The World Where It Happens, again

This Sunday, October 27, we will have a Congregational Meeting at the conclusion of the Sunday morning worship service (around 10:30am). The purpose of this meeting is to elect new Elders and Deacons, to elect persons to serve on the Nominating Commission for 2020, and to approve the 2020 Terms of Call for Associate Pastor Hayes Noble and Pastor Mark Davis.

I have received a lot of tremendous response about our October theme, “The World Where It Happens.” (Perhaps we should take a moment and be thankful that I didn’t go with the other theme I was thinking about for October. “Pumpkin Spice Jesus” just doesn’t have the same potential.)  We will conclude our series this weekend with a final story about the church in Antioch from Acts 11. You do not want to miss it. 

That upstart community in Antioch had some wonderful qualities: They were willing to bend religious traditions in order to allow the religious truth behind them to emerge. They were open to accountability and the one sent to check on them ended up joining them. And last week we saw how they really stepped into loving an enemy, by welcoming Saul of Tarsus – a force of persecution against the church before his transforming experience – as a resident teacher for a year. That way of living into the gospel may be why the narrator of Acts was able to say, “The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” 

I’m trying to imagine what the absolute, unique, central quality of a community must be in order to take the kind of radical steps that the community in Antioch took. Of course, we have to say it was the work of the Holy Spirit – that’s the central theme of the book of Acts. But, even so, the question remains: What is the central quality of a community when the Holy Sprit is at work? I don’t want to pretend that there’s only one answer to that question – that would be a Spirit-quenching sort of thing to do. But an answer, it seems to me, would be this: A community, where the Holy Spirit is at work, would be a people who are able to as moved by the experience of someone outside of their narrative as they are moved by experiences within their own narrative. This quality is perhaps nothing more than another way of expressing “love your neighbor as yourself,” but let me explain how I’m thinking about it. 

I’ve known a number of folks who were incredibly anti-gay, ostensibly based on their faith. (I happen to think there’s a deeper psychological motive that causes them to gravitate toward a particular way of expressing their faith, or to embrace it with a particular kind of fury. But, I need to let people tell their own story.) And I’ve known a number of those incredibly anti-gay folks who have changed their tune dramatically, usually because they have either come to terms with their own sexuality or because someone in their family whom they love dearly has come out. The journey from ‘virulently anti-gay’ to ‘open and affirming’ is hard, serious, and very courageous. I just wonder why so often it takes someone we know and love, before we can be open and affirming. The person that a virulently anti-gay person condemns with the harshest of words is somebody’s loved one. A church where the Holy Spirit is at work will not limit its empathy to their own relatives, but to recognize that everyone is someone’s beloved child, sibling, parent, or friend. It is that ability to regard the stranger as favorably as we regard our own that demonstrates the meaning of loving one’s neighbor as ourselves. 

That is why it is so important for us to invest time, energy, attention, and money in prophetic and compassionate outreach ministries. That is why we need our Deacons to lead us into our relationships with Glenn Martin elementary school, the Irvine Adult Transition Program, Project Hope Alliance, and so forth. It is why we need the Peace and Justice Commission to lead us in our advocacy on Gun Violence, Human Trafficking, Immigration, and the plight of Farm Workers. It is why we study the world in our Great Decisions program. It is why we need our Mission Commission to guide our investments into CEPAD, AMOS, and the Orange County Alliance for Just Change. It is why our Adult Discipleship and Nurture Commission leads us in a panel discussion on Transgender Issues and Bible Studies on the depth and meaning of our faith. It is why our Youth and Children’s Ministry provides opportunities for our younger church to learn the faith and, in turn, to teach us the faith. And it is why we need our Worship Commission to provide us with weekly worship services, designed to allow us to worship God as well as to come before God with hearts open for transformation.  

In the end, it’s all about being a church so full of the Holy Spirit that we love God by loving our neighbors, even our enemies, in ways that are as natural to us as loving our closest family and friends. By God’s grace, let’s be that church.

Mark of St. Mark