Co-hosting Community with Christ: Our Norms
February 24, 2008
Matthew 10:1-11
We are starting a new revolution today! It’s Lent! Lent, the season of the church where we begin a revolution. A revolution that starts within the very fabric of our beings. This season lasts 40 consecutive days not counting Sundays following Ash Wednesday. Sunday is considered a day and time of renewal, an opportunity to try out what you learned in your study during the week, a time to bring it on. You see, Lent is a time of discernment. Time to name what has gone well over the last year and take time to give gratitude for those successes. Lent is a time of paying attention, mindfulness, and gratitude for our blessings. Thank you God for those things that went well. Lent is also a season of being honest about what hasn’t gone well. Naming the things that haven’t gone well and then asking forgiveness for our part in what’s not working in order to back up, reframe, begin again.
The Apostles (teachers) of First have been working hard over the last six months to discern exactly what it means to be a community. This is crucial work for your survival. It’s crucial because in the United Church of Christ the most powerful body is the communal body. Your pastor has voice but no vote. The membership has vote. The pastors have come and gone since 1881 but the community of First has stood. It is huge work that you have done finding that voice and beginning to use it. I give thanks for the past six months and my absence that helped you to find such an incredible voice. We can not have a revolution until the people find their voice. We can not have a revolution until the leadership is quieted and the community is acknowledged. Welcome to the revolution! For the apostles have listened, watched, contemplated, prayed and discerned we need to work in three areas during 2008: Worship, Stewardship, and Hospitality. For the rest of Lent and part of Eastertide we are going to begin with the natural first step, Hospitality. Hallelujah, I made it back in time to be a part of an incredible revolution at First.
So how exactly does talking about hospitality become a revolution? Biblical Hospitality is the act of friendship shown to a visitor. It is the process of receiving outsiders and changing them from strangers to guests. The reception occurred in 3 stages:
Testing the Stranger
Treating the Stranger as Guest
Transforming the Guest into Friend or Enemy
The apostles of First have called out to us to know what it means to be an hospitable people because we want to transform strangers into visitors and visitors into guests and guests into members. We want to do this because it’s changed our lives belonging to this community of faith. We want to do this because we love being a part of this community. We want to do this because we want to share what happens to us on Sunday mornings when we show up for worship.
Hospitality became a revolution because they were allowing everyone, no matter who you were on life’s journey to be a potential candidate. And yet, there were guidelines, processes, a protection of the tender seed of new relationships. So it’s a discernment for those who participate in community…not a gate keeping but a protection of what is sacred. In order to engage any strangers, we all must be very clear on the roles we are playing and the norms we expect within this community. It is crucial to understand when we are the host and the expectations of our community when being the host. It is equally important to understand the role of the guest and what it means to be the guest and what our role is relating to the guest. Today, since I’ve been gone for 6 months and we’re beginning again today, and within the framework of hospitality, I’m going to talk about my role as your spiritual leader, your pastor, co-host of this community with Christ.
My role. I am Co-host of this community. I am not the only co-host I am just one. Our Moderator, Jerry Diaz, he is also a Co-Host of this community of faith. We’re a trinity of hosts. I became Co-host by being baptized, confirmed, graduating from an accredited seminary accepted by the UCC, ordination in concert with my home church, the Missouri Mid South Conference and the Western Association which was the result of the call of this community to be your pastor. This grants me co-host status.
That’s technically what got me here, so what are the co-host norms? We’re working out of the gospel of Matthew today. We’ve already preached through the entire gospel except the passion narratives. So, this Lent we will finally finish the gospel of Matthew by returning for the stories of Jesus, his arrival in Jerusalem, his eventual death, and the Easter morning story. Matthew is a story of the good news of Jesus and ethics woven together, one not standing without the other. The author abhors the concept that faith is simply believing and that’s all that is required. Matthew cries out, if you choose to confess that you are a part of this movement, you must conform to what you confess with your living, your action, your choosing. A genuine faith in Christ must be demonstrated.
Today’s particular passage finds Jesus calling his disciples and commissioning them to go out and do ministry. First he grants them authority to go out and share their faith, put it into action. Then, he tells them where to go and where not to go. Finally, he gives them their job description. In order to do these things he realizes they have to be spiritually ready, so he tells them how to prepare themselves physically, emotionally, spiritually. This isn’t a trip they are taking. This isn’t a vacation. This isn’t a social engagement and great way to make friends. This is a journey that is coming out of the core of faith. And, it will take much work in order to feel fed. Lastly, it’s a discernment when looking for people. Look for the one, the worthy one, the one who’s going to get it, the one who looks/seems like they might be up for living the Presence through the witness of Christ. Look for that person and stay with them. Do not leave them. Stay with them. Accept their hospitality. Be their guest until you leave the city that when you might leave you might be spiritual sisters and brothers united by the unconditional love of God stronger for the journey of faith.
As your spiritual leader, I must understand the norms. If I don’t understand the norms, when I as host, invite people into the community, people that don’t understand our norms, that could devastate our community, ruin the work we’ve done to date, put an end to our affirmations creating disunity and confusion. If I have different norms than you have, when I invite people in to be a pat of this community they feel set up, cheated, swindled and the church has done enough of that in the past. I’m thrilled we’re ready to study hospitality so we can protect, nurture and feed this incredible community of First that we have rooted in the power of the Holy One. But before we can get to the norms of the community as a whole, it is time we review what the norms are for the person you call as pastor.
The first norm: Christ is the true head of this community. Not one of us is leading this community more than God. Without daily dialogue with God, without daily stretching ourselves to live into the authority that Jesus calls us to reach out to our sisters and brothers. Without daily learning how we individually know that God, that Presence, that love and light we can not grow a community of faith. We will only be a family, a club, an obligation. As your leader, I will each day work to embrace the holy one by practicing the spiritual disciplines of Bible Study and Prayer. I will work to daily put on my faith integrating it into the fabric of my being that together my faith and I can lead you as we are called to be together. Whenever we are making conversation, decisions, determining what’s next let us not do it without asking God to be present in our midst. Let us honor the work we are doing by praying for it, about it, opening ourselves to our role through meditation and journaling. Let us be partners with Christ in this ministry to be people of faith
The second norm: We are in a covenantal relationship. This means it takes three. We are in relationship with one another, however neither of us can honor that commitment unless we are in active relationship with our God. I must say in this season of Lent after 6 months of being away, I haven’t always trusted you to rise to your part of the covenant. I haven’t always trusted you to do what God is calling you to. While I have been gone you have begun to develop these skills in the last six months and they are like a tender shoot. It will be important to grow those skills and foster them through the next phase of our growth. I am committed to allowing you to work your part of this covenant, to continue to empower you to develop those skills. As you’ve found out in the last six months, it doesn’t always feel comfortable to be the one people are relying on and it’s difficult to squeeze things in after work, family and other obligations. But, in honor and witness of the gospel of Matthew I remind us both today that I am no longer in this on my own and that we are in this together. I ask your forgiveness for thinking I had to do this on my own and that’s what you wanted. I will empower, I will mentor, I will coach but I will no longer do it all. I will instead hold meetings in the next couple of weeks with the Admin Council to determine where I will focus my work for 2008 and what my priorities will be. This means also that some times I will tell you no. This means some times I will not give you the answers that you want. It is at times going to be uncomfortable because you aren’t used to hearing those things from me. This also means that you must learn to say both yes and no. You must learn that when you give you receive. And, it is our communal work to say, hey, you’re not doing your part. Or to say, hey, you’re over doing your part. I want to invite you to join me in making a commitment today to invite others to come along and join you as you teach a Studio session, work as an usher, greet people on Sunday morning. Whatever it is you are called to do it is our work to honor and live into the covenant. To hold one another accountable and truly be centered in the Creative Presence in our goal of wholeness, I know we can aim for this balance. I know we can honor this covenant.
The third norm: Be an ethical leader. This one feels a bit raw for me. Because of my very recent divorce, I’ve been struggling in my personal life with the theological issues surrounding divorce. I consider myself to be of high integrity and an ultimate keeper of promises and yet, last weekend I undid my vows. How is that possible I wonder? Those questions I will continue to process and work over with my colleagues and spiritual mentors but I feel the need to reaffirm with you, I am a woman of my word. I will do my absolute best to keep my promises and yet give myself permission to re-negotiate promises that were made before the actual curve balls of life show up. I can tell you that there were no unethical acts that led to my divorce on either Cathy’s or my behalf. And, I will continue to uphold the strictest ethical code in order to maintain and deepen our trust, support your confidence, and engage your most vulnerable selves in this work of faith development.
The forth norm: Be a transparent communicator. This is the area I think needs the most work. It is difficult to get the word around in a community. But, part of hospitality is helping everyone to know what the word is. It will help you to be in worship. If you aren’t in worship, if you’re going to miss, you must have coffee with someone or make a phone call to admin council to see what you missed. Call the church office and ask them to send you a bulletin so you know what you’ve missed. We also need to remember that people never remember anything after being asked just one time. In the classroom we are instructed to repeat something 5 times in order for it to be learned. Part of being an effective communicator is by connecting people to others so that information can be shared. And, to do this tirelessly. I know that you’ve learned a lot about this while I have been gone. In fact, it all came to a head the day you found out about my “swollen colon”. My orders were in fact to not share that information. I didn’t want you to know that information until we were absolutely positive that was actually what was wrong with me. I was flabbergasted by so much medical incompetence and lack of follow through, I just couldn’t imagine telling you another wrong thing. What I didn’t realize was how lost you all felt, how left out and how you ached to know something. Anything. Thus, the swollen colon was shared. I’m so sorry you felt in the dark. I wish we could have had someone whose job it was to get and post medical updates. Unfortunately, I was really so sick. The second week in, Cathy found me non-responsive, tacacardic, and hauled me off to the ER or that would have been it. However, she did find me, as luck would have it. The doctors did know what to do to bring my body back. But, it was a long, dark road with a lot of question marks along the way. What I learned most of all is that you absolutely can not and should not lead when you are sick. All you can do is be sick and try to will yourself to survive. Many people have asked me, “Weren’t you bored?” I’m not even sure at this point if I was even conscious for about 4 of the months. It’s really only in the last month I’ve felt reinflated and resurrected from the dead. I would be so scared to drive the girls to school, make it back home to fall into bed. Then I would set my alarm so I could get up again to pick them up. If it weren’t for people doing everything for me: groceries, cleaning my house, I believe I would have died. So there wasn’t a lot of thinking about anything, it was just this weird attempt at survival and constant chatter of I can do this while I was doing whatever I had to do. So, there wasn’t a lot to tell. I can tell, and I realize you were all so sad, concerned worried, and I can tell you, I was scared out of my witts for at least 5 of the months. My colon has made a complete recovery. All of this could have been avoided had I been diagnosed correctly the first, second or third times. If we had found out the flora had been killed earlier on, I could have taken some pills to regenerate the flora, but by the time they figured it out my body had begun to do it on its own, so this led to more waiting. But, I’m now fine, probably physically healthier than I’ve been in a long time. And, I really am working to keep moving on that track. I’ll share more about this during my testimony on Easter, but I encourage you to ask me questions about anything. I will always give myself permission to say no, just as I hope you would. Communication like covenant is a two way street. I have always done my best to be clear. However, that’s rarely enough. So I am committed to finding other ways to make sure our communication system is further developed. And I ask you to take responsibility for knowing more.
The norms of a leader of First Congregational UCC: Christ is head, Covenantal Relationship is our check and balance, be ethical, be a transparent communicator. Those are the basic norms that I pray you will hold me to. The UCC has granted you the authority to hold me to it. Here’s to flying. It feels good to be back and beginning again so much stronger in every area than 5 years ago. God bless us all!