Shalom Mennonite Church
Sunday,
June 30, 2013 – Practicing Shalom
Texts:
Psalm 139; John 6:16-21; Ephesians 4:1-6
Eric
Massanari
“alone
with others, together with all”
This
is the time of year when we're invited
to
“taste and see that God is good!” (Ps.34:8)
Tomato
plants, peppers,
zucchini,
squash, basil,
and
so many other wonderful things
are
setting on their delicious fruits.
It's
amazing to watch,
and
even more amazing to taste!
It
makes me want to add a few more verses
to
that wonderful song to the Presence
of
God that forms the 139th psalm...
I
come to the Summer
and
slice into the
ruby
flesh of the melon,
and
You are there!
I
pick my hundredth zucchini,
and
shred it for bread,
and
You are there!
And
in the dark of Winter,
I
pull the jar of peaches from the shelf,
and
even there is your light to guide me,
Your
sweetness to nourish my soul!
Or,
something along those lines.
There
are many different messages
that
call out from the pages of the Bible,
but
one message that remains consistent
throughout
its pages is the message that lies
at
the heart of the 139th psalm.
That message is this:
God
is here.
And
wherever you go, God is there, too.
God
is here among us.
God
is here within us.
This
promise is present at the inception of all things,
in
those great tales of creation in Genesis.
It
runs like a unfaltering current through the
Hebrew
scriptures, the Torah,
the
wisdom writings, the prophets.
It
is the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
Emmanuel,
“God with us.”
I
think of that particular moment when Jesus was asked
by
a group of Pharisees when and where
the
kingdom of God would be realized in this world.
And
Jesus surprised them by saying:
The
kingdom of God is not coming with things
that
can be observed; you aren't going to
be
able to say beyond all doubt,
“Look,
I found it! Look, here it is!”
For,
in fact, the kingdom of God is
already
among you and within you. (Luke 17:20-21)
The
Hebrew people called it God's Shalom:
the
unity, wholeness, peace, well-being
that
is of God, and that we come to experience
when
we live with openness to God Presence.
It
is the inherent blessing and goodness
that
is found in and through all things.
The
Shalom of God is already present and available.
No
way, that's not possible, we may be tempted to say.
Just
look at the mess of this world.
Look
at that guy over there, what a jerk!
Just
look at the mess of my life.
No Shalom here either, thank you very much!
Long
ago it was a message that was hard
for
people to accept—the kingdom of God,
the
goodness of God already here.
And,
sadly, it seems all the more difficult
to
hear and accept today.
The
church itself, the community that
bears
the very name of the Christ who
fully
embodied this message,
has
somehow turned the message
inside
out and consistently preached
a
message that would suggest that you and I,
and
life as we know it, are inherently misguided and bad.
This
is especially true in the West,
where
we've developed doctrines like “original sin.”
We've
taken the approach of presumed guilt
and
fundamental immorality on the part of human beings.
And
so the basic arithmetic of Christian
teaching
in the Western cultures has been:
Humanity
lacks an essential element of Godliness,
and left to our own devices we are hopelessly lost.
Therefore, we are in need of saving.
God
provides the lacking element through Jesus.
If
we add Jesus to our lives we will be saved.
What we believe shapes what we see and how we live.
When
we view human beings as innately sinful,
and
this world as an inherently fallen place,
how
does that shape our understanding
of
this earth,
of
our neighbor,
of
our own selves?
How
do we learn to love fully
when
we look at the world in such a way?
I've
come to believe that one of the greatest gifts
the
church today can offer this world
is
to practice shedding such a view.
This
isn't easy, of course, because
it
has been woven into our psyches
and
the culture in which we live.
We
have become almost hardwired
for
fundamental judgment of self and other,
and
an ill-fated view of the world.
The worldview sets us up for fearfulness and loneliness.
Throughout
Christian history there have been
those
who have lived with a very different
sort
of arithmetic of faith, one that
is
more an arithmetic of subtraction, you might say.
This
understanding of the Way of Christ
would
suggest that we are called to a path
of
peeling back the layers of fear, judgment and guilt
we
have laid on ourselves and others,
in
order to uncover the underlying
unity,
wholeness, and goodness that lies within us.
We recognize that we do, as human beings,
have a capacity and sometimes it seems a propensity
for acting in self-serving and self-interested ways.
We learn that by practicing a deepened awareness
of this we begin to peel away the falsehoods
on which this is based and we uncover
the heart of goodness and blessing that lies
at the very depth of our being in God.
This
message that runs throughout
the
scriptures and the gospel stories of Jesus.
But
we aren't meant to simply
take
scripture's word for it
we
are meant to practice it, and test it in life.
The
practice of Christian discipleship
is
a practice of ever-deepening awareness
of
the truth that God is here. Shalom is here.
And
when we see this, it changes how we
live
in this world.
There
is a story told about Abba Pachomius,
one
of the early fourth century Christians who
went
out to live in the desert land of Egypt.
At
first, Pachomius thought he would go and live
there
as a hermit, but then he
sensed
a calling to invite others to join
him
there, with a commitment to live in community.
One
day a man came out to the desert
and
approached Pachomius and said,
“I
would like to join this community.”
When
Pachomius asked him why, the fellow said,
“Because
I would like to see God.”
“You're
coming here because you want to see God?”
“Yes.
What do I have to do? How many prostrations?
How
many prayers? How many Psalms do I chant?
How
much fasting do I need to do in order to see God?”
Pachomius
answered him, “Listen, if you truly want
to
see God you don't have to pray and fast.
You
don't even have to join this community.
Just
come along with me, and I will show you God.”
Pachomius
took the man inside,
and
he led him up to the meanest,
dirtiest,
most demented of the brethren
living
out there in the desert community
and
he said to him, “Look, there's God.”
The
man said, “You mean to tell me that's God?!”
Pachomius
answered,
“If
you do not come to see God in him,
you
will see God nowhere.”
Look
for the goodness of God
right
here in the land of the living,
especially
in the places and people you least expect it.
Practice
looking for it,
trust
it is there, live as if it is there,
and
you will know the reality of Shalom.
I
think of that image of Pachomius' community
as
church: open, vulnerable, willing to take
in
and welcome the straggler, the seeker
the
troublemaker. A community whose soul
unifying
principle was to proclaim the presence of God
and
to share the love of Christ in the world.
And
I hold alongside that image
an
image of the typical church
in
our Western culture:
a great building pointing skyward,
suggesting
a God we have to
aspire
to and reach for.
It
houses carefully crafted liturgies and doctrines,
and
in its halls can be heard great debates
over
who's in and who's out.
I
confess that after fourteen years of pastoral ministry,
my
love for the church has deepened,
but
so has my sadness over the fact that the church is so often
to
be found denying, through word and action,
the
most basic message we are given through Christ:
the
message that we are loved and blessed by God,
we
are bearers of God's own love
and
we are meant to share it with one another.
The
church is called to be a living sign
the
Shalom of God right here,
at
the center of our being,
at
the center of our community,
at
the center of all.
And
because this is so,
each
act, each word we speak,
each
encounter we share with one another is sacred.
And
most moments we live are sacred
in
their ordinary everyday-ness.
The
most basic practice of discipleship and prayer
is
to do whatever it is we are doing right now,
with
as much mindfulness and love as we can muster.
We
are called by Christ to do what we are doing
for
the love of God.
Recently,
I listened to a recorded presentation
that
was given by Thomas Merton sixty years ago,
when
he was a member of the Trappist community
at
the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky.
Merton,
by the time he gave this presentation
to
the novice monks in that community,
had
already become a well-known figure
speaking
out for racial justice,
speaking
out against the war in Vietnam,
and
also through his teachings on
Christian
prayer and contemplation.
However,
here in this case, he was not addressing
heads
of state or crowds of folks, he was addressing
newcomers
to his monastic community
on
the topic of renunciation, “letting go.”
As I listened to his presentation I had to laugh
because
the first 10 minutes of his 30 minute reflection
were
focused on how the novices needed
to
take better care of the bath towels in the monastery.
He
went into great detail (with no small amount of playfulness)
describing
to them how they shouldn't just use a towel
and
throw it immediately into the laundry.
They
needed to use one towel then hang it to dry,
then
use a second towel the next day, and
rotate
through those two towels for a week.
That
way the community wouldn't run out of towels.
It
was a beautiful, simple illustration of renunciation!
The
underlying message was about looking beyond
one's
own needs and desires and taking into account
their
fellow community members and their needs.
It
was also a lesson on good stewardship of resources.
He
was giving them a simple practice of Shalom.
It
had everything to do with the towels,
and
it had everything to do with God!
This
community, this congregation of Shalom,
is
the place for our own practice.
Here
is where we are called to practice
a
deeper awareness of the goodness of God
dwelling
within and among us.
Most
of our opportunities are found in the
very
ordinary moments of our life together.
What
we do with the towels is as important
as
what we do here in worship on Sunday morning!
When
you come here to worship on a Sunday
or
for a supper on Wednesday night,
you
are given an opportunity to practice Shalom.
You
might do this by choosing to sit and connect with
people
beyond your usual circle of friends and family.
Here
you are given the great gift, time and again,
of
moving beyond comfort zones
and
expanding your community.
We
practice Shalom here when we
take
good care of this building and property,
remembering
that all of it comes to us as gift
and
is meant to be shared as gift.
Our
connection in God is not just to people
but
it is also to land and to place
and
this shapes how we care for things.
To
step beyond these walls together,
to
join our gifts in loving service in the world
is
another way we practice Shalom.
We
practice going out into the world together
with
an eye for what is good and what gives hope,
rather
than focusing our vision on what we
denounce
and dismiss as bad.
We
practice Shalom when we choose to remain
with
one another in times of struggle and conflict,
when
we seek each other out rather than avoid
one
another when we feel misunderstood or hurt.
We
practice Shalom when we play together,
and
when we remember not to take
ourselves
too seriously.
And,
when those moments arise when
seriousness
is needed, and we must
struggle
and search together through
great
challenges and changes,
we
practice Shalom as we listen together
for
the One who is with us there, too.
Christ comes to us in stormy seas saying,
“I
am here. Do not be afraid.”
With
God's help, may this body of Shalom
continue
to practice and proclaim the very thing
for
which we are named.
We
can do so trusting that
the
goodness,
the
blessing,
the
unity and the peace
of
God is already here
within
us and among us.
