to our bathroom mirrors so that we could read it to ourselves each morning as we began our day.

But, to help that exercise, let me share what I have gleaned from reflecting on this chapter this past week.

 

The first step in building a community of honesty begins with myself.

We each need to cultivate a healthy sense of humility.

I need to understand that I must start with myself, my attitudes, my actions, my understandings, that I am part of the problem and part of the solution, not the person sitting next to me.

Paul calls for this several times: “I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement,... do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly, do not claim to be wiser than you are.”

Honesty and truthfulness must begin at home.

To begin truthful living I must make regular, honest confession — not a catalog of my bad deeds or a public admission of a lie — but a personal reflection about how my words, deeds, and truth line up.

Confessing means being honest about what I have said and done; naming uncomfortable truths as well as my deepest longings; examining how the way I live and what I believe fit together or fall apart.

I can do that by writing in a journal, drawing, writing poetry.  Saint Augustine wrote his confession to God.

Other people have put together a confession addressed to the child they hope to have someday, to a grandparent, to a friend, or even to themselves.

The first step is to examine my life and make that examination concrete.

A second, deeper, more powerful step, is to find one other person, a close friend, pastor, counselor, someone I can trust completely, with whom I can then share my confession.

That person can help me reflect on the truth I am living.

It takes some effort to live a truthful life.

 

By taking these two steps I will begin to cultivate a willingness to learn from others.  Humility sees that each person is a bearer of Christ from whom we can learn.  And since Christ can be found in every person, no individual can stand in judgment of another.

Thus, I will also begin to cultivate an unwillingness to judge.

Humility acknowledges that none of us is God and no matter the depth of our spiritual practices or our holy habits we will never match the holiness of God.

As such, none of us can know enough about any one else’s heart to be able to judge.  That is why judgment is reserved for God.

This is not bad news for us as we grow in humility, however, for it drives us straight into God’s arms of grace and mercy.

 

As I cultivate this attitude of humility in myself, it will lead me to a deeper respect for other people.

As I begin to recognize each person around me as a bearer of Christ, a child of God, if I do not show respect for them in my actions and attitudes, then I am not showing respect for Christ and for God.

As Paul states it: “love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.... Living in harmony with one another... Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.  If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

This is one of the most difficult aspect of living in community, especially in the church.

For those who are here have been gathered here by God.

We do not come because of any other affinity.

The challenge is how do I remain in relationship with those others God has gathered to this place, especially those with whom I have no natural affinity?

But that is true worship, to respect the dignity of those others God has gathered, to trust that God truly does see worth and value and beauty in them, even when I cannot.

 

In a very practical way, showing respect for one another includes what we say about one another and how we treat one another.

An interesting thought I came across this week.

Some rabbis, ministers, priests, and scholars have suggested a different interpretation of the commandment against stealing, which says that to be rude to someone, to treat any human being in a demeaning way, or even to fail to respond to a greeting is a theft of a person’s self-respect.  If you ever have been on the receiving end of someone’s coldness or indifference, or have ever been in a good mood until someone treated you like you didn’t exist, then you have some idea what it means for someone to steal your self-worth.  So, one thing we might do is monitor our actions to see ways in which we steal someone else’s self-worth and then try to change our behavior.

 

None of this is easy.

All of this must be coupled with a pledge to forgive.

For we all know how easily, and really how inevitably, we hurt one another.

Sometimes the hurt is so deep that the wounds become running sores which destroy our energy, eat into our inner peace, and cause us constantly to mull over old resentments and grievances.

But this is disastrous for communal life.

In monasteries, the rule of life followed includes saying out loud, twice a day, the Lord’s Prayer, because of the phrase about forgiving one another.

Twice a day the monks make this pledge to forgive, so that commitment to continual forgiveness becomes an integral part of their daily life.

It is a necessary practice for building a community of honesty.

 

There are other practices on Paul’s list which are important to nurturing a community of honesty, like praise and gratitude (which I will address next week), but one final practice that is vitally necessary to building such a community is commitment.

The monks call this stability.

If community is going to grow, if I am going to grow, I must make a commitment to standing still, standing firm.

That means not trying to run away down any of those escape routes which so easily and insidiously present themselves when I catch myself saying “if only” it had been different in the past, or “when” it will all be quite different in the future.

Stability instead forces me to recognize that reality is here and now, this moment, this place, these people.

I must stick with this, try to make it work, not give up, not succumb to the urge to run away.