over the water

And isn’t this what the church is for? Two or three gathered together to raise up the Divine Presence among them? I don’t mean that the Eucharist is some sort of séance to conjure up the Spirit of Christ.

We know that God is always with us. We know that God’s presence is between and among us and within us; sustaining us, creating and redeeming us. And yet so often we turn our backs, close our eyes, stop up our ears.

I don’t believe that we can shut God out of our lives. But sometimes we shut ourselves away from the knowledge of the love of God, of the peace that passes all understanding. And so from time to time we need to make intentional the effort, the act of opening ourselves up to God, to remind ourselves of the presence of Christ in our lives.

Sometimes it’s painful; sometimes it’s painful to open up, to acknowledge our own sin, to admit our own hurt, and we need company to hold us while we bear the pain. And sometimes it is joyful and we need company for that, too. My late Aunt Joyce told me that the times that she missed my Uncle Ted the most after he died were those evenings when she came in from a wonderful date night with friends, and she came home on top of the world, and there was no one to tell. We need, we look for company in our joys as well as in our sorrows.

We know that God loves us, but we close ourselves off and shut ourselves away like sulky children; like sad and lonely and hurting children; like guilty children; even like happy little narcissistic children, so pleased with ourselves that we don’t feel the need to acknowledge anyone else.

And yet, the commandment to love one another is right up there; it is the corollary, the flipside of the greatest commandment, to love God. And we can never love another alone. We need the other to love.

It’s there at the beginning, in one of our own creation myths: God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;” and God should know, the one who made all things and saw to it that they were good.

It is not for nothing, it was not for kicks that God became Incarnate, became a person like us; because God knows that we need one another, and that we find God’s presence in those around us, the others made in the divine image. Of course, each of us can pray alone, and we know that God hears us; except when we don’t, except when we are afraid, or guilty, or hurting, or even sometimes when we are joyful; when we need to hear the Amen of another human being. When we need the reassurance of one another’s prayers. We are the symbols of God’s presence to one another, and when two or three are gathered together, on purpose in the name of Christ, we know from one another that he is with us.

I think, perhaps, that this is what our healing prayers are for: that we bring God’s presence to bear on one another, in body and in spirit. When we lay hands on one another, we say, I know that God made (in whatever way I understand that to work); I know that God made my hands. I know that God is present in these hands and I want to use them, these hands, to remind you of God’s presence with you, come what may; of God’s power to heal you, whatever may befall; of God’s love for you, God’s intention to embrace you with an all-encompassing love. We reveal God to one another, by our actions, in our prayers. Where two or three are gathered.

Matthew, in this gospel passage, is concerned about what happens next, about how our communities care for one another in times of conflict or disagreement; when one member sins, because every member will. Hopefully we take turns and don’t all break down at once.

Because Matthew and his church, his community had already realized that this effect, this Christ-effect, this presence lasts longer than the gathering moment, if a true community of Christ can be built.

Think about the Sunday mornings that you are away from this place, or the times that you have been in trouble and have known that there was a community here praying for you. Where two or three are gathered, there Christ is – but he is also known to the one who relies on the community to pray.

I was out on my bike earlier this week, and I had the revelation that ever since I joined the community of riders that participates in the Bishop’s Bike Ride each year, I never feel as though I ride alone any more. I was on my own, vulnerable to all sorts of passing traffic, and subject to all kinds of distractions, but at the back and ground and root of my brain was an awareness of all those people with whom I have shared that fellowship of the road in the name of Christ; people with whom I have prayed and broken bread and broken a few miles of pavement in the process. Once we become part of a community that gathers on purpose in the name of Christ, we are never quite alone again.

But such community and such bonds take work. Matthew talks about the work of repairing breaches; but the first and most basic work is simply showing up for one another, week in and week out; being present to one another in prayer and in spirit and in body; because it was not for nothing that God became Incarnate, became human. It was because we need God standing next to us. We need reminding how close God is to us, how real God’s presence among us, and within us, and between us.

Sometimes, love for one another, love for our neighbour; sometimes love is simply showing up. And when we do, Jesus promises, Christ promises, God promises, so will God.

I feel as though the lectionary has been leading us on. It started a few weeks ago, with the feeding of the multitude, and the reminder that the Eucharist was given not only for us but for all of those left over, for whom baskets of broken pieces were gathered up and saved, in order that no one should go hungry; neither those on the grass beside the Sea of Galilee nor those left behind; and the disciples were charged with taking care of the distribution.

Then we had Peter stepping out of the boat, and the woman of Canaan coming out to her own borders, both taking their faith in their hands and stepping out of their comfort zones to meet Jesus at least halfway; one with a little faith and one with a lot, each did what they could and each caused a miracle to happen.

Last week, we stepped outside and sat together in the shade, on the grass, and we talked about what Jesus means to us, who he is to us, and whether we should tell anyone else about him.

And now Paul tells us, the church,

Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Love one another; contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

The other week, I posted an article on facebook which was roundly damning of churches that look only inward, doing only in-reach, instead of looking outward, offering outreach. 

The consensus on our facebook page is that this critique was all well and good in a way – but a church surely needs to take care of its members as well as its mission. It is by being a community of the Holy Spirit that we get the inspiration to share our spiritual and material gifts with the world. We need to pay attention to Paul’s exhortation to love one another with mutual affection, without lagging in zeal, being patient and persevering.

But one of the reasons that we need to do it is that it is excellent practice for extending hospitality to strangers. A few weeks ago, there was plenty of giggling and whispering around the changing of seats after the Peace – and a few new introductions were made. Out of forty-three people in the building, three of whom were the priest, the musician and an infant, each of whom had arguably less freedom in their seating choice than the other forty – so out of forty people in the building, a few had never even met, although they’d worshipped within sight of one another week by week. We can think, perhaps, of loving one another with mutual affection, in this safe and small community, as practice in reaching out, introducing ourselves, loving our other neighbours.

And it shows on the outside, too. When you show up to visit one another in the hospital or at home; when you drive one another to doctor’s appointments, or sit with one another waiting for news, people notice. They notice who shows up. They know whether or not this is a real community of mutual affection by who shows up on the outside, when a neighbour is in need.

We do it for ourselves, for our own community of saints; but it also lets others know that we are open to mutual affection, that there is a chance of a welcome here, hospitality to the stranger.

William Temple, a rather wonderful twentieth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, is often quoted as saying that the church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members (although there are so many variants of the quote that I have to wonder what he really said; also, I wonder if he considered God a member?). Likewise, a book on Missional Church noes that, “We have begun to see that the church of Jesus Christ is not the purpose or goal of the gospel, but rather its instrument and witness,” that is, as wonderful and sacramental and good as the church is, it is not an end in itself.

We’ve taken some baby steps. We are praying for the city through the Euclid prayer walks. We are, largely through the dedicated zeal of Cyrus and his band of volunteers, forging ahead with re-starting the community meal: in fact, that’s a great example of the intersection of the gospel and the world, our servanthood and our leadership. We are serving food to anyone who needs it, regardless of religion or demographic or any other human marker of worth or values. That’s important. Showing hospitality to strangers has to be unconditional. Conditional hospitality is not hospitable at all. We offer this food, this meal to our neighbours because Jesus told us that when we do, we feed him. We offer this meal because we have promised at our baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and would we see him go hungry? We do not ask for anything in return – not even a prayer. And yet that very act of self-giving, of unconditional laying down and giving up raises up disciples. It raises us up first. We re-learn what it means to be disciples, distributing the bounty that Jesus has provided for us, dividing it among the multitudes. We invite others to help us – in working with St Bartholomew’s, we are acting out and actively building those bonds of mutual affection, that we all may be one as Jesus and his Father are one. When we say that we do this for the sake of God’s love for God’s world, then we preach the gospel in word and deed. And people see that. They see whether this is a community that lives its faith, that loves God and neighbour.

We tend to think in terms of either/or. Serve the community within or the community without. Us or them. Peter was afraid to choose one way over another; he was afraid that Jesus, heading towards Jerusalem and the cross, was narrowing his options. The resurrection proved otherwise. But the thing is, when it comes to the gospel, we really can have it all. We can feed the five thousand and have baskets of broken pieces left over. We can get out of the boat and walk on the very water. Given that we worship one who can both die and live forever, we really should be able to understand that we get to have it all.

Where is the gospel? We have it. It is right here. It is in our heart, in our hearts, it is in our souls and in our singing, it is in our bodies and yes, in our building, in the memories it holds and the music it emits and the spire silhouetted at sunset. And it is out there, in the empty horizon and in the knowledge that God’s Spirit breathes over the whole earth and not only over us, that there are baskets of broken pieces left over, that we carry with us, to distribute within a broken, hurting and ever-hopeful world. A world full of strangers reaching for a little holy hospitality.

So where is the gospel leading us? Wherever we choose to preach it.