Sermon for October 2, 2011 - Community of God

The Scripture Readings for the sermon were Matthew 11:25-30 and Galatians 6:14-18

My favourite image of St. Francis is of him preaching to the birds.  There is something so simple, and marvelous about it at the same time.  They silently watched and listened as Francis walked among them.  “Sister Birds,” he says, “Be grateful that God made you.  And always praise God.”  Then they fly up in the air, heading off in the four directions, all of them singing and chirping joyfully.  For Francis, even the birds deserved to hear the good news.

This story, I think, echoes the words of Jesus from our scripture passage today: “I thank you, God, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;”  This simple nature that we encounter in the life of St. Francis, that he points to in the birds, and that Jesus finds in young children, is what we are called to model.  But I think this story of St. Francis and this Gospel passage say a bit more than just that.

When I first moved to rural Manitoba, I was touched and amazed at how well you guys do community.  It is hard to describe.  This is why I enjoy going into the community center, or to Dora’s, or to Harrison House for lunch.  There is an attitude, an atmosphere, that says “we’re all in this together, so lets all be in this together.”  In general, you know how to get along together, to support one another through tough times, and very often you know how to disagree with one another.  You know what it means to bring a meal over to someone who is grieving.  You know what it means to help someone with a broken piece of machinery.  You know what it means to enjoy coffee with one another, and you know how important it is to welcome people into your community.  You know what it means to put your trust in the people around you.  That has been a profound blessing for me.

People will say that the problem with our world is that we don’t know how important community is.  I disagree.  I think we know how important it is.  I think we either a) don’t know how to do it, or b) don’t know how large it is.  My experience out here is that you guys know how to do community.  That is a huge leg up on so many in the world.  The next step is seeing how big community is.

This was the message of Christ.  He was not simply saying, “Community is important!” People knew that, people understood that.  He was saying “Look at how big community is!”  He would say, “You have no idea who all is included in it.  Not just the clean, the saintly, the powerful, the rich; but the lepers, the sinners, the oppressed, and the poor.  They are as important to the community of God as anyone!”  Or as in our Gospel reading, “The community of God is not just for the wise and learned!  It is for the child who may know far less, but gets it far more than any of us.”  The Apostle Paul added to this, he looked around, he saw the divide between the Jews and the Gentiles (even in the church) and he said, “Hey, wait a minute!  We can’t draw our own line around races.  We need to include more than just a single group in the community of God.  Jews AND Gentiles are a part of the community.”  And our Brother St. Francis included even more, he would go out and he preached to a wolf, he preached a sermon to birds, “We can’t just say, the community of God includes only people, but rather it includes all of creation!  All that is, is a part of the community.  And so I say ‘Hello Brother Sun, and Hello Sister Moon! Hello brother wolf and sister swallows.‘ We are all one family, united in the community of God.”

Modern science tells the same story.  It does not contradict the message of Christ, it simply proves it with a different language.  In biblical times, people could look to scripture, and say, we are all related through Noah and his family, or through Adam and Eve.  Now, we can look through the lens of evolution, and see that it is true that if we go back far enough, we are all related.  But if we go back even further, we can see that we share a common ancestor with every animal, and further, with every plant, and fungus, that our family includes all life on earth.  And if we really want to stretch our boundaries, we can see that every rock, every drop of water, every piece of soil, much of the gas in the air, we all descended from Supernovas that forged our elements in their cores.  We all come from that same moment of creation, the earliest reckoning of history, as descendants of the Big Bang.

This message is just as unpopular today as it was when it got Jesus killed.  God’s community does not end at those doors, at these walls.  God’s community does not end outside of town, outside of Western Manitoba or rural Canada.  God’s community does not end at people who look like us, or think like us, or believe in the same things we do, or act the same way we do.  God’s community does not end with the people we might like.  God’s community does not end along national or racial or ethnic or religious borders.  God’s community does not end with humanity.  God’s community does not end with animals, or with life, or with earth.

Those are our communities.  Those are our boundaries, our definitions, our lines. Those are the divisions we are constantly bombarded with in the media, in politics.  Those are our kingdoms.  But Christ was not calling us to our kingdoms, Christ was calling us to the Kingdom of God.  Christ was calling us to the community of God.

God who sent Jonah to meet his enemies, and who told him, “Don’t you dare say that these people are not a part of family!”  God who went and lived with the poor, the outcasts, the sinners of Judea and Galilee, and who said to everyone “Don’t you dare say they are not in my family!”  God who sent St. Francis to meet with a wolf and some birds, and to remind the world, “Don’t you dare say that the animals, that the natural world, are not in my family!”

The kingdom of God IS at hand!  It is everywhere, with everyone we meet.  Saint or sinner.  Farmer or politician.  Straight or gay.  Rich or poor.  Aboriginal or white.  Conservative or New Democrat.  Even Human or snake, or tree.  The Kingdom of God IS at hand!  It is we who choose not to live there.

World Communion Sunday is a day when we celebrate how vast our community is.  It is a day when we join with Christians around the world, and say that we are indeed one body; that we are indeed sisters and brothers in Christ.  It is a day that symbolizes our hope that one day we will come to see ourselves as a part of a much larger community; that we will see ourselves as united in creation, sharing the same blood of Christ with all that is.

You guys here in Strathclair, in Newdale, in Cardale, know how important Community is.  The world desperately needs to hear your message about community, about how to actually live in community.  About what it means to support one another, to love one another, to help one another out, and to disagree with one another.  Now is your chance to fully embody Christ in the world, to move the way of community that is etched into your very souls, to encompass the world, to find within its grasp not just those who are near and dear to us, but all that is within the depth and breadth of God’s community.