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 139^th 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 139^th 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.