Sermon 3/21/21
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Focus: Our wellbeing is inextricably linked with the wellbeing of our communities
Function: We are called across boundaries to love our neighbor.
Jeremiah 29:4-14- New Revised Standard Version
4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,[a] 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.
10 For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12 Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13 When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14 I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
Romans 12:9-21 - New Revised Standard Version
9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.[a] 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;[b] do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18 If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;[c] for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
We have explored what it means to be community over the past few weeks - we have seen that God created us to be in community with each other; we talked about how to make the best decisions concerning our communities. We discussed what it means to be genuine, beloved community and how God calls us to be a community led by justice for all God’s people. As Pastor Sarah said in her sermon during week 2, “The plan for God’s good community...is always the same. To establish ‘shalom’ - wholeness and peace - in which all members of the community can contribute to the common good.”
Back at the beginning of this sermon series, I talked about the Hebrew word shalom. Sometimes interpreted as peace or prosperity, the word shalom in our Jeremiah text for today is translated as welfare. “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare,” we read in verse 7. But perhaps you remember, the word shalom is rich with meaning. It is about wholeness. “Seek the shalom of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its shalom you will find your shalom.” So in other words, “Seek the wholeness of the community where you have been planted, pray to God for its wellbeing, for in its welfare, you will find your own peace.” The wellbeing of one is wrapped up with the wellbeing of all.
This concept of our interconnectedness, our interdependence, is actually biological. In his book “Together” The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World,” Dr. Vivek H. Murthy talks about how much humans rely on community to survive. In his time as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, he explored loneliness as a health crisis. He writes, “The more I studied the seesaw relationship between loneliness and togetherness, the more convinced I became of the great power of human connection. So many of the problems we face as a society -- from addiction and violence to disengagement among workers and students to political polarization -- are worsened by loneliness and disconnection. Building a more connected world holds the key to solving these and many more of the personal and societal problems confronting us today.” In his research, Dr. Murthy came across the work of the late Dr. John Cacioppo, a scientist who did dedicated research on loneliness. Dr. Murthy says, “When looking at loneliness through the lens of history and biology, John and his team found that the human need for social connection is more than a simple feeling of convenience--it’s a biological and social imperative rooted in thousands of years of human evolution… Cacioppo’s evolutionary theory of loneliness was rooted in the observation that humans have survived as a species not because we have physical advantages like size, strength, or speed, but because of our ability to connect in social groups. We exchange ideas. We coordinate goals. We share information and emotions.”
Our entire species surviving and thriving counted on community. If we examine ways of living in both ancient and modern times, we see that groups of people throughout time have structured their lives and societies around community. Tribes are reliant on all the members - relationship and working together are crucial. One story from Dr. Murthy’s book that I really appreciated is when he talks about a conversation he and his wife once had with their uber driver on the way to the airport. As they struck up a conversation about family, the Uber driver, who was from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia said that what he missed most about his home was that “people around you there took care of you, and you did the same. You can just leave your kids with your neighbor and go away for four or five days and they will take care of them. It’s what we do. We cook for each other, we take care of each other’s kids, and we spend time together.” How beautiful is that? The way that they are community shows how much they know that they need each other and rather than shy away from that reality, rather than try to prove one’s independence, they lean into their interdependence. How different is that from how most of us live?
Tom Tait, a city leader in Anaheim, California, based his campaign for public office on kindness. The reason? He said, “In our part of the country, the culture is privacy, big walls between houses, neighborhoods designed around cars which disappear into your garage, and secluded backyards.” Kindness is not always the culture. Relying on and helping your neighbor is not our default way of living in many modern American societies. But though being a good neighbor is not always easy, it is our biblical calling.
In week three of our series, we read the scripture most commonly called the “Greatest Commandment,” God’s call for us to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. But this is hardly the only time we see such a calling in scripture. In our scripture this morning from Romans, Paul tells the church in Rome to, “ love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor… Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers...Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” Paul names in this passage what it means to be in Christian community. To embrace mutuality - our need for one another, and to live with empathy and strive for peace in one’s community.
We see this call, too, in our scripture from Jeremiah, where the people are told to seek the shalom of their community - for their wellbeing is all wrapped up in the wellbeing of their community. This concept of a community of mutuality is one that is familiar to activist and advocate Mia Birdsong. Birdsong is co-director of Family Story and author of How We Show Up, her book about family and community. Mia Birdsong was a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, Everything Happens with Kate Bowler. Kate says this after her conversation with Mia on the podcast, “Community is too often a buzzword, an empty noun without action. But the community Mia describes isn’t community for community’s sake. This is the hard work of interdependence, figuring out where I end and you begin. Community as a verb. The work of belonging takes us all. As Mia writes, all the horrors we face today will only be solved if we understand that we are all in this together. We are most moved toward action by our relationships with others... We need to develop a sense of belonging in and to the world that tells us other people are ours to care for. And this active developing community may come through first-grade teachers who become aunties and emergency contacts or supper clubs who aren’t afraid to approach taboo topics in politics and injustice, or through knowing your actual neighbors and figuring out how your vote sustains someone else’s future. This is the moment to feel the weight and the joy of belonging and how in both solidarity and friendship, in policy and in deed on a national level and in the people we check in on, we act like we are hopelessly, inextricably tied.”
Mia defines community as a verb. It’s something we do because we need each other and we belong to each other. She talks about where she has seen this lived out in a very real way in order for people to survive. She says, “where I’ve seen the most kind of expansive and deep and connected and interdependent community and family are among the people who have been excluded from the American dream. So poor people, queer people, people with disabilities unhoused people, sex workers. And in order to survive racism and capitalism and gender discrimination… you really have to do that with other people… If you’re going to make it, you really have to be in deep community with other people. That exclusion means that they have to build family community in ways that allow them to stay alive.” Mia is talking about the ways that our systems often fail us. Our systems in government and non-profits and other organizations and institutions don’t always take care of us the way they should. So in order to survive, people step up and care for one another - they step up and love their neighbors. And on a larger scale, they stand in solidarity with folks who don’t have everything they need like security and safety, shelter and food…
This would not be an unfamiliar concept to the exiles that Jeremiah addresses in his letter. They are not in a situation that they chose and they are not getting out of it anytime soon. Jeremiah uses the number “70” to indicate that unlike what other prophets are saying, they are going to be in Babylon for a long time. God has a plan for God’s people, a plan for their shalom, but that doesn’t mean that they immediately escape their present situation. Even in the midst of exile, God is calling the people to live their lives. It is not the life they wanted or expected - it was forced upon them. But still, they are to do what they can to help themselves and their neighbor. They are called by the prophet Jeremiah to realize that they gain nothing by closing themselves off from their context - rather, they have the chance to flourish if only they will pray and work for shalom for the entire community - including the Babylonians. Jeremiah charged the people with crossing the boundaries of familiarity to plant roots among the people they did not consider their own “community” because their wellbeing depended on it.
Community is something that we need, but even more - it is something that we create. And when we do, we start to see and experience shalom. Community is in the little things - it’s in bringing each other meals during busy or difficult times and in the cards we send each other on birthdays. Community is in the daily things - it’s in saying hello to our neighbor when we go out to get the mail and in check-in phone calls with our friends and family. Community is in the big things, too - it’s in standing up against racism and voting with our whole community in mind. Community is created when we step outside of ourselves and our own needs to look at the people around us - it is created when our actions reflect our understanding that we are all tied together and that what affects one of us affects us all. I think Mother Teresa sums it up well in this quote: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Let us not forget. Let us seek the shalom of our neighbors. For in their shalom, we find our own. Amen.