Beyond Barriers: Self/Community

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Rev. Monte Marshall

Well, our journey through the season of Lent continues.  The theme is Beyond Barriers.  Today, we’re confronting the barriers that keep us from realizing an appropriate balance between self and community within the fellowship of the church.   We’ll also catch a glimpse of the transformative possibilities that await us beyond the barriers. 

Let us pray.  PRAYER.

In 1985, four sociologists and a philosopher published a bestselling book entitled Habits of the Heart:  Individualism and Commitment in American Life.  After intensive interviews and research, the authors reached this conclusion:  “Individualism lies at the very core of American culture.”  They then highlighted the positive side of individualism:  “We believe in the dignity, indeed the sacredness of the individual.  Anything that would violate our right to think for ourselves, judge for ourselves, make our own decisions, live our lives as we see fit, is not only morally wrong, it is sacrilegious.  Our highest and noblest aspirations, not only for ourselves, but for those we care about, for our society and for the world, are closely linked to our individualism.  “Yet”—and here they note the dark side of individualism—“some of our deepest problems both as individuals and as a society are also closely linked to individualism….Modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is neither individually nor socially viable.”[1]

In commenting on the book, Christopher Lasch identified the downside of “modern individualism.”  He noted “that our culture produces not an imperial self but a beleaguered, empty and minimal self, one that retains only a tenuous grip on its surroundings and on its own identity.”[2]

Another writer has made this observation:  “In a world populated by billions of people, some folks . . . can’t shake the nagging pain of feeling lonely . . . detached . . . disconnected.  The lament of loneliness is one of the most common anthems of our time….We have become a society of clients more than colleagues . . . acquaintances more than friends.”[3]

According to author Robert McGee, “Ninety-two percent of the Christians attending a recent…conference admitted in a survey that feelings of loneliness are a major problem in their lives.  All shared a basic symptom:  a sense of despair at feeling unloved and a fear of being unwanted or unaccepted.”[4] 

Chicago Tribune writer Marla Paul once wrote a self-revealing column confessing deep sadness and frustration at her own inability to build and sustain friendships.  She wrote the column expecting little, if any, response.  Instead, she was inundated with letters from other experiencing the same kind of isolation and frustration.  One woman wrote:  “I have this fear of becoming a very lonely, old widow sitting around and listening to the clock tick.”  This fear, she said, just about paralyzes her life.  She said that she has no sense of community, no family, no friendship or small group or church community to which she belonged.  She was terrified by the thought of dying alone.[5]

So here’s the point:  The kind of individualism that produces self-absorbed, self-contained individuals, and far too many people living with the pain of loneliness and isolation from others, is toxic.  We were not created to live like this.  We were created to live in community with an appropriate balance between the self and connection with others.

And in this morning’s text, Paul speaks to us of life in community as followers of Jesus, and he uses body language to make his point:  “You then are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it.”  He speaks to the whole, and he addresses each individual part of the whole. 

One commentator notes:  In this “body” that is also called the church elsewhere in Paul’s writings, “we’re not a mass of individualists here.  We’re joined together into a body.”  We’re interconnected with one another like the parts of the body.  “We’re not an organization but an organism.”[6]

This body—or community—finds its unity as it reflects Christ.  It is the one Spirit that connects the individual parts to the whole in baptism.  All of the many different members of the body “have been given to drink of the one Spirit” in baptism.  All of this is to say that it’s God who connects the body together and gives each individual part its value and its purpose.   

So even though “we’re not a mass of individualists” in this body, there is room for individuality.  We are one body, but with many parts.  Paul speaks of the composition of the church in his day by noting that some are Jews, some are Greeks, some are slaves, and some are citizens.  He also turns metaphorical in illustrating his point by referring to the interconnectedness of actual parts of the human body like the foot, a hand, and an ear.  Paul asks the question:  “If all the parts were alike, where would the body be?” 

Paul also acknowledges that individual parts within the body are valued differently.  Yes, those of us in the church do have prejudices.  So some “members of the body…seem less important” to others. And some members are viewed as “less honorable” and “less presentable to others.” 

Paul does not, however, let these distinctions go unaddressed.  He emphasizes that the individual members of the body need one another.  He emphasizes that every part of the body is indispensable.  His vision is of a body—a community—in which there is mutual concern for one another:  “If one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members share its joy.”

In this kind of community in 21^st century America, Black Lives Matter, rainbow banners spell inclusiveness for all parts of the human family including LGBTQ persons, and God’s unconditional love and justice are put into practice.  In this kind of community, the positive side of individualism is embraced—the kind of individualism that recognizes and protects the dignity and sacred worth of each individual. 

As commentator Karen Stokes puts it, Paul envisions in this morning’s text, a community living with “a healthy balance between the need for connection and for a clear sense of oneself as an individual.”[7]  She then adds:  “A healthy church [today] invites and enables its members to find their own answer to the question, ‘How can I be who I am and stay connected to you?’”[8]

The authors of Habits of the Heart also wrote of this balance:  “We find ourselves not independently of other people and institutions but through them.  We never get to the bottom of ourselves on our own.  We discover who we are face to face and side by side with others in work, love and learning.  We are not simply ends in ourselves, either as individuals or as a society.  We are parts of larger whole that we can neither forget nor imagine in our own image without paying a high price.  If we are not to have a self that hangs in the void, slowly twisting in the wind, these are issues that we cannot ignore.”[9]        

Do we know what it’s like to find ourselves through connection with others in the body of Christ?  Well, I want to tell you about my friend, Tim Stewart.  Tim was my medical doctor during the time that we lived in Fredericksburg, we belonged to the same church, and we were in an accountability group together.  When I first met Tim in 1994, he was in his early thirties, married, and with two children, a boy and a girl.  He had just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer without a cure.

The treatments were extraordinarily difficult.  As I recall, Tim had two bone marrow transplants that helped him survive until 2008 when the disease finally took his life.

Tim and I were once together on a team leading a Men’s Walk to Emmaus.  For those of you who don’t know, the Walk to Emmaus is a 72-hour short course in Christianity that includes 15 talks on various subjects related to grace and Christian discipleship.  Tim gave the talk entitled, The Body of Christ.

I’ll never forget how Tim illustrated his experience of community in the body of Christ.  He had a large paper bag.  He reached in and grabbed the end of piece of yarn and started to pull.  Out of bag, came one card after another, each tied onto the piece of yarn.  Tim kept pulling until he had the group of 40 plus guys circling the room, each with a hand on the yarn. I think the cards on the yard circled the room 2 or 3 times. 

For Tim, each card represented an expression of love and support from so many he had formed community with.  They had helped him find the strength within himself to keep going, to live one day at a time to its fullest, and to love and care in return.  And he immersed himself even more deeply into community.  The hundreds of cards on the string circling that room, represented for Tim, the power of community in the body of Christ.  In each tangible expression of care, he discerned Christ and experienced God’s love and care for him through others in community. 

So let all of this together by sharing with you a glimpse of the transformative possibilities that exist beyond the barriers.  Author David Augsberger points the way:  “Community [in the body of Christ] is a web of stubbornly loyal relationships knotted together into a living network of persons…

“Community [in the body of Christ] is not just webbed from one believer to another but is held firm by a central strand resolutely attached to Jesus Christ [in which] members listen to each other attentively, expecting to sometimes hear his voice as another speaks, and look to each other knowing that now and again they may see his face in the other….

“Community [in the body of Christ] is a group in which free conversation occurs, [and] the…participants risk openness in revealing their struggles and vulnerability in accepting help, and they find that others are sensitive and responsive to their self-disclosure….

“Community [in the body of Christ] is a setting for dealing clearly with unity and discord, positive attachments and negative repulsions, concord and conflict…to seek a unity that accepts and integrates discord, not a unity without or excluding discord….

“Community [in the body of Christ] is a place where both good friends and predictable frustrators are present, needed, valued, respected, incorporated, and indeed learned from in genuine dialogue…[in which] stubbornly inclusive participants do not give up on the irritating or withdraw into the conforming, but rather welcome both.”

“In the [body of Christ] we look on diversity not as our enemy, but as a cause for gratitude.  ‘People are talented and untalented, simple and difficult, devout and less devout, sociable and loners….The weak need the strong for support; the strong need the weak for balance and guidance.  We dare exclude neither from community, or community dies; both must be included in mutual service and ministry.”[10]

So my brothers and sisters, isn’t it time to move beyond the barriers of toxic individualism that produce so much loneliness and pain?  Isn’t it time to deepen our experience of the transforming reality we call the body of Christ?  I challenge us all to engage in this week’s Lenten Experiment in Transformation: 

• Identify one barrier in your life that keeps you from experiencing an appropriate balance between healthy individuality and participation in community?
• Identify one challenging step you can take to move beyond the barriers.
• Act to take the step.

 

I commit to you today that over the next several years, the staff and lay leadership of our church will be increasing the opportunities for all of us to connect in community so that we each might experience the power of belonging to the body of Christ.  And may God help us all!  Thanks be to God!  Amen.