Membering

Sermon

Do you ever feel like someone starts talking with you but they start in the middle of a conversation? Take today’s passage from the beginning of Romans 12. In that first verse Paul uses the word “therefore” which makes it seem like we’ve missed something.

So let me sum up the first eleven chapters of the Epistles to the Romans, one of the greatest writings in Christian theology, in two sentences. The first part of Romans lays out the good news in Jesus Christ, who continues God’s covenant with the people especially in light of their rebellion and sin, and how Jesus makes things right between the people and God. I cannot begin to describe what an enormous generalization that is. But it gets us to the “therefore.”

Therefore, since Jesus is making things right with us and God, we have a responsibility about how we live with God and with each other. For Paul, this had some really practical implications. What he and all those first apostles were discovering was that people came to Jesus not only from Jewish roots but also from Gentile roots. How were these two disparate groups of people to join together in a new community? Here in chapter 12, Paul begins to lay that out.

He’s writing this community of Christians in Rome about how to live in Christ and how to live with each other. He’s reminding them of their new identity in Christ. He’s reminding them of how they belong to each other.

Paul describes three levels of discipleship: the good, the acceptable, and the perfect. And while I’m fine with good and acceptable, I, maybe like some of you, have a love/hate relationship with that word “perfect” because I am a bit of a perfectionist.

Back in my college days, I did a fair amount of theater both on stage and backstage, and before I went to seminary, I considered becoming a professional stage manager. And what was so very satisfying was calling a show perfectly—getting the timing of all the cues just right, so that curtains went up when they were supposed to, so that lights dimmed just as the song ended, so that set change could happen with no one any the wiser. It didn’t happen very often, but when it did—mwah.

But I have had to learn that my yearnings for perfection are not good for me or for those around me. I no longer expect perfection in others but I still demand perfection of myself at times. And why are we perfectionists like that? Do we think our being perfect will make us more likeable, more successful, more… better? Do we think God will love us more if we’re perfect? After all, Jesus does say, “You must be perfect, just as my Father in Heaven is perfect.”

But this word we translate as “perfect” in the original Greek does not actually mean without flaw. The Greek word, telios, actually means whole, the way an unpeeled orange is whole, the way a coffee cup you haven’t yet chipped is whole. And wholeness is something we talk about these days.

Each month we have a service of healing and wholeness, an acknowledgement that even though every part of our lives isn’t going right or even well, we can still be whole. We can still be people who feel and think; who trust their heads, hearts, and guts; who can live meaningful lives that are only not perfect but are usually messy.

For all the awfulness that the COVID pandemic was and is, I think one of its few gifts was helping us reset our standards from the perfect to the good to the acceptable. Sometimes when I think back on those spring months of 2020, I realize that I forgot how scary it was. We washed down our groceries. We didn’t touch anyone outside our bubble. We had to make things up, and then three weeks later when things changed, we had to make up new things.

And you all here at church were so gracious with the staff and leaders during all of that. We tried things that worked and we tried things that failed, and you hung in there, and I can’t begin to thank you enough for that. At some point the staff and leadership realized that the most important thing we could do, when we couldn’t do so much, was to keep a sense of connection. We all did what we could to ensure that there would be a Westminster community after the pandemic, just as there had been one before.

Now the apostle Paul was not emerging from a pandemic, but he and the other apostles were facing the challenge of how to create community for a brand new thing that grew out of an old thing with some people from that old thing joining in with people who were never part of anything. In other words, those first apostles were learning how to build up the body of Christ.

Paul encourages the folks in Rome—and us—to continue to build up the body of Christ, to work at community, to remember all the time that we are members, one of another. I love that phrase—we are members, one of another. Another way to think of that is to say that we belong to each other, just as we belong to God.

And belonging to each other, and being members, one of another, might be good news to you and it might be less good to you. How you hear that may very well be related to what you think about someone else, and even what you think about yourself. So Paul gives us a way to appreciate each other.

Remember, he says here and in other writings, remember that everyone has gifts to bring. It’s sort of like a potluck supper. Some people bring a beautiful roasted salmon. Some people bring pasta salad. Some people bring store-bought brownies. Some people bring a can of Pringles. Some people forget to bring anything but they show up and offer to help with the dishes.

So it is with a potluck community. Today Taylor is bringing her exquisite, beautiful, trained voice. Today Michael is bringing his puckish talent at the keys. Today the ushers are bringing their hospitality and maybe they’ll bring that confusion of passing the plates that makes us all feel better when we get confused about something. Today Jeff and Ted are making sure that people can hear and people can see the livestream. Today Terri is following up on her hot dog puns and bringing to fruition the Dog Days of Summer. Today someone is doing what they can at home and watching the livestream. Today someone forgot about church but had a great time with a cup of coffee and newspaper.

But just because people bring their wonderful gifts does not mean that nothing will go wrong. Because there is absolutely no way to have perfection in community. I’m sorry if that disappoints you. The truth can hurt. But it can also set us free.

So remember how happy I would be when as a stage manager I would call a show perfectly? Just because I got all my cues right didn’t mean that every actor remembered every line and stood in the right place. It didn’t mean that no one in the audience unwrapped a peppermint during the quietest, most heart-wrenching scene. It didn’t mean that every quick change happened quickly. But the stories of the mistakes were often what bonded the community together more than any sort of perfection.

What bonds us as the body of Christ isn’t overflowing crowds on Easter or Christmas Eve. It isn’t having a hundred folks show up for a mission activity. It isn’t learning all there is to know about John Calvin and the doctrine of depravity.

What bonds us as the body of Christ is first Christ. Of course. We gather in his name. We follow him. We hold his love in our hearts and we offer that love to others. But more than that, our mistakes, our pain, our challenges are what bond us.

Week after week people show up in worship, and only you and God know what you bring. Maybe you had a great week. Or maybe the cat coughed up a fur ball on the white sweatshirt that had fallen on the floor as you were trying to get out the door this morning. Or maybe you had a fight with your best friend and your heart just hurts.

Maybe you just lost your job and you don’t want anyone to know. Maybe you got a diagnosis that frightens or angers you. Maybe you know you need to drink less but just can’t seem to get there. Maybe your kid is worrying you to no end. Maybe you wonder if you’ll ever make any friends here. Maybe you pray that no one will ask you to serve on one more danged committee.

All of that is to say this: we are the body of Christ not because we are perfect like him, but because he has called us together. And so we bring the truth of our lives—the good, the acceptable, the whole; the good, the bad, and the ugly; the embarrassed, the pained, the incompetent. We bring what we have to the potluck community, and somehow, some sort of lovely alchemy that really is faith and love makes it all work.

The longer I’m a minister and the older I get, the more I work on my relationship with God and Jesus, and the more I read and meditate and ponder: the more I think that faith has less to do with rules and more to do with relationship; fewer legalities, more community; less “thou must” and more “thou mayest.”

Thou mayest wrestle with God. Thou mayest show up when thy life is a mess. We mayest sing a hymn poorly, or be bored during a sermon, or sneeze during a moment of silence. We may forget to love our neighbors. We may hesitate to forgive. We may even think that we’re better than our community.

But because Jesus has called us together, no one is ever too good for his body and no one is ever too bad. No one is ever unacceptable. He has called us to the work of love and grace and justice, and that simply cannot be done alone. Together, we are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. So let us bring what we have.