Community | 104 Houston St. Pt2 | Part 2 (Courtney Clark)
TRANSCRIPT: COMMUNITY
When this church started 8 years ago Rob’s first sermon was on Grace and Peace. Then a few short weeks ago he preached his last sermon (here) on the very same. The church began with the intention of being a refuge for anyone who has ever needed Grace when grace from the church was conditional at best but often times unheard of. To exist as a place of Grace and Peace for people who feel as if neither exist anymore. But now that the Carmack’s are gone, we find ourselves asking Where do we go from here? I think the answer is much the same. We head toward grace and peace. But there are key factors that create that space. It starts and ends with community. The atmosphere created within this space starts with each of us and the community we develop amongst ourselves. And carries out in the larger community we’re apart of as we move out of the church walls and participate in the community around us. So we start by discussing community, and why this church has always been more than who is standing up front.
Community is defined as a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. Often times communities begin to take shape because people exist in the same space and have something in common that draws them together. You see this in schools, the soccer team tends to sit together, the drama club hangs out together. But this definition of community is very passive, almost as if community just happens because people are in the same place at the same time. But I’ve been in places where everyone has something in common and there is no real community happening at all. I’ve been in churches that feel empty of community but they’re full to the brim of people who have the same faith in common. Community doesn’t just happen. It requires generosity and intentionality. Not necessarily generosity of money or stuff, but generosity of time of your person. Your sheer act of taking time to be here and have conversation is an act of community. Your desire to be here and contribute to the discussion as we dive into a psalm creates community. Your drive to organize events like the brunch a few weekends ago or the anniversary dinner coming in a few weeks is an act of generosity that drives community. The Carmack’s were intentional about creating a space that welcomed questions, that operated in everything we do through grace and peace. Each of you when you show up on the weekend, buys into that intention and participates in it. Rob fostered that, but it would not have continued to move forward if each and every person who steps foot in the front door wasn’t intentional about living it as well. Generosity and intentionality have to exist hand in hand. All of you love so generously. I hear stories about you asking on one another’s mental health when there’s been a transition like having a baby. I’ve had many of you text me and ask me how you can help while we’re dealing with chronic illness and surgeries. I’ve seen meal trains and baby showers you put together for one another. That’s generosity and intentionality hard at work. We express generosity by choosing to be intentional about extending grace and peace. It isn’t easy and certainly isn’t natural, but it is the atmosphere we’ve worked to create over the last 8 years. The atmosphere we intend to continue to pour out and work towards moving forward. Grace and Peace aren’t a destination, they’re a continual working. A place that doesn’t exist without the effort of community.
Covid highlighted our deep rooted human need for community. Mental health crisis are rampant across the globe right now after people have been in isolation for far too long. We were created for community and when we are told to separate ourselves our entire being aches for that closeness you can’t fill without community. We all long for a place to belong, a place to experience life together. We thankfully have technology in our world that have made it possible to experience community to an extent while we were in isolation, but it pales in comparison to regular gathering together. Be it at church, your DND game night, a weekly coffee date. There is something so intimate about taking space to be vulnerable together. Eating together is the ultimate act of vulnerability, we’re showing our own humanity and dependency, letting down our shields (figuratively but also literally in a time of masks) as we partake in something that is crucial to our survival. Community is ushered in with food in such a way that there is no comparison. As a church we are actively finding ways to eat together safely, be it having brunch or small groups who meet for dinner, even the anniversary dinner coming in a few weeks. We see Jesus valued having meals together. Many of the stories we have about his life include food. There is the wedding at Can-an where he turns water to wine. One of his last acts before he died was a meal we call the last supper. Jesus’s first act after the resurrection is a meal with the disciples after meeting the two men on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:28-31. In fact through out the book of Luke many of Jesus’s teachings are paired with a meal. Taking meals together was important to Jesus, not just for the sake of nurturing the body, but for nurturing community as well. One of the most well-known stories of Jesus sharing food is when he feeds the 5000. This story really shows Jesus’s compassion for the poor and the hungry. Jesus has taken his disciples off away from the crowds to get some rest, yet the crowds follow. And rather than be frustrated he graciously welcomes them. After spending time with this large crowd of people (more than 5000, it’s listed as 5000 because the MEN present were the only people recorded, though we know from John’s account that women and children were present as well, John 6:8) the disciples tell Jesus to let them go so they can find a place to rest and get food. They’re in the middle of nowhere as the MSG version puts it and have traveled on foot, so they’re likely exhausted, with no food. Jesus goes on to produce one of the biggest miracles of his life time and turns a few loafs of bread and some fish into enough for a feast with leftovers. He’s welcoming them in to be apart of what he’s doing, each person he sits and has a meal with he welcomes fully to the table. No rules, no exceptions. This is radical at a time period when there was not a lot of mixing of classes or groups of people. Religious people intermingled amongst themselves, tax collectors associated with other tax collectors. Yet Jesus had meals with both. In doing so he is seeing their humanity not their title. He was intentional about extending grace and peace and eliminating the lines of class and economic status around communities. You’re human just as I am, we all need to eat, lets eat. In Matthew 9:10-13 Jesus is again having a meal when he’s questioned by the religious leaders:
“Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew’s house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus’ followers. “What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?” Jesus, overhearing, shot back, “Who needs a doctor; the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this scripture means: ‘I’m after mercy, not religion.’ I’m here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders.”
His response is a quote of Hosea 6:6 he’s saying I’m not playing by your rules, I’m here to share grace and peace with everyone.
Paul who wrote much of the new testament tries to embody this same message of community and inclusivity. Galatians 6:2 words it this way;
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Paul is giving instruction to the Galatian church on what it looks like to live in the freedom of Jesus. This particular church has been infiltrated with people of traditional religion and are sparking debate over who’s in and who’s out. In the verse immediately before this Paul urges them when someone stumbles into this mindset of who’s in and who’s out and wrongs individuals, even the church, they are to lovingly forgive and restore that relationship. He is continuing the conversation of what this loving, forgiving, grace filled community should look like. Vs 2 is urging the people of the church of Galatia to walk through their struggles together. Reach out to the oppressed, share the burden (as the msg version puts it) not putting yourself above those who are struggling but acknowledging that you very much could be there at some point and will need them to walk with you when it’s your turn. Not to battle difficulty with life, relationship, finance whatever it maybe alone. Rather doing it together because the weight is too much for one person to carry. Growing up I heard often that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle. That if we’re struggling god has given us everything we need to face it and overcome. I don’t think that is entirely true. I’ve experienced many instances in my life that were abundantly heavy and I couldn’t handle on my own. I NEEDED help from my friends, my therapist. I’m sure many of you can say the same. We can pretend to be strong, but at the end of the day doing it alone isn’t sustainable. Paul is urging the church to acknowledge their strength together, that those burdens are a lot less difficult to carry when even one other person helps shuffle the weight. Actively combating the mindset that church goers have to be strong and self reliant. Urging people to be vulnerable with one another. People can’t help carry the burden if you aren’t honest about how big it is. So community is two sided, on one side we need to be honest and open with one another, on the other side we need to be open to carrying the weight together without judgement, with grace and peace. Community requires work from all of us. Leadership sets the precedent, but all of us leadership included participate in the actual execution.
Collective church has been so good at this over my years here. What makes this place what it is, is all of you. You love each other so well. Any time one of us has been sick someone has called to see how we’re doing. Some of you have sent toys to my house so my kids had something to do when we were in quarantine. You’ve sent us food. You threw us a baby shower. Emily took the Carmack kid’s at Christmas so Caroline could go Christmas shopping. You are the village for each other in the ways that we all need. My kids are in love with the interns who serve in our kids ministry. This place is home to us. And we live like an hour away, but we drive all the way across the metroplex and are committed to keep this going not just because of the teaching, though Rob was really good at that, but because of every single one of you. You are like family, you love us so well, you love each other so well.
This church doesn’t exist because of who stands up front, but because of all of you, all of us, showing up every week and making it happen. I didn’t commit to take this over because I thought I was the best teacher, or because I could fill the very large shoes Rob left behind, but because of what every single one of you means to me. What this space of grace and peace means to all of us. But the grace and peace felt when we walk in the doors didn’t come from Rob. He cultivated it, and ushered it in 8 years ago, but it continues to exist because all of you have committed to it. All of you saw the importance of a space that welcomed questions, that loved unconditionally and held space for those who felt unwelcome in their own communities. You saw the need for yourself, for someone you love, for all of us and you chose to buy into the culture. So where do we go from here? The same place we’ve been headed. Grace and Peace. Not just because of the teaching but because we are a community doing the hard work of processing through our trauma, our hurt, our prejudices, and aiming to bring heaven to earth now as Jesus intended it to be. Let’s not give up the task, its heavy, but that is why we need to do it together in community.