FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH WATERTOWN, NEW YORK

JULY 27, 2008 MATTHEW 13:31-33 and 5-7

The Rev. Dr. Jerry D. Benjamin

“JESUS VALUES: COMMUNITY”

The funeral director in the small Michigan town scurried to get the hearse around the corner of the cemetery away from the arriving cars. “If you want a ride back to town. I’ll take you, because these people don’t go home from a funeral.” Like a good pastor, I chose to stay there with the family. We were in the cemetery for three hours. They didn’t go home early because they were a community. The ladies at the church knew not to hurry the funeral meal. They were part of the community, too.

Communities gather around the sharing of good things and around the sharing of pain and loss. People at the funeral had come great distances and from the local neighborhood. They shared the pain of loss and the joy of remembrance. They also shared the joy of faith.

A Christian community gathers around the shared story of Jesus Christ, around the pain of torture and death, around the joy of resurrection and redemption. We read the Bible because it is the common language of our faith and because the gives us the whole story: from Eden to Galilee, from Sinai to the Mount of Olives.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs in the Kingdom of God.” We gather in our need, loss and sorrow. We share our personal and family pain, the pain of our earthly life together. We are both the poor and those who serve the poor. Because God responds to our loss with the joy of new life, we are bound together as no other people. Our lives are committed, not just to Jesus, but the Jesus in each of us and all of us.

The church isn’t just somewhere you hang out with your pals, it is where you live with enemies and with the foolish and with the disagreeable and with all manner of people. The Anglican Bishops heard a message this week that their church can’t be just English, just white, just anything. It must gather the world of God’s beloved: Not always like us, not always agreeable, not always well dressed, not always straight.

And Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful….” Indeed, we are a community of people called to respond to God’s mercy for us by caring for needs, losses, sorrows and pains. We are the people who help. We are the people who throw our lives away on seemingly foolish causes like civil rights, peace, justice, hope for the poor, health for the AIDS-ridden people of African, wells for thirsty villages. Like St. Basil the Blessed of Moscow, we are fools for Christ and for each other.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” and as God purifies us, we share visions of love and service and hope and health. As we are washed clean we lead the people of God to do what is right and needed, not because someone forced them, but because it is right and needed. Virtue is, indeed, its own reward.

And to Fred Garry and Pastor Hara, Jesus said, “Blessed are you when they lie about you, when the ridicule your meekness, your mercy, your peacemaking, your healing, your generous spirit. Great is your reward in Heaven. Angels will carry you and sing to you songs of glory.

Binding us together, Jesus said, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” The Christian Community, the church, is a community of sinners and we share our sin. None are exempt. None are too good. None are to bad to be lifted up by God. Don’t even try to lift yourself above another. God lifts you. When we pray together we confess and rejoice. There is no room for judgment.

We share these remarkable gifts as we are committed to the church. You were called as an individual, but you were called into a community. Annie Dillard, a great American writer, tells of going back to church after a long absence. She observes, “You’d think after two thousand years we’d get this dancing bear act right, but we don’t and it doesn’t matter.” That’s us: stumbling along like a great animal that really shouldn’t be walking upright, at all. That’s us: saints and sinners, wise and foolish, wounded and healing, growing and dying, hurting and rejoicing. We are the church together.

Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened for you.” Membership in the Jesus community is the free gift of God to you and to all of God’s people. But it isn’t easy. You are committed to the whole community of faith, hope and love.

So: Don’t judge. Show mercy. Risk everything for God. Welcome the stranger. Embrace the faith.

Love and trust one another. This is the Good News for today. Amen