(Pentecost) The Big Pentecost Conspiracy

Acts 2:1-21

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I want us to do a little warm-up exercise,
to get ready for this sermon.
When I raise my hands, everyone inhale,
when I lower my hands, everyone exhale.
All together, now . . . inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Great.

Knowingly or unknowingly,
you just joined a vast congregational conspiracy.
I mean that literally. You were conspiring.

It may not have occurred to you before,
but it’s actually pretty straight-forward.
The literal meaning of the word conspire
is to “breathe with” or “breathe together.”
You break down the word into its two parts,
and you have “con,” a simple preposition meaning with, or together,
and “spire” . . . from a root word meaning breath.
That root shows up in lots of words—
respiration, inspire, expire, aspire,
the word “spirit” itself can easily be translated “breath.”
So . . . “con-spire” . . . “breath with.”

A conspiracy is a group of people—
could be two, could be thousands—
but a group of people with a common goal,
who are working together so closely,
that they’re sharing the same motivations,
the same intentions.
Conspirators are persons who are breathing the same air,
fully synchronized with each other.

From that standpoint,
it’s plain to see that the day of Pentecost, as told in Acts 2,
was one big conspiracy.
It was a breathing together
that changed everything from that point on.

Some preachers before me have pointed out this connection
between Pentecost and conspiracy.
I guess it’s too obvious a connection,
that most of us miss it.
See, everyone was together in one room, Acts 2 tells us,
and then the Spirit-breath blows into and through the room,
with a sound of a mighty wind.
Everyone together, experiences this powerful spirit-breath.
The disciples and the Holy Spirit were con-spiring.

Barbara Brown Taylor,
in her published sermon “The Gospel of the Holy Spirit.”
said that when the Holy Spirit blew into that upper room in Acts 2,
what God was doing was, and I quote,

Performing artificial resuscitation
on a room full of well-intentioned bumblers,
turning them into a force that changed the history of the world.
Shy people became bold,
scared people became gutsy,
and lost people found a sure direction.
Disciples who did not believe themselves capable
of tying their own sandals without Jesus
discovered abilities within themselves they never knew they had.
When they opened their mouths to speak, they sounded like Jesus.

That’s what conspiring with the Holy Spirit does.
It fills our spiritual lungs with the very breath of God,
and we are changed.

It’s just like our physical breathing.
The oxygen we inhale, and the carbon dioxide we exhale,
is a marvelous, even miraculous, combination
that gives us what we need for life.
Our body processes the oxygen,
and turns it into a vehicle to carry away excess carbon,
too much of which would kill us.

In the same way,
God’s Spirit-breath gives us what we need for life with God.
It flows into our spiritual beings,
transforming and replacing what we need to get rid of.

It is marvelous, even miraculous,
what happens when the breath of the Spirit of Jesus moves in.
And even more so when we are together with other
co-conspirators, other God-breathers.

Here’s how Barbara Brown Taylor put it. Again, I quote.

What happens between us when we come together to worship God
is that the Holy Spirit swoops in and out among us,
knitting us together through the songs we sing,
the prayers we pray,
the breaths we breathe.
[How do you know when it’s the Holy Spirit?]
Whenever two plus two does not equal four but five—
whenever you find yourself . . .
offering forgiveness you had not meant to offer . . .
taking risks you thought you did not have the courage to take
or reaching out to someone you had intended to walk away from
. . . you can be pretty sure that you are learning
about the gospel of the Holy Spirit.
And more than that, you are taking part in it,
breathing in and breathing out,
taking God into you and giving God back to the world again.

She weaves some wonderful words, doesn’t she?
Powerful. Poetic.
So what does it really mean, in terms of practical everyday life,
to take up the practice of breathing in God,
and breathing God back to the world.
Sounds pretty esoteric.
How we implement such a practice,
and how do we know it’s God we’re breathing?
How do we distinguish between Holy Spirit-breath,
and just a bunch of spiritual hot-air?

That’s not a question that is easily answered.
But let me suggest this.

The breath of the Holy Spirit today
is the same air that God breathed into Creation;
it is of the same stuff as the Spirit that filled the biblical prophets
and moved them to speak and act as God’s agents,
calling God’s people back to justice and holiness;
it is a continuation of the same breath
Jesus breathed on his disciples,
saying “Peace be with you, receive the Holy Spirit.”

We sometimes say, “There’s a new wind of the Spirit blowing.”
But that’s only partly true.
There may indeed be a wind blowing today
that is bringing about new works of God in our midst,
and which calls for new responses from us.
But it’s not new air.
If it’s really God breathing,
it will be consistent with the breath of life
that God breathed at creation,
it will be true to the breath of God that inspired the prophets,
it will, above all, resonate fully with the Jesus of the Gospels.
Because the Spirit we’ve been given is the Spirit of Jesus.
So if, indeed, we are con-spiring with the Spirit of Jesus,
when we talk, we will “sound like Jesus”
to use Barbara Brown Taylor’s phrase.

So what I suggest,
if we want to join this Big Conspiracy
that began on the day of Pentecost,
we do like the disciples did.
We make it a practice to actually spend time
being together with,
waiting expectantly with,
living in hope with,
other God-breathers . . .
so when the Spirit moves in and among us,
we are in a good position to con-spire,
to breathe in synch with the Spirit of God.

And then test the results of that wind,
to see if it produces the kind of results
we’ve come to expect God’s Spirit to produce.

If it’s God’s breath blowing,
God has a long track record to compare it to.

Is new life being created, that is good, and beautiful, and fruitful?
Is righteousness and justice and peace being brought forth?
Is salvation being found?
Is shalom being birthed?

It’s hard for me to read the Bible and not conclude
that God’s primary agenda
is to save and restore and redeem and reconcile,
and to do that through the people God has called and sent.

So if we are truly con-spiring with the Spirit of God in Christ,
we will see communities of God’s people brought together.
And as a result of the life of these communities in the world,
we will see enemies being reconciled,
we will see offenders and victims being brought together,
we will see people repenting and renouncing lives of sin,
we will see justice being demanded,
we will see violence being forsaken,
we will see the hungry fed and the naked clothed,
we will see forgiveness being offered,
we will see the broken being made whole,
we will see the lost coming home,
we will see the alienated brought back into community.

When the wind blows . . . trees bend.
We can’t see the wind.
We can’t capture it and package it,
but we know it is there by the evidence.
If leaves are not rustling,
it’s safe to say the wind isn’t there.
_____________________

We often think of Pentecost as the birthday of the church,
and it is.
But let’s not be fooled.
The proof that God’s spirit-wind is blowing
is not that more churches are being established,
that more people are becoming church members,
that creative Sunday School lessons are being taught,
and powerful sermons are being preached,
and beautiful hymns are being sung.
Yes, the drawing together of believers into community
is a foundational activity of the Spirit.
There cannot be a Pentecost con-spiracy
without a people coming together,
and breathing together, in synch.

So by all means,
let us continue to gather, to worship, to sing, to pray,
to minister to each other,
in large groups and in small.
But that’s not the ultimate direction the wind is blowing.
Life in community is not the end but the means.
This Spirit that brings us together to worship,
is the same Spirit that sends us into the world,
to take risks for the kingdom of God.
It both draws and sends.
It breathes in and out.
It’s one continuous movement.

If we are going to con-spire with the Spirit of God,
we better put our seat belts on,
because we’ll be going places.
We will be drawn together by the Spirit-Wind,
to open ourselves to each other more deeply,
more honestly,
more completely.
Community will be formed—
in all its multilayered, complicated, exhilarating,
and sometimes painful beauty.
And then, just as surely, we will be driven by that Spirit-Wind,
out into a deeper and riskier and more richly satisfying
way of living in this world.

The Spirit of Pentecost comes to us in the rooms where we gather,
but in the same gust,
it sends us into a violent, broken, and sin-filled world,
to be bearers of God’s Good News.
_____________________

Just as I began this sermon with a simple little exercise in con-spiracy,
so I end it calling for another exercise in conspiracy.
But it’s neither simple . . . nor little.
It is a call for us to open ourselves more fully to this Spirit
that longs to con-spire with us.
It is a call to gather together with other co-conspirators,
and pray fervently,
saying “Come, Holy Spirit,” in whatever language you speak . . .
and wait patiently,
opening yourselves completely to the Spirit-Wind that will blow.
Test it against the Wind that blows through scripture,
from Creation to Revelation,
but then, if you find it to be true,
give yourself to that wind.
Give yourself.
Spread your wings and see where it takes you.

I cannot tell you where it will take you,
I can only assure you, it will be a life-transforming ride.

Come, Holy Spirit.
And may God have mercy on us all.

—Phil Kniss, May 31, 2009

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(Easter 6) Fans, Friends, Followers: Relating to Jesus in a Facebook Age

Easter 6: John 15:9-17

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Twice, as I prepared for this sermon,
I received a bit of a jolt
in regard to this notion of being a friend of Jesus.
One of the jolts came from today’s Gospel reading.
The other one came from Facebook.

This is not in the order of priority, by any means,
but let me start with the jolt I got from Facebook.
Facebook, as many of you know, and as some of you don’t,
is a website for social networking,
for connecting with people you know . . .
like some you already see in person every day,
and some you haven’t seen in years, like old classmates.
Any Facebook user that you allow to connect
to your Facebook page,
is referred to as your “Friend.”
In the Facebook world, you soon learn,
the word “Friend” is very loosely defined.
Friends aren’t expected to be there for you if you need help.
Friends don’t necessarily get together.
Friends don’t even have to say a word to you directly,
in person or in writing . . . ever.
Some Facebook users have “friends” they’ve never met.

On Facebook, as on other social networking websites,
like “MySpace” or “Twitter,”
being a friend, or being a “follower” as Twitter likes to call it,
requires absolutely nothing at all from you.
You can be a perfectly legitimate friend,
when all you do is sit on the sidelines and eavesdrop
on someone else’s thoughts or feelings
they happen to post online.

I’m a Facebook user,
and I do enjoy making some connections with long-lost friends
and keeping up with relatives at a distance,
and with many of you in this congregation.
But not long ago, I got a bit of a jolt, when I saw on my Facebook page
that so-and-so had become a “Friend” of Jesus,
and were suggesting that I become a Friend, also.

See, public figures can have a Facebook page,
even if they’re dead and gone,
as long as someone puts their page online, and administers it.
Turns out Jesus actually has quite a few Facebook friends.
On the pages of public figures, like Jesus,
or Gandhi or Mr. Bean or Madonna,
people who connect are referred to as fans.
So when I clicked on the Jesus icon,
I saw that Jesus had well over a million fans.
Not as many as Barack Obama,
but a whole lot, nonetheless.

It gave me a bit of a jolt as I thought about it.
The notion of what it means to be a friend in the age of Facebook,
fits perfectly with the way most people look at Jesus anyway.
Jesus has always had millions, and now billions,
of fans in this world.
Now, due to Facebook, it can be said he has millions of Friends.
And if Jesus was on Twitter,
I’m sure he would have millions of “followers.”

In the Facebook age, we have mastered the art of connecting with others,
without really connecting,
at minimal personal cost,
and with maximum anonymity.
It’s perfect for the way lots of people would like to relate to Jesus.
Low cost. Low risk. High freedom. High independence.

In the end,
I decided to pass on the Facebook offer
of being a fan or friend of Jesus.
I’d rather struggle to figure out how to do it the hard way,
in real life.
_____________________

Well, as I said, the other jolt came in today’s Gospel reading, John 15.
This reading comes right in the middle
of a long, four-chapter monologue by Jesus.
If your Bible’s a red-letter edition,
page after page you’re seeing red.
John puts this monologue in the context
of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples.
After the meal, after the washing of his disciples feet,
and after Judas Iscariot runs out of the house, with other plans,
Jesus launches into this sermon.

The Gospel of Matthew has the Sermon on the Mount.
Luke has the Sermon on the Plain.
John has a Sermon at the Table.

And it’s significant that it’s at the table,
because this is an intimate, heart-felt, and soul-baring sermon.
Not the kind you’d preach to a crowd.
Certainly not like any I’ve preached.
This is the kind of sermon that family elders might give
to their children and grandchildren,
gathered around their death bed.
Such as,
“If there’s anything I want you to remember in life, remember this.”

So Jesus is telling the eleven disciples who remain, things like,
“Don’t let your heart be troubled . . .
I’m going away, but I’m sending you the Spirit as an Advocate.
And I’m preparing a place for you.”
And things like, “You already know the way to God.
I am the way. Follow me.”
And things like, “I am the Vine, you are the branches.
Abide in me. Stay attached. Stick with me.”
And he finishes up the sermon with a long prayer to his Father,
spoken at the table right in front of his disciples.
“God, take care of these disciples.
Don’t let go of them.
Make them one.
As I send them into the world,
be in them, and I am in you, and you are in me.”

But in the middle of this beautiful sermon,
I was jolted by these words of Jesus to his disciples.
“I do not call you servants any longer . . .
I call you friends.”

On the one hand, there’s nothing surprising about Jesus
calling his disciples “friends.”
They had spent several years together full-time.
They ought to be friends.
But no, there is more to this statement.
This signifies a radical change in the status of their relationship.
“I will not call you servants any longer.”
This is a rabbi speaking to his students.
No longer am I going to play the part
of the wise and mysterious and distant expert,
and you the helpless and dependent novice.
“I have already made known to you,” Jesus said in v. 15,
“everything that I have heard from my Father.”
I’ve finished my job of dispensing knowledge to you.
Now you know what I know.
So, just go out there and do what you know to do.
Love each other as I have loved you . . . v. 12.
I love you so much I am laying down my life for you . . . v. 13.
So love each other.
Love. Love. Love.
Abide in my love.
Lay down your lives for your friends.
You are my friends.
Which makes you friends with God.
And friends with each other.
Now, go do what friends do.
Give your all.
Or, as I said in my sermon two weeks ago,
place your life in the life of the other.
_____________________

This is the polar opposite of
Facebook’s dumbed-down definition of friendship.
This is high risk friendship with a huge price tag.

I find it fascinating that in the Gospel of John
there is a deliberate pairing
of the concepts of love and commandments.
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”
“This is my commandment, that you love one another.”
In human friendships we rarely use the word command.
It’s too easy to fall prey to controlling and manipulating others.
That doesn’t fit with friendship.
But John sees no conflict between
talking about our love of God,
and our obedience to God.
Our friendship with God is not a friendship of equals.

But even in a relationship with such an imbalance of power,
it is perfectly right to speak of friendship with God,
because God took the amazing step, and risky step,
of voluntarily limiting his power,
and giving us freedom to shape our lives and future.
We are invited, not pressured, to respond to God’s grace in Christ,
and enter a relationship that entails both deep friendship,
and deep obedience,
a laying down of our lives for the higher purposes of God.

It is possible to have a profound and even mutual
friendship with Jesus Christ,
because, and only because, of God’s grace.
_____________________

You know, we could give ourselves a little test,
to see whether we have yet to open ourselves
to God’s gift and grace of friendship with Jesus.
There are some marks of friendship we can look for.

First, a friend takes seriously what their friend takes seriously.
A friend seeks to know the heart, the passions, the vision
of their friend.
If you are truly my friend,
what’s important to you is therefore important to me,
so I’ll try to find out what that is.

We know by reading the Gospels,
that nothing was more important to Jesus
than the kingdom of God.
Jesus came to proclaim and demonstrate
life under God’s reign.
He called people to submit first to the reign of God,
and put all earthly kingdoms and powers in their place.
And we know that Jesus had deep compassion for all those
who were alienated, broken, disenfranchised.
We know Jesus was passionate about healing.
Wherever there was brokenness,
Jesus was moved.
He gave himself to the work
of making whole what was fractured—
in body, in mind, in spirit, in relationships.

So if I’m a friend of Jesus,
I’ll take the reign of God very seriously.
I’ll have compassion on the alienated.
I’ll devote myself to God’s mission
of saving, healing, reconciling, and restoring.

Another mark of friendship, which John chapter 15 makes very plain,
is that friends don’t keep important secrets from each other.
Jesus told his disciples,
“I have called you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything that I have heard from my Father.”
True friends hold nothing back.
To hold back information, is to assert power over the other.
Keeping a secret is a way of maintaining control.
The more we open ourselves to others,
the more self-revealing we are,
the more vulnerable we become.
Jesus was self-revealing.
And Jesus represented a self-revealing God.
Nor do we hold anything back
if we call ourselves a friend of God in Christ.
We bring all that we are—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And it will be graciously received.

A third mark, closely related to the second,
is that friends argue with each other.
Friends fight . . . yes!
They fight fair.
They fight without violence, without violating each other.
But they fight, they wrestle, they struggle with each other.
It’s a form of transparency, of not keeping secrets.
If I’m hurt or angered or pained by something a friend does,
I won’t keep it under wraps.
I’ll be honest, painful or not.
To put on a false friendly front,
is not friendly at all
It’s not what friends do.
Friends are honest with each other,
because their love and loyalty to each other can handle it.

We know about scriptures
where God got brutally honest and angry with his people.
We sort of get that picture.
We don’t like to dwell on it, but we get it.
God loves us enough to be honest with us, even in anger.
But if our friendship with God in Christ is real,
it ought to work the other way!
We will be able to express our anger and frustration
and confusion and hurt,
when there is a rift in our relationship.

Read the psalms of lament.
They say, “Hey, God! Pay attention!
Can’t you see what’s happening down here?”
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget us forever?
How long will you hide your face?
The psalmist, who loves God deeply
and trusts God completely,
sometimes rages with God.
The psalmist is showing us what friendship with God looks like.
Friendship can be rocky sometimes.
But it is bound by covenant love.
It can be strained and stretched, but not easily broken.

And another mark of friendship, also closely related,
is friends don’t give up on each other.
Friends are fiercely loyal,
even when their friend disappoints them.
Friendship with God cannot be a fair-weather friendship.
The whole story of the Bible, Genesis to Revelation,
is a story of God never giving up on us.
We owe that kind of loyalty to God.
God will disappoint us. Count on it.
Not because God does wrong,
but because we set ourselves up for disappointment
by having misguided expectations of God.
But even in disappointment,
friends don’t give up on each other.
_____________________

So this morning,
let us vow to learn friendship with God in Christ.
Let us pursue, without hesitation or embarrassment,
life-giving and life-long friendship with Jesus Christ.

As Jesus invited his disciples in his Sermon at the Table,
“I am the Vine, you are the branches.
Stick with me. Stay with me. Abide.
And your life will be fruitful.”

So we are invited to a life of love,
by one who already loves us deeply.
Jesus said to them,
and, I believe, continues to say to us,
“You are not only my servants.
You are my friends.
I love you.
My heart burns for you.”

Our work is to open ourselves to this burning love of God.
To create a space in our lives,
where the flame of God’s love,
can burn unhindered.
And where the warmth of that flame,
can be seen, and shared, and felt,
by everyone and everything that God also loves.

To love what God loves.
That’s what friends do.

May God help us.

—Phil Kniss, May 17, 2009

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(Easter 4) To place my life

Easter 4: John 10:11-18; 1 John 3:16-24; Psalm 23

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Everyone think for a moment about
how you would describe the 23rd Psalm.
Think about its message—
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.”
Think about the other phrases of the psalm you can remember,
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil.”

Now, think of one word, just one word,
that best describes this psalm.
Fill in this blank with one word . . .
“This is a ____________ psalm.”
Don’t say the word out loud.
Just think it.
Everyone got it?
Okay, raise of hands,
how many were thinking of the word “comforting”?

Not surprising.
Psalm 23 is one of the most comforting psalms we have.
It is the first psalm memorized in childhood.
Of all the psalms, it the most frequently set to music.
It’s the psalm turned to most often when we are in distress,
or grieving,
or tired,
or feeling threatened.
It’s the psalm recited more than any other
at hospital bedsides.
It’s the psalm most frequently put in PowerPoints,
and paired with pretty pictures and soft music,
and emailed to everyone in the address book.
It’s the psalm to turn to whenever we need a word of comfort.

And don’t we all know . . . we often need words of comfort.
So thank God for psalms like this.

But you know . . . it’s comforting only because
we read it from the sheep’s point of view.
It’s a comforting psalm . . . if you’re the sheep.

The shepherd has a different point of view.
God, the Lord, who is our loving Shepherd,
has taken some pretty radical risks.
Being a shepherd is no cake walk.

You understand, don’t you,
why we sheep can lie down in green pastures and rest?
It’s because the shepherd stays awake.
You know why we, the sheep, can be led in safety down right paths?
Because the shepherd’s out in front, doing the bush-whacking.
You know why we the sheep are comforted
by the shepherd’s rod and staff?
Because the shepherd uses them to get between us,
and the hungry wild animals on the attack.
The rod in the shepherd’s hand,
absorbs the worst of the assault.

We can rest, because the shepherd doesn’t.

This is the picture of Jesus, the Good shepherd,
that we find in today’s Gospel reading.
“The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,”
we read in John 10:11.
Not so the hired hand.
Jesus said, “The hired hand, who is not the shepherd
and does not own the sheep,
sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away.”
That’s not because the hired hand is negligent,
or incompetent,
or immoral.
It’s because he’s hired. He doesn’t own the sheep, Jesus said.
After his night shift is over, he goes home.
He’s not fully invested, and understandably so.
He has another life.

You can’t be a “good shepherd,”
until the sheep are your life.
There is an interesting Greek idiom
used in John 10:11, where it talks about the shepherd
“laying down his life” for the sheep.
The Greeks words for “laying down your life”
can also be translated, “placing your life.”
It’s reminiscent of taking a helpless, vulnerable infant,
and placing that life in someone’s arms.

Now, if we stick with this shepherd and sheep imagery,
it gets even more interesting, and less comforting,
when we move on to today’s epistle reading,

Because, you see,
this is not just an image for Jesus, the divine Son of God
who has other-worldly powers, and other-worldly agenda.
Scriptures don’t leave us with the luxury
of just hanging on to this comforting image of being cared for
by this amazingly caring, and sacrificially loving
God of a Good Shepherd,
who is ready to lay down his life for us.

Listen to the apostle’s words, 1 John 3:16.
“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—
and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

This thing of having my personal Good Shepherd
who will lay down his life for my sake,
is not some cozy little arrangement that he and I have going,
strictly for my personal blessing,
for my own spiritual benefit.
In reality, the Good Shepherd is just showing me how it’s done.
Because the very same thing is expected of me.
I am called to lay down my life for my sister and brother.
It’s not enough for me to tell my brother in Christ that I love him,
or tell my sister that I’m committed to her well-being.
1 John 3:18—“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech,
but in truth and action.”
True love is revealed in action—the action of laying down my life,
placing my life in the life of another.

See, laying down one’s life for another,
is not just a message about martyrdom.
Martyrdom is real.
There are some persons today, although relatively few,
and there are some occasions, although somewhat rare,
and there are some circumstances, although unusual,
in which a person is called to willingly die for another.
I know that some people here have been close to situations like that,
where martyrdom is part of real life.

Now, without discounting that reality at all,
let me say that Jesus’ words are about a lot more than dying.
Every single day, every single one of us
has opportunity to place our life in the life of another.
In fact, that’s what Jesus did every day of his life,
not just at the end, when he paid the ultimate price on the cross.
His whole life was bound up
in and with, the lives of those he loved.

When I place my life in the life of another,
or . . . when I lay down my life for another . . .
I become deeply and spiritually connected to them.
To place my life in another
means that I identify, radically, with the other.
The sharp distinction between my life and the life of the other
gets a little bit blurred . . . a little bit.
When my own well-being is directly tied to your well-being,
when my own happiness is deeply affected by your happiness,
when your joys are my joys,
and your sorrow my sorrows,
I am laying down my life for you.

This is what makes possible deep Christian compassion:
when we blur this distinction—not do away with, but blur—
the distinction between you and I.
This is what makes possible genuine Christian community:
when we blur this distinction between us and them.
Our lives should be bound up in the lives of others.

Of course, we need to be careful here.
This doesn’t mean we lose our sense of selfhood.
I don’t ever want to be heard as saying we erase the self.
No, we free the self to be what it was created to be—
a self in deep relationship with others.

It can be a fine line—but there is a huge difference—
between being bound to the life of another,
and being in bondage.
I’m not talking about being in bondage.
I’m not talking about sacrificing our truest self.

When we are in genuine, God-ordained community with another,
when we lay down our lives for each other,
when I place my life in the life of another,
it becomes a positive and life-giving flow
that goes both directions.
If only one side is laying down their lives,
that’s not love, that’s oppression.
And the Good News of Jesus Christ
has nothing to do with oppression.

I’m all for celebrating the individual person,
the one uniquely created and loved by God.
You and I, individually, are of infinite worth
in the eyes of God who created us in God’s image.
But it is a worth that is most fully realized
when lived out in community.
That is the intention of our loving creator.
We were created as God’s beloved individuals-in-community.
That’s biblical individualism, if you want to put it that way.

But we utterly reject the individualism our culture promotes,
which is the worship of the free, autonomous,
self-determined, and independent individual.
That, sisters and brothers, is idolatry,
it is sin against our Creator.
It will ultimately unravel our social fabric,
and destroy the authentic self-in-community
which God created us to be.

Being in deep community, being in healthy community,
is what creates the condition
whereby we have the strength
to lay down our lives for each other.

It sounds like a paradox, but it’s a reality designed by God—
we come to see and understand our true individual self
when we live in a community
where it’s safe to sacrifice this self.
It’s safe, because the sacrifice is mutual.
We know that others are laying down their lives for our sake.
Well, maybe “safe” is too strong a word.
Self-sacrifice is never really safe,
if what we mean by safe
is a predictable and pain-free outcome.
Self-sacrifice may well take us on a wild ride,
with all kinds of surprising twists,
and gut-wrenching drops,
and long, hard climbs.
But it takes us down a path that leads to life.

That is my deepest longing
for the people of Park View Mennonite Church.
That we all might find a full life in deep community.
And I’m not talking about right here on Sunday morning
with 300 other people.
This is one kind of community, and it has value.
Important things happen here.
We’ll keep doing this.

But even more important,
is the smaller, more intentional kind of community
that is bound by a shared covenant and mission.
It is in that kind of community—
of two people, or three, or thirteen—
where I can literally “place my life,”
lay down my life for the other,
and I know that that act of laying down
will be honored and respected . . . even made holy.

It’s the kind of community where everyone
places their lives in the lives of the other.
Where your well-being is so wrapped up in my well-being
that you will do just like the Good Shepherd does,
the one who owns the sheep.
You will instinctively, daringly,
jump in between me and whatever is threatening me,
and help absorb the blows.
And when the time comes,
I will do the same for you.
Self-sacrificial caring and daring will happen by instinct,
in communities shaped by and led by Jesus the Good Shepherd.
And every person’s true self will not only stay intact,
it will bloom and grow.

It will be like Jesus’ kingdom parables—
like the seed that falls to the ground and dies,
and thereby produces new life.
And Jesus’ strange words will prove to be true,
that those who cling to their own lives will lose them,
and those who lose them for the gospel, will find them.

In that kind of community,
where we all are led by the Good Shepherd,
where we all embody the love of the Good Shepherd,
where we all are at home with the sheep,
where the sheep are our life,
and we don’t have another life to go home to,
where we place our lives in the lives of others . . .
in that kind of community the 23rd Psalm becomes fully realized.

Because Jesus the Shepherd will indeed be present,
through the Holy Spirit,
and through the lives of each other.

And there, my Shepherd will supply my need.
And like the hymn writer says,

There would I find a settled rest,
While others go and come;
No more a stranger, nor a guest,
But like a child at home.

Let’s sing together hymn #589.

—Phil Kniss, May 3, 2009



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