"The Ties That Bind"

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous^[j] by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷ As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring,^[k] heirs according to the promise.

For the month of October we're going to be talking about stewardship. There's this thing in the church world, where people don't like talking about money. If you didn't know, all of the resources we have come from the gifts of people in this place. We put money into the offering plate every week, or we give a gift online, and that money becomes the resources we use as a church. And, in November, we will present a budget that shows exactly where that money is going. We all get a say in how it's spent.

It shouldn't be a secret: it takes money to be the church. To do ministry, to hire staff, to keep the lights on, to run the live stream every Sunday, to coordinate the children and youth ministry. This is one of the reasons I enjoy talking about stewardship, and even money, in church. Because when we talk about making gifts to the church, we're always talking about what it is we do together. To talk about stewardship is to talk about why our church, our ministry, our faith matters.

And what we do here does matter. It makes an effect in the lives of our community. And I'm guessing, it's had an effect in your life.

Before we start talking about money, and resources, and buildings, I wanted to start even more elementary than that. I want to talk about presence. About your presence in this place- and that includes folks who worship with us online. And about the presence of this church in the community. Because simply showing up in the most important thing we do.

Why? Because church, at it's simplest, is the place we reminds ourselves, and remind the world, of the love of God which connects us to all that is. Sure, we're all unique, we all have our own stories, our own experiences, our own opinions and beliefs, and everything else.

But we are also, each, children of a loving God.

Being together is a reminder of that fact. That we are tied together through God's love.

Our world likes to pretend like we don't all belong to one another. We divide ourselves in ways that don't celebrate our diversity, but rather, pretends as though we are actually set against one another. But we know the truth: we are not separate, but together in God's love.

What does it look like to be united in this way? There's this scene in the movie I Heart Huckabees that think about when I think about how we're all connected. The movie isn't even specifically Christians; if you haven't seen it, I Heart Huckabees plays on the theories of existentialist philosophy. There's this scene in the movie, though, that speaks to what we know as a Christian truth: that we are united by the love of God to all of creation. In this clip, Albert is trying to understand a coincidence that happens in his life, and comes to Bernard, an existential detective, for help. Bernard explains his work using a helpful metaphor, and his methods speak to the unity we have in Christ. Before we watch it, I just need you to, in your own mind, replace the word "blanket" with "God." Here it is: Play Clip

You see, when you're here, when we gather together, when we are out in the community, proclaiming God's love, we are remembering the truth about our existence: that in and through God's love, we are actually not separate. We are all part of the blanket. We matter, and so does everyone we ever meet.

When the early Christians were gathering following the death and resurrection of Jesus, they saw their mission as living out this reality revealed in Jesus Christ. They believed that the world had changed, and so, the church became the avenue for living out these new realities.

A couple of years ago, the Westar Institute released a book called "After Jesus, before Christianity" in which they dive into the first 200 years of church history, before the councils that formalized and centralized power in Rome. What they discover is not one thing, one unified church, but many different Christianities. There were churches across the ancient world, with little to no overarching authority structure.

But, what these scholars also find is that there are some commonalities. For instance, these churches almost all gathered as chosen family- sometimes there were actually blood ties, but often not. They chose these new communities, and referred to one another as siblings.

In the ancient world, there were there societies called supper clubs. Groups would meet to share meals together, but also to support one another in other ways. The ancient world had burial societies, places where you could pay a fee to guarantee that, when you died, someone would take care of the funeral arrangements. Christian communities became famous for burying even those who couldn't pay.

But what is most interesting about these early Christian communities was the way they treated gender. You have to understand, gender play a prominent role in the ancient world. There was this sense that only men were allowed to access society, to access the marketplace. Men were believed to own their wives, and that's even the origin of the wedding tradition of the father handing over the wife- it's basically a transaction. I, the father, own her, until you, the husband, take possession.

But in the Christian communities, this wasn't the case. This sense that some people mattered more than others was believed to have been done away in Jesus. In these early church communities you see women taking on more and more authority, including preaching an teaching. This is one of the reasons why the greater society was so suspicious of Christians. They were living as though strict, rigid gender roles didn't exist. Who does that?

In fact, our scripture today, from Paul's letter to the Galatians, hints at just this. "There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." And in fact, scholars now believe that Paul was not giving us a new idea here, but rather, was quoting an early Christian baptismal liturgy. As in, when new believers went through the initiation of belonging to this community, they would recite this: "There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Added to this is the belief that baptism was the beginning of a new life. The language would either be that of being "born again," or of dying with Christ and joining in the resurrection. And the result of this would be participation in this new life, in this new world, in which all were children of God, and not just a privileged few. As Paul writes, "for in Christ you are now all children of God."

This is what the early church thought they were doing: living in this new world, where the boundaries between people fall away, and all we're left with is the love of God, united all that is. The church exists to announce this new world...and to invite people to participate in it. And, in this new world, all of the divisions, all of the hierarchies, all of the ways we come up with to denigrate ourselves and others...all of those no longer exist. We are simply one in Jesus Christ.

Do I even have to explain why that matters? Every time you show up, you are simultaneously receiving and sending that message. Every time you come to the communion table, and join together in our collective welcome of ALL people. Every time we find a way to serve our neighbors; every child who participates in Children's Enrichment Workshop programing, or everyone who visits DESC and receives financial support, everyone whose life is made better by the accomplishments of the ICARE coalition.

Every time a meal is prepared for homebound members, every time a prayer note is sent to someone going through a rough time in our community, every time we show up to Riverside Pride with a banner reminding members of the LGBTQIA community that they are children of God...we are doing the work of the church, of proclaiming this new world in which "There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

We are reminded the world, announcing to the world, what we know to be true: That in Jesus, things are different than they seem. The the world, and everything in it, belongs to God. That we are all part of the same blanket!

There's this story that the American monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton tells about a trip he made outside of his monastery in Kentucky. While walking along the streets in Louisville, something strange and wonderful happened to him. This is how he describes it:

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly

overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could

not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of

separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness."

He continues, describing what he saw as a light shinging out of people:

" It is like a pure diamond, blazing with

the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of

light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish

completely… I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere"

"This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."

You are shining like the sun. And, everyone we meet in this place when we are together shines like the sun. And those we'll see today at the parade- they are full of light.

You presence matters. It helps brighten this place. And, announcing to the world that their light matters, and they are all a part of the love of God- it's the key to what we do here.

As we go through this month, we'll be talking about all of the ways we are the church together. And, we'll be talking about what it takes to do that work. But first, know, you being here, being in the community, proclaiming God's love for all of creation, will always be the most important part of what we can do. That includes being here today; that includes joining us at the parade today, whether in person or in spirit, so we can communicate to all of our neighbors that they are the beloved of God.