Having grown up in Washington, I love a good tree, particularly a good evergreen that stretches up to the sky in majesty. There is something about the strength seen in a tree. It tells you that it stands alone. It tells you that it does not need help from others. It can withstand the elements and grow strong and tall. It is a loner and finds its strength from itself. Trees stretch to the sky that tell you that they mean business. They grow a little more each year, slowly but steadily. They can be decades and even centuries old. When I was in Greece, we saw a tree that had been standing there when Jesus walked the earth. It now had a metal frame helping to hold it up. But there is something great and powerful about the lone tree.
But I cam across this story from LeRoy Eims, a Navigator’s broadcaster. He wrote: “My wife and I were in Great Britain on a preaching tour shortly after a violent windstorm had swept the land, flattening more than a million trees. An official investigation discovered that the trees had been planted just far enough apart that their roots were not intertwined with each other. Each tree stood alone, with no help from the tree next to it, and over a million were lost.”
LeRoy Eims discovered that even trees need each other. Though they seem so individual above ground, below ground they are connected. If they are not connected with each other they are not nearly as strong as they could be.
And like trees, we have a need for each other. We need to have others around us to strengthen us, to build us up, to protect us. Oh, it may seem that we can do it ourself, but this is just not the case.
This is what Paul is writing about in today’s scripture, our need for each other. It is through gathering together that our roots are able to strengthen each other and we are able to find the strength we need.
I. The Body
Today’s scripture talks about the Body of Christ. That is, it talks about the church. I fear that we sometimes fail to understand or believe or act upon the fact that we are the body of Christ. In other scriptures, Paul talks about how each part of the body plays a certain part in the whole of the body. Paul explains that we cannot all be eyes or mouths or fingers. If we were all ears, we’d make a pretty crazy looking body. These teachings of Paul are important. They mean that we all have our own purpose. They mean that we should not look with envy on those who are better at certain things than us. This can be hard for me.
I am musical to a certain degree. I sorta play some instruments and I can sing when others are singing with me. I’m not much of a soloist. But when I run across someone who is really musical, I find myself filling with envy. I wish I could sing the way they do. I wish I could lead praise songs in a powerful, meaningful way. And then I realize that I am wishing I were a different part of the body than I am. Paul tells us that we each have a part to play in this thing we call the church, that he calls Christ’s body. Sometimes it seems like what we have to offer doesn’t really matter, but this is not true. There are parts of the body that seem pointless, but have real value. We all have real value.
This is important. We should not allow our own feelings of inadequacy and our inferiority complexes keep us from being a part of the plan that God has for us. But that is not necessarily what today’s scripture is about. Today’s scripture has something else to tell us about being the Body of Christ. Today’s scripture tell us that community is needed.
What is it needed for? Today’s scripture talks of at least three things. It is needed to bring us to maturity in our faith. It is needed to help us move toward unity. And it is needed so that we might grow and build each other up in love.
II. Gifts of Community
Christian community brings us to maturity in our faith. Paul likes to contrast maturity with immaturity in his writings. He likes to tell us that when we are not following the right path we are like infants, we are like babies. Infants cannot take care of themselves. In today’s scripture he says that they will be blown here and there by every wind of teaching. Infants have not yet learned to think for themselves and they are not protected against those things in this world that stand against them. And let me make this very clear, there are things in this world that do stand against us. So maturity is important. And maturity comes when we come together. It is gathering with other Christians where we learn how to better live our own lives as Christians. We learn from each other.
In some Christian circles, it is somewhat normal to talk about how mature someone is in their faith. You will sometimes have someone who has been a Christian their whole life, but who has not ever allowed this to be a big part of their life, they haven’t really grown in their faith and people might say that they are immature in their faith. Now, before anyone gets defensive, there are worse things to be accused of than being an immature Christian. And in actuality, I have discovered that there is a danger in this classification that is at times done. You see, we all mature in different ways and at different rates. Someone might be quite mature in their prayer life, but not so much in resisting temptation. Someone else might be a very giving person, always ready to help someone who is in need of help, but they might not know the Bible as well as they’d like. I tend to believe that we all mature in different areas and we all have certain spiritual gifts and even spiritual fruits that we are more connected to and that maturity comes to quicker. And so to say that one person is a more mature Christian than someone else is a misnomer. It would be much better to look at areas in our lives where we are more or less mature and strive toward maturity in those places where we need it. But what does this have to do with community? When we come together, we can learn from the maturity of those around us. We can lift each other up by teaching each other in the areas where we are gifted.
Christian community helps us move toward unity in our faith and knowledge of God. That’s right, Christian community brings unity. I realize it doesn’t always feel that way. As Christians, we often don’t live the unity that we are called to. We allow ourselves to put ourselves first in a way that breeds strife within the church. I’ve mentioned it before and it is worth noting, even the early church had times where there was not unity. People wanted what was best for God’s people, but they didn’t see eye to eye on how to get there. This is nothing new. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive for unity. And this passage gives us a good hint on where to start. It talks about how we will “all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God”. This is a good place to start. We start with the unity that ties all Christians together. Christianity is a very diverse religion. There are people who are Christians who are very different than each other. Christians don’t all speak the same language, wear the same clothing, or even believe the same things. If you took a Christian out of the heart of Africa and put them beside a Christian in the heartland of America, you would discover some definite differences between them, more than just their skin color. If you took a Christian from the Eastern Orthodox church and put them next to an American Evangelical, the differences would be quite great in how they interacted with their God. But you would also find things that they have in common. And when we come together in Christian community, we learn to hold up those things that we have in common. When we come together in Christian community, we find that the thing that we hold in common: forgiveness from our sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus, is so much greater than anything that can separate us. And we can revel in that which unites us.
Christian community helps us to grow and build each other up in love. I love this imagery of building each other up in love. I think of those trees in Britain that were planted too far apart from each other and they were not able to strengthen each other. They did not build each other up and when trial came, they came down. We don’t need to be like them. Instead we can come together and find strength in each other. Hebrews 10:24-25 tells us to “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” This is what it means to build each other up in love. And this will allow us to grow as a community. This will allow us to stand against whatever is put against us, for we will support each other in a powerful way.
III. Responsibilities of Community
So coming together as Christian community is good for us. It helps us to grow as individuals and as a group. But there are also responsibilities that come when we come together as the Body of Christ. When we accept that we are all different parts of the body, we realize that we all have gifts to offer to that body. This means that we are called to use those gifts. This means that we are not doing our duty if we aren’t using our gifts. Ephesians 4:16 talks about how we grow and build ourselves up in love. But it says that this happens when each part does its work. What part of the body are you? What is your responsibility to the greater body of Christ? What is your role to play? There are different ways to discover the answer to this question. For some people, this involves a spiritual gifts assessment. These are worthwhile because they help us to know better where we might be gifted as well as helping us to realize where our interests and passions lie. Someone who is good at playing the piano might not necessarily be passionate about doing so, and it is important to balance these things. We sometimes, as a church, are so busy trying to make sure that we have enough people on the Christian Education Committee that we don’t really find ways to allow true ministry to happen as we as a church each do our part. But if you aren’t into spiritual gift assessments, there are other ways to find out what your role to play is. The best of these is just to get involved. Find a way that you can participate. Don’t wait to be asked. Instead find something that you think you could help with and see if they need your help. As long as you wait, you are missing opportunities that could be before you. And we as a church are missing out on what you have to offer to us.
There is good news that comes with this responsibility, though. That good new is that when we become this vision that Paul has of the Body of Christ, we will be something that those around us will want to be a part of. When we become a community where people are finding maturity in their faith, when we become a place of unity, when we become a growing loving group where people are allowed to blossom, people will want to be a part of what we offer. And in the end, this is what we are also supposed to be about as a church. We are supposed to be a group of Christians that grows in our faith, but also that calls others into that same faith, that encourages them to begin on the journey we have been traveling.
So, when we better become this thing called the church, we will find that our forest will grow and strengthen itself. We will find that others will want to plant their trees in our forest. And when the wind does come, we will hold each other together because our roots will be deep in Jesus and our roots will help us to stay strong. And this is a wonderful thing. Amen.
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