Sermon: A Lesson in Community

Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Congregational Church of Brookfield (UCC)
A Lesson in Community
Acts 4:32-37
August 14, 2011

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our minds and hearts gathered here this day be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.  Amen.

        

 A sea of orange t-shirts.  Honk if you’ve seen a bear.  “Where’s the pastah?”  Goats, chickens, and dogs – oh, my!  Friendship bracelets.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Showers in the rain.  Hammering, shoveling, sawing, insulating, sheetrocking, folding, cleaning.  Kitchen crew dance parties.  Riddles in the car to pass the time.  Don’t judge a book by its cover.  Group yoga and prayer to get the day started.  Devotions and reflection to end the day the right way.  "That seems to have worked and that seems what we ought to do…respond to people."

This may seem like just a random assortment of sayings or wacky words to those of you here, but to me they are vivid reminders of a week away in Orland , Maine – serving with an amazing group of youth and adults at Homeworkers Organized for More Employment or H.O.M.E.  I actually chose today’s scripture reading a week before we went to pick up rental cars, packed them up with clothes-food-first aid kits-the essential bag of blow pops-and an enthusiastic mission team, and hit the road.  Little did I know how much it would make sense – how much this short reading from the book of Acts would speak to the situation of a small cooperative community in Maine that taught us throughout the week many life lessons.  You will get to hear from our mission team about their experiences with this week later in the fall, so today you have to deal with the pastor’s perspective on what took place during a week at HOME – consider this a brief preview of the best that is yet to come when you hear it from the perspective of our youth who you would have been so proud of. 

So five important tidbits of life lesson that all added up to one grand lesson in community…

Lesson One: Resourcefulness.  There is nothing like getting home from a hot and messy day of work (especially when you are living in close quarters with 20 other people) and hearing the words, “we’re not going to shower today” coming out of the mouths of two teenage girls.  HOME is situated on a previously dirt road right off of Route 1.  The Volunteer Center where the female team members slept also housed the Marketplace, the two kitchens we used to prepare meals, and had a water supply – not town or public water – that was connected to the shower house.  We came to realize about Tuesday that there was not always really great water supply or pressure.  So, come Wednesday, after we had a bout with toilet issues, minimal water to clean dishes, and so on and so forth – we realized that water is really not something to take for granted.  So no showers meant that we would have water for other community and group needs later in the day and for the other days in the week.  Baby wipes sufficed – got the job done that we needed done.  The lesson continued as later on it rained, and you could see a group of girls out in the parking area with shampoo in hand using natural resources to get the job done instead.  Resourcefulness became a key theme for the week as we saw a run to the local grocery store take place each morning to gather the items that were being removed from the shelf that, although still useable, would have been thrown away.  That food was used each day to feed the 50 plus volunteers who live and serve at HOME, as well as to give out to members of the greater Orland community to help supplement their own household budgets and resources.  Our group chose to use re-usable dishes each day for meals instead of paper – knowing that in doing so we would be allowing a better situation for our environment and because the people at HOME do the same each day. 

Lesson Two:  Accountability.  It all began for us on Monday morning when we gathered in our circle to have morning prayer, and we each were assigned a number.  That number was how we made sure we had everyone for all of our group activities.  Each of us became accountable not only for ourselves but for the people to the right and left of us – for me Mike #2 and Wyatt #33.  If they were not there to call their number we had to know who was missing and help to solve the mystery of where they might be.  We were accountable for each other – making sure that we were all together, that no one missed anything important.  We were accountable for one another at the worksites – making sure that we were working together well and safely so no one would get injured.  We were accountable to one another in the evenings as we carried out our group chores – cooking dinner, cleaning dishes, taking care of common areas, shopping for food, leading devotions.  If we did not hold one another accountable for those things we would have had a group of hungry volunteers with no clean anything, and would not have been able to center ourselves as a group on what was most important – on what it was that we were there to do and who for – namely our God.  And we watched as the folks who worked at HOME held one another accountable for their assigned responsibilities as well – as they carried them out and stepped in when someone was sick and unable to accomplish their tasks for the day – as they even had conflict about what and how things were to happen but managed to work it out.  Which leads me to…

Lesson Three: Healthy Conflict.  You don’t often hear those two words uttered in a sentence together.  But we had a chance to sit down with Sister Lucy, a former nun who began HOME in 1971 out of a desire to help people in the community make ends meet by providing them a place to sell their handcrafted goods.  This is a woman who has built an organization that has been studied by folks who determine the likelihood of success of nonprofits throughout the country and have been told that no one understands how they do it.  If they were run like any other organization they would need a budget of millions of dollars and people on the ground who do nothing but development and management.  Instead HOME relies on the grace of God, a few annual fundraisers, and supporters from the groups who come to work there in order to make ends meet.  Although Lucy is the President, and therefore the buck does stop with her, she relies on the help and guidance of others – working cooperatively – to make HOME work.  Since its beginning in 1971 it has expanded to include craft centers, a food pantry, various shelters and respectable low-income housing, a saw and shingle mill, and so much more.  So when we asked Lucy the question about what the hardest thing she faces in running HOME is…we expected her to say that it was something about the funding or about gaining support in the surrounding community.  But that wasn’t it.  She said that the most difficult and most painful thing they face as a community is conflict – when brothers and sisters who quite literally dwell together – do not dwell together in unity.  When something in their relationship system has broken down, and they are working from a place of resentment, anger, ego, or pain instead of from a place of love for their neighbor and wanting what is best for the community.  She said that when these things happen it is important to treat the issues early so they can get back to doing what they have been called to do – which is to serve one another and God.  As I looked around the room at a group of teens and adults who I know are at times in conflict either with one another or others in their families and communities, all I could think was what an amazing thing it would be if we all could take that lesson to heart – to deal with conflict as it arises in the way the Bible tells us – directly with the person who has offended, or along with an advocate if necessary – but honestly,  directly, and quickly – so we can be about the business of serving God, our community, and our world.

Lesson Four: Trust and do not judge.  The folks who serve at HOME on a day-to-day basis are people who all have stories…and don’t we all?  They are people who serve there because they want to and have felt called to do so.  They are people who live there because they have been released from jail and had nowhere else to go.  They are people who couldn’t find a job, needed a place to live and wanted to be able to do something in return.  They are above all – wonderful, loving, patient, and hopeful people who seek to serve God and to serve their community – those who are in need, those to whom we are all called to respond.  We learned some of their stories throughout the week.  Our group took the time to ask questions, to build trust, to share music, and to allow space to open up to others so that they would in turn open up to us.  And we realized once again that you can’t judge a book by its cover.  You have no idea what someone’s story is until you allow them space to tell it.  And the greatest compliment our kids received throughout the week was that there were people at HOME who trusted them enough that they were willing to share with them – to share with our group about their lives, their hopes, their dreams.  We were in a community where we could trust people and didn’t take that trust and that sharing for granted.

Finally, lesson Five: Love your neighbor as yourself.  Coming from a Christian community of our own one wouldn’t think that we would need to be taught this lesson, and perhaps we weren’t taught it as much as reminded of it again – and from a new perspective.  It is unfortunately easy to forget this one in the “ins and outs” of our daily lives.  But these are the words on which Sr. Lucy “hangs her hat” so to speak, and therefore on which HOME operates first and foremost.  “We are all the same,” said Lucy, “deep down we are God’s children, and we need to love one another in that way.”  This is often easier said than done, but we saw firsthand what it meant to the community at HOME that they live this way – that they love one another and treat one another as they wish to be treated – that they see everyone as brothers and sisters in a common goal, which is why they are able to offer extravagant welcome to others and to help turn lives around – to encourage one another to land in a better place.

So what does all of this have to do with the scripture lesson for today?  The truth is that HOME, unlike most organizations and communities, truly does function much like the early Christian community did.  They do hold all things in common.  They share living space and meals with one another.  They take care of one another and are sure that everyone has the necessities.  They work together to build one another up and to build up the Body of Christ in that small piece of God’s Kingdom in Orland, Maine. 

I can’t say that I think the world would be able to function as the early Christian community did.  There is too much difference in the way that we run economies, allocate resources, hold one another accountable for things.  But I do believe that we could do a much better job than we are doing now.  There is no reason why a grocery store or my family should have to throw away food because it goes bad knowing that there are millions of people in this world who go to bed hungry each night or who die of malnutrition and starvation.  There is no reason why cutting one another up, criticizing one another, or speaking unkind words to one another – even in jest – needs to be the way of the world when we have every opportunity to resolve conflicts as they arise and to build one another up – to care about and encourage one another.  The most difficult part of it all is taking the first step.  As a community we work to take the first step when we use and share our resources wisely.  We work to take the first step when we hold one another accountable and work with each other to build up trust and encourage each other.  We work to take the first step when we learn about situations in our own community, in our country, and in the world that just shouldn’t be with the overabundance of resources that we have – and then work toward alleviating them.

So my prayer for us today is that God may bless us in taking those first steps.  May God bless us and help us in our stewardship of our resources.  (Because that’s what this scripture and the lessons we learned at HOME are about at the heart…about Stewardship.)  May God bless us and help us in our ability to love our neighbor and as we strive to share a common spirit and purpose.  May God bless us and help us as we work to build and live and trust and love in community with one another today and in the future.  Amen.