21st Sunday after Pentecost
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Psalm 90:12-17
Hebrews 4:12-16
Mark 10:17-31
Today we are continuing to look at the themes
that have emerged as part of Grace’s vocation
during the Vitality Initiative.
Remember vocation is the intersection
between the unique gifts that God has given us as a congregation
and how God wants to work in the world
through us using those gifts.
Last week our theme, our vocation verb was: welcoming.
God welcomes all, stranger and friends;
God’s love is strong and it never ends.
We have heard in listening to God,
to this community, and to our neighbors
that welcoming is a particular gift that God has given us
and that God wants to use to work through us.
It makes sense.
Our theme for today is a little less obvious,
at least biblically speaking
but is something we heard loud and clear: connecting.
God has given us the gift of connection
and is calling us to build more connections,
between us and God,
between congregation members,
with our neighbors.
Now there aren’t a lot of Bible verses or hymns that explicitly use the word “connection”
so I had to dig a little deeper and ask,
what is it that connects us?
The simple answer is the love of God.
The love of God is what connects us to God,
to one another,
and to our neighbors.
And there are a lot of Bible verses about that
including 1 John 4:19 “We love because God first loved us.”
Our capacity to love, care for, connect with one another
is based on the love, care, and connection of God
who created us to be connected to God and to one another.
Sin then is the breaking of those connections
and the work of God
is repairing all the broken connections.
This is the story of God and the people
we see throughout the scriptures
God enters into relationship with humans,
the humans break the relationship,
there are consequences,
and God tries again,
another way to connect to repair the relationship.
One of the ways that God tried
was through the gift of the law,
especially the 10 commandments,
if you look at them closely
you’ll notice that they are all about relationships,
relationship with God,
with the powers in the world,
and with one another.
These are the laws that the rich man in our gospel
had kept from his youth
but as he found,
as God found
even this great gift wasn’t enough
so God gave us Jesus
to bring the way of God into the world,
to repair the relationship between God and humans once and for all,
to heal or mend the world.
This is the heart of Jesus’ teachings,
his healings, and ultimately his death and resurrection
because it is impossible for us humans to do this work on our own,
something of this world will always get in the way.
This is what Jesus is teaching in the gospel this morning.
The rich man comes and kneels at Jesus’ feet
and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life,
to be in eternal relationship with God.
Now kneeling is the posture of people
that come to seek healing from Jesus
and Jesus diagnoses
that what is getting in the way of a full relationship
with God and neighbor for this man
is all his stuff.
So he prescribes selling it all
and giving the money to the poor
and coming and following Jesus.
He prescribes this out of love for the man,
this is a cure not a punishment
and yet the man goes away shocked and grieving.
Then Jesus turns to the disciples
and makes sure they get the point,
that it is impossible for humans,
however blessed they may seem
(wealth was seen as a sign of divine blessing)
it is impossible for them to enter the kingdom of God on their own,
it is up to God to do this,
Now the disciples still miss the point
Peter says “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”
and Jesus tells him
‘yes but that is still not going to make your time in this life easy, nor will you be counted as great for this, remember the first will be last and the last will be first.’
The rich man and Peter are asking self-centered,
or in vitality we call them church centered questions.
They are the focus,
“What must I do”
“We have left everything”
and so Jesus gives them self-centered responses
which basically boil down to
‘it’s impossible for you to be perfect or you to do this on your own.’
This is God’s work that you are participating in
and God will work in God’s own time,
and with God all things are possible.
If we make ourselves the center of the story,
if we try to fix things all on our own,
if we try and dictate the terms of success
- and this is in our own lives and our life together as a congregation-
even if we live as faithfully as possible,
we will fail
because what we have set out to do is impossible.
But,
if we focus on God
and what God is doing,
if we ask God for healing
and then put aside the things that are getting in the way
of us fully connecting with God,
then all things are possible.
This is the shift we are called to make
through the vitality initiative,
to listen for what God is already doing
and to join in that,
even if it means leaving behind
what have seemed like blessings in the past.
And one of the things that we’ve heard
that God is already doing in and through us
with the potential for much much more is connecting.
Think of it like all these quilts
separate pieces of fabric stitched- connected- together
to create something whole and beautiful, and useful too!
Through sin and brokenness,
the fabric of life has been torn to pieces,
(tear fabric)
we are called by God to help put those pieces together again
and even though it won’t look exactly like it was before the tear
it is possible to create something whole and beautiful with all the pieces
and there are all sorts of different ways to take part in the process,
just like the process of putting a quilt together.
There’s the top,
that’s the flashy part that everyone sees and thinks of,
and is made up of smaller pieces of fabric stitched together
Then there’s the middle, the batting, the filling,
this is what adds weight and warmth to the quilt,
once the quilt is finished you don’t see the batting
but you can sure feel if it is there or not,
and then there’s the back,
usually just one piece of fabric
that covers up the batting or filler,
not as flashy as the front
but still seen and important
as the foundation of the blanket.
So there’s three parts,
what holds them together?
That’s the quilting part,
small stitches that run through all three pieces,
or you can tie quilts,
that’s what the quilts in the pews are,
just one bigger stitch here and there
that in the end holds the pieces together.
but what holds these pieces in place in the meantime?
That allows these fabrics to be laid on top of each other
and joined together?
That is the quilting frame,
I’ve got a small frame right here,
there are full size frames downstairs,
and the frame is what makes it possible
for the separate larger pieces to come together into one quilt,
only after the quilt is tied or quilted does is come off the frame
and the binding or strip of cloth around the outside put on.
Now I do have a point with this,
we’re thinking about connecting today
and the process of quilting is all about connections,
so where does Graces' vocation of connecting
fit into the image of the connections of a quilt?
We could say each member is like a piece of fabric on the top of a quilt,
together we make up a larger beautiful piece of fabric,
we could talk about other parts of our life together
being the batting or the backing
and all would be true,
but I think the vocation of connecting
that we heard as we listened to God,
to congregation members, and to the community
is that of the quilt frame.
Grace is the quilt frame that holds the larger pieces together
to give time for smaller connections to be made,
the small connections that make a quilt a quilt
and not just three separate pieces lying on top of one another.
Think of all the people that come together
and build connections because of our congregation
- there’s this worshiping community,
there are the seniors that meet during the day through Aging Partners,
there are the immigrants and refugees that come together
and build new connections with the help of Lincoln Literacy,
there are the scouts, and the Al-anon groups,
the musicians, the bible studies,
each seemingly separate pieces
but here they are held together long enough
so that every now and then
a stitch of love will move through and join them all together,
God stitching us together in love
creating something whole and beautiful.
It is not possible for us to fix the world on our own,
at best we can contribute a small piece here and there,
while someone else contributes another piece,
and someone else another,
and all these pieces need a place
where God can bring them together
and do God’s work of mending the world,
of making us all whole.
To be that place
to provide that connection and support,
that is Grace’s gift from God
and calling,
the calling of connecting. Amen
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