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Sunday, August 08, 2010
People, Prayer, and Potlucks
By Kyle Lewis
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
Let’s imagine a potluck. People are gathering together and sharing a dish. It might be their favorite comfort food. It might be something simple and inexpensive because they are out of work or they are overworked. It might be a recipe passed down for several generations. Who knows? Who knows what food will be there? Who knows what people will be there? Some of the dishes will get our mouths watering and some ………….not so much. It is like people. You never know what you will get. But, our part is to accept and honor this unusual combination of food and people who have come together. We can learn so much from each other and the more dishes the better.
Some people like to organize the potluck so they don’t end up with a dozen of the same dish. We might have all potatoes. But, come on… Does it ever really happen that way? And it if did we would probably get a dozen different types – garlic mashed potatoes – potatoes au gratin- that great casserole made with hash browns. A literal comfort -food smorgasbord! This is a lot like people. Even if people appear similar, they are never the same. The potluck is a great metaphor for community.
With the continuing rise of technology and our increasingly hectic lives, many of us are realizing that we need to make an intentional and unique effort to establish community, which goes beyond a virtual community. Some of us are asking the questions “What is community?,” “Where can I find community?” and “Do I truly feel I belong anywhere?”
I am a student at Iliff School of Theology. As someone who is considering becoming an ordained minister, I have been looking closely at the importance of being in community and what constitutes community. I am coming to believe that we can grow and learn and heal more deeply when we join a welcoming and open faith community, rather than trying to go it alone.
Is it necessary to join a community to find God and a sense of meaning in our lives? ---Maybe not in an absolute sense. But – the journey can be quite long and lonely without one. We are certainly called as Christians to value our relationships with others. Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. He could have just stopped there. It’s already a pretty tall order. In his wisdom, he added, “and the 2nd is this.. Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:28-34). If he had stopped with the first commandment, we could have found a way to isolate and have it be all about our own individual journeys. Jesus is teaching us that it’s about both – learning to love God AND people.
At staff meeting the other day, one of our staff members shared the notion that the symbol of the cross can represent our love of God and our love for each other. We need both in order to live as fully engaged Christians. I can think that I am the most loving person in the world when I spend time alone, but boy……. put me with a large group of people and I have to learn to be more accepting and less judgmental. Some of this can’t be worked on in isolation.
Two books helped me decide the title for today’s topic. Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. Hence, the title – People, Prayer and Potlucks. These 2 books reveal the journey each of these women took to discover God and themselves. Elizabeth Gilbert took a one year journey traveling to Italy, India and Indonesia . Her book discusses what she learned about simple pleasures, spirituality and love. She has been criticized by some for being on a journey of self-absorption, but here are her own words: “Mine is just a simple old human story — of one person trying, with great rigor and discipline, to comprehend her personal relationship with divinity.”
Geneen Roth made her discoveries by being aware of what food she was putting on her plate and into her body. This was her pathway to God. Towards the end of her book she states, “If you are willing to refrain from dieting and needing an instant solution, and if you want to use your relationship with food as the unexpected path, you will discover that God has been here all along.”
These two books really resonated with me. I have struggled with a relentless need to find God and meaning and I spent a lot of my 20’s hardly able to stay in one place as I searched. I identify with the struggle with food and I realize that this is a spiritual issue for me. I can sometimes use food like a drug and become numb to others, God and myself.
The one thing that isn’t emphasized in these books is our need for community. Most of my young adulthood was spent thinking I didn’t need a church to find God. I was one of those people who felt I was spiritual, but not religious. This was an important time for me – realizing that God goes with me wherever I go……This is part of the vertical line of the cross. But I am recently discovering the richness of the horizontal line – the path of community.
Here is a quote about interdependence from the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca, who lived around the time of Jesus. “We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.” This is similar to our scripture for today from 1 Corinthians. Verse 7 states, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” This is why we are given gifts – for our common welfare.
I think there are certain things that every one of us is longing for – a sense of belonging, of making a difference, of finding and using our gifts and of feeling like we matter and that it matters that we are here on this planet. Most of this has to do with our interdependence, rather than it being all about our personal solo journey.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes in her book, Women Who Run with Wolves, tells the story of an old African American man who came out of an alley and to some he might have appeared crazy. He was shuffling along, speaking to anyone and no one and pointing a finger into the air. In Clarissa’s particular Mexican tradition these people are to be listened to for their wisdom. He sat down and told Clarissa a story which he called “One Stick-Two Stick: The way of the old African Kings.” The story is about an old man who is dying and he calls his people to his side. He gives a short sturdy stick to each of them and asks them each to break their stick. They are all able to break their sticks. He says to them that “this is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can easily be broken.”
He then proceeds to give each of them another stick and says. “This is how I would like you to live after I pass. Put your sticks together in bundles of 2’s and 3’s. Now, break these bundles in half.” No one was able to break the sticks. The old man smiles and says, “We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken.”
A couple of months ago I was really struggling with what church is all about. Part of the struggle – and I am not the only one who has ever had this struggle – was asking the question “should we just be out on the streets or should we be learning about God and praying and becoming better people so we don’t scare the people on the streets?”
I tend to fall into the second category. However, we contemplatives and lifelong learners can fool ourselves and never get to the streets. But somehow this question is too black and white. It doesn’t get to the crux of the matter.
On one particular day after I was journaling about this, I got into the car and turned on the radio. It happened to be on K-Love. (Aside---a bit conservative , but I just rewrite some of the lyrics in my head.)This song came on and I didn’t even drive out of the garage. I sat in the car and listened to the whole thing with tears running down my face. Three words in this song pierced through me --“We’re here now”.
The song really got me thinking about community. What if church was a place where you walk through the door and they say, “We’re here now. You don’t have to walk this path alone. We’re in this together. We don’t exactly know where we are going, but it will be so much better if we head there together.“ I don’t even know if the writer intended for this song to be about a church community, but that is how I heard it.
There is even another way we can welcome the new person who is walking through the door. We could say, “You’re here now. Thank goodness! We value your gifts and your unique spirit. We will be a stronger community now that you are here. ” We might not actually say this aloud. We don’t want to scare people. But -we can say it in our hearts. And somehow they will hear it or feel it. The word "community" is comes from the Old French communité which is derived from the Latin communitas (cum, "with/together" + munus, "gift"). Together- gift. Maybe we can start saying, “let’s have a ‘gift-together’”, rather than a get-together.
Do we realize the gift of community? Can we even comprehend the power of being with others and sharing our gifts? And if we add prayer and food to the mix, we our unstoppable! Imagine this on a bumper sticker - People, Prayer and Potlucks – a tool to change the world!