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Why We Need Each Other

September 16, 2007                                                                                                                                                          Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

    The story is told of a mother who called up the stairs to her son:  "Get up!  It is time to go to church."   The son said, "Aw, Mom, I don't want to go to church. The people there all make fun of me. They don't really like me. Nobody there ever listens to what I say. I'd rather stay home in bed."  The mother said, "But son, you've got to go."  The son said, "Give me two good reasons."  The mother replied, "Well for one thing, you are forty-two years old; and, for another, you're the minister!"  

Perhaps more true than we like to admit.  There is in our culture an attitude that people do not need to go to church.  A recent Gallup poll showed only half of the American people thought it is important to belong to a church. Seventy-five percent said it is possible to be a good Christian without going to church. In other words, most Americans think that in religion, we can separate believing from belonging.  It is not really surprising that American religion is largely a matter of "God and me." We live in a society which prizes rugged individualism. We make heroes out of the John Waynes of the Old West and the "top gun" fighter pilots of today. We are given the messages in hundreds of different ways: "Do your own thing, look out for Number one, I've got mine and you've got yours to get, take care of yourself because no one else will do it for you." This individualism combined with some spectacular failures of preachers and churches over recent years has yielded a deep skepticism of “organized” religion today.

Today, I am continuing a series of sermons I began last week called, “Better Together.”  Today, I want to talk about “Why We Need Each Other.”

ROMANS 12: 4-6

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around.  The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

1Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

This is the reading of God’s word.

Thanks be to God.

Would you pray with me?

God in heaven I pray that you would be with us, your people, as we hear your word.  Be with the one who gives it.  Forgive him of his sins; forgive his own individualism.  Lord help us to hear what you have to say.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

It really is hard to admit we need help.  It’s deeply ingrained in us.  A child grows up and says “I can do it by myself!” and we want that.  We want our children to do that.  In fact, we want our children to grow up, become independent adults and move out, and not move back in.  Some dependence is parasitic.  But we’ve gone a little too far.  We have become individualistic instead of individuals.  We just won’t ask for help.  We see it in men a lot; you know that stereo type of men who won’t ask for directions, or won’t ask for help lifting things or moving things.  Kind of like me winding up here a few weeks ago unable to even stand in the pulpit because I refused to ask somebody for help.  Men see it as a sign of weakness.  We see it in our Faith stories, too.  How many times have we heard someone say, “I didn’t come to Christ until I hit bottom and I realized I just couldn’t do it by myself any more, but I wouldn’t ask for help until I was desperate.” 

But we are called to be together.  We are called to belong, not just to believe.  You know, one of the wonderful messages of this Christian faith is that we do, through faith, have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  The fact is that the omnipotent God of the entire universe, who made all the countless galaxies and whatever else, has a relationship with you and with me.   One of the greatest pictures of this in the scriptures is in Revelation where God says “I will give you a stone on which there is a name only you know and I know.”  Isn’t that a wonderful image?  God is such a God that He can have a personal relationship with all of us and billions of others; but when God calls us as individuals, he calls us into community.  In America we have distorted the faith to think that it is just about us – that it’s God and me alone.  It is “God and me” to a point but then it becomes “God and we.” 

We need each other for lots of reasons but I want to articulate just a few today.  We need each other to fulfill our very purpose for being here.  What is our purpose?  Well we all have different purposes but as a whole we start in two particular places.  If we don’t get these right, sometimes the other things that we do don’t matter a whole lot.  The first purpose that you and I have is to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul.” That’s why we are here.  We are here to learn to love God…. Bottom line.  And second, we are here to learn to love others; “love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s pretty tough, isn’t it?  I have a friend, who I know, who had to have one of his parents come to live with him; it happened to be his mom.  That would have been fine except his mom was a really difficult person in her old age.  She was a negative influence in the family.  It was hard to have a conversation without arguing, without some kind of complaint, some kind of problem.  After awhile my friend prayed, “Why Lord did this happen?”  It came to him in a flash.  The Lord said to him, ‘Because you have to learn what love is.”  Love is not all roses and perfume, all feelings mutually given.  Love is loving people who don’t deserve it, who are unlovable, who fail to return that love.  Love is learning how to love people who don’t deserve it, just like God loves us.  I stand before you as a person who does not deserve God’s love.  I say in love that you don’t either.  Very regularly in our lives we spit in God’s face; we disobey him; we walk the other way; we ignore him maybe even daily and yet God loves you.  God loves you, and me.  So many people do complain about churches these days and sometimes rightly so.  Yet, I want to say that, maybe it comes from some cynicism, I don’t know, but I like to say when you get a bunch of sinners together, what do you expect?  Now, on a scale of one to ten there are a lot of churches that are worse and some are better than others, but every church because it is made up of people is going to be imperfect.  Now I’m not really a betting person, every now and then I’ll bet something small here and there, but I would bet a whole year’s salary that within a week of your marriage, ladies, you found out your husband wasn’t as perfect as you thought.  Now would I win that bet? You, too, guys, found justice just the same.  Why is that so?  Because people are messes and relationships are messy.  Churches are messy and if you go into a church expecting anything else, you are going to be disappointed.

So often a lot of people go to big churches so they can hide and not get asked to be involved.  You know, love is about learning commitment.  You  have heard me say many times, and I will say it many more times, I am really opposed, because I think the bible is, to people living together before they get married.  There are a lot of different biblical reasons; but the practical side of it is that statistics are really showing that people who live together first have a higher divorce rate than people who don’t, and the instances of abuse are higher, and dysfunction – interesting, given the attitude of our society.  What’s the basic problem?  It’s because if you always have an out, you haven’t really made a commitment.  You may think you’re in love, but it’s just about feelings, not about commitment.  The same is true in church.  Sometimes people really do go to a big church so they don’t have to make a commitment.  They get all the benefits of the relationship without the commitment.  It really is about learning how to make the commitment.  It is really true when somebody joins the church it is different levels; people come in and kind of feel you out a while and then the move a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper.  Part of our job is to help people come closer into a relationship, because it’s hard.  It is hard.  The problem is not only with the folks coming in; it is with us as well.  How welcoming are we to those folks who come in?  Love is learning about how to make commitments.  We need those commitments to make us strong.

Also finding our purpose is finding our direction.  Our friends help us do that.  The community helps us do that.  Many years ago I was faced with a direction to go in.  I fought it.  I fought it like a tiger for like six months.  I thought God was telling me to do something.  I didn’t want to do it.  It wasn’t a bad thing, it was a very good thing; but I was in a very good situation too and I would have to leave it.  Finally the day before I had to make this commitment, I had a friend of mine, a friend, say, “Chris, you have to do this.  It’s a chance of a lifetime.”  How many times in my own life have Godly friends helped me in my direction and purpose by just simply being there to talk it out, to bounce it off of, to offer prayers, to help me see.  How many times have I had friends rebuke me in my arrogance and pride, encourage me when I was down and help me when I was hurting?  That’s why we need a community.  Frankly we need people to watch our back.  We’ve heard that phrase a lot.  We say it in the Army, “Watch my back.”  Philippians 2:4 says “Look out for one another’s interest, not just your own.”  That’s quite a counter-cultural statement because at least in our culture now, it’s all about me; it’s all about my needs, my interests, my hurts.  But a lot of us have seen this Neighborhood Watch thing.  It’s a sign of community.  It says, “We’re going to watch for people here.  We’re going to take care of each other.”  We can go to our neighbors and say, “Will you watch my stuff?”  Well, let me ask you, do you have someone, anyone, watching out for your soul?  Do you have anybody helping you spiritually, watching your back?  That’s really the issue.  When we come to a church, even if we have come for fifty years, why do we come?  We need to come because it is part of a community.  Maybe you are thinking, well, you are just trying to get people to join Faith Church and to become more involved.  Well, I’m the Pastor here and that’s part of my job; however, I would say to you, if Faith Church isn’t the place for you, you need to find some other place because it is really about finding a community and where you can love and be loved and where people can take care of you and you can take care of them.  It’s about that.  It’s not just about coming on Sunday morning and hearing nice music and a sermon or a Sunday school class, that’s all great.  It is great.  If that’s where you are right now, it’s a good place to start; but it’s not where it ends.  We need to find people who will pray for us that the devil will not come and get us.  We need to find a place where people will pray for us when we are sick, rebuke us when we are being nasty and not doing what we are supposed to.  Who’s watching out for you?  We need someone to love us and take care of us when things are tough because it’s in community we find the strength to face life’s challenges.  It’s in community where we learn the tools to love one another.  Community is built on love and patience and forgiveness. Now again, 1 Corinthians 13, listen to what it says.  That passage is often read at weddings, partly because it sounds really nice.  “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels;” it’s beautiful language and it sounds great, but listen to the words.  Love is patient (ouch), love is kind (ouch, ouch).  It does not envy, it does not boast (ouch, ouch, ouch), it is not proud (ooow).  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered (ow), it keeps no record of wrongs (I’ve got to get rid of my list now).  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects (no hyperbole here), always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  It never fails.  Where do we learn how to do this except in community?  This is the place to practice.  Now we don’t want to practice on each other too much, but, in the negative way, but we don’t learn these things unless we are in it together. 

A lot more could be said.  But I just want to close by saying, you know, we could accomplish so much more for God together than alone.  That’s the message of today.  We are going to fulfill our lives by ourselves individually by going and doing our own thing.  Well some of that is o.k.  But if you really want to fulfill what God wants you to do, we have to do it together.  Very few of us are called to be Elijah out there in the wilderness crying out.  Very few of us are called to be Isaiah crying in the desert.  We are called to be in a community, each exercising our different gifts for the good and the whole.  If people don’t do what they need to do, someone else has to pick up the slack.  That happens so much in churches.  Just a few people really do it all and the rest sit back and watch.  But we need each other.  The bible says “the gates of hell will not stand against a church.”  Now by yourself, Satan can run away with you; but together we can stand, we can stand against anything and do anything if we decide to.  Now that’s not to say there aren’t problems in our organization.  I joke and say I am a member of two of the most inefficient organizations in the entire earth.  I am a pastor of a church and I am a chaplain in the Army, for goodness sake.  You talk about organizations that need to be reformed and remake themselves and to change; and, believe me, the wheels grind slowly.  But even so, God has given us the Church for our good and for its good.  I would just close by asking you where you are.  I’m not really saying this in a condemning way.  I just want you to ask.  What’s your view of the church?  Is it just a place to come and go and leave and never see again during the week?  Or is it your community?  That’s what I want you to say.  Sometimes it is the church’s fault for not being a very good community.  So for the next while we are going emphasize “connecting”.  We are going to emphasize “community”.  We are going to try to do better at that.  But it’s up to you too.  You need to want to and you need to help us.  You need to say “I’m here to help do this and tell me where to go.  How do I join this? How do I help?  How do I help others?  Join and become connected.  It’s not just about us being connected; it’s helping others do it too.  Now, I’ll challenge you.  This is your church and this place, and you need to help make it be what it can be.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, thank you for this imperfect organization that has existed so long, not just here in this community but all over the world, made up of people who are redeemed sinners who you have called and chosen to do your will.  We ask you Lord to help us not be individualistic even as we are individuals and that we would be a part of the body and work for its health.  Go with us and keep us now, we pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.