Monday, July 1, 2013

alone with others, together with all














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.

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