For our sermon series, we are continuing in our One Another
series looking at God's invitation to community and what
it means to be a people marked by love.
And so our scripture reading is coming from First Corinthians
12/24 B to 26 and it goes like this.
But God has put the body together, giving greater honor
to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division
in the body, but that it's parts should have equal concern for
each other. If one part suffers, every part
suffers with it. If one part is honored, every
part rejoices with it. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks, Catherine. Hey, everybody.
How we doing this morning? Good to see you.
It is delightful to be here, a
little bit cooler today. I'm grateful for, grateful for
the wind and the cooler temperatures.
Hey, my name is Josh. I'm one of the pastors here at
Reality. I say this every week, but if I
haven't met you yet, I'd love to meet you.
I'd love to get to know you a little bit.
We are a community, a church that aspires to be, a community
that can really journey together through the highs and the lows.
When things are going great, and also when they're not, to to be
there and to show up for each other.
That's what this sermon series is about on these one another
passages of scripture and if you're just checking out reality
today, it would love to talk to you.
Come find me, find the hospitality folk at the table
and we'd love to to share more about the the church and and
help you get plugged in. Well, this morning as has
already been mentioned, we're we're in this series on the one
another passages of Scripture. And specifically, when we say
one another passages, there's this, there's this word that's a
recurring theme throughout the New Testament, that's this Greek
word, alay loan that shows up over and over again and usually
it's translated in one another or each other or something like
that. And when we look at each of
these individual passages, we get a glimpse of 1 aspect of
what it means to be community, one aspect of what it means.
To love one another, You could almost think of it like facets
on a diamond, if the diamond is what it means to actually love.
When we zoom in on these individual facets, we get a
clearer picture of what that looks like in reality.
And so this morning we're considering Paul's charge in one
Corinthians 12/25 to care for one another.
What does it look like to care for each other?
Well. Right off the bat, I should
probably say that I don't think that I am an expert at this.
This is probably not something that is my strong suit, more of
a growth area than a strength area on my part.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm like try to be a decent human
and care for other people, but I just, I I don't naturally
gravitate towards care and concern.
In fact, I I notice as I kind of reflect back that my default is.
And I wanna fix problems. And if I can't fix the problem
then I usually go and try and find a problem that I can fix.
That's something that's solvable and I don't.
I've noticed this, for instance, with my toddler Ava, who is a 2
year old right now, and experiencing all of the
terribleness of that. And she will pretty.
I mean she's wonderful most of the time.
And then she has these moments where she just totally loses it.
She melts down, right. And and for me I can engage
those or I noticed that my impulse is to engage those in
one of two ways. Either I want to be like primary
parent caregiver who is helping to resolve the situation or I
want to leave the room, right. There's no there's no in between
like if if if Ali, my wife is is engaging the situation.
I'm like, OK, I'm out of here. I don't want to just stand here
because this is so it's so uncomfortable to be in the in
the in the presence of somebody who's screaming at the top of
their lungs, you know, carefully calibrated to to trigger parents
I think. But this, this, this impulse
shows up in in lots of ways and the more I pay attention, the
more I notice that it's not really how I'd like to be in the
world. I don't think it's that helpful
this impulse to either fix or. Forget a while back, a couple of
my friends who were married were going through just a really
painful chapter in their life. One partner had cheated on the
other and their marriage was in freefall.
They were not doing well and I didn't find out about this
directly through them. I found it out through a mutual
friends who was connected to to both and and so it was one of
these situations where I like I wasn't sure if I was supposed to
know. I thought maybe I wasn't
supposed to know and they didn't know that I knew and.
I just, I wasn't sure how to engage the whole situation and
so honestly, mostly I didn't. Right.
I I I would see them in Group settings and just kind of
chitchat and I was like, maybe I should, you know maybe I should
press in and ask. But like I don't want to make it
awkward and I don't want to bring up like a sore subjects.
They haven't shared it with me. Maybe it's best to just keep my
distance and as I reflect back on that I I I think I mostly
flubbed. The situation like it would have
been kinder at some point to to just say, hey, I'm like in the
loop and I care about you and I heard that this thing is going
on and is there any way I can help?
Is there any way I can support you?
I don't know, maybe you found yourself in this situation as
well, where you have this this impulse to either either to fix
a problem or particularly, as is so often the case in life, when
problems feel kind of unfixable to just.
Keep your distance. I know that's true for me and
and maybe you found yourself in a situation where there's a
friend who's struggling with mental health issues or their
sexuality. Maybe it was somebody who you
noticed was in a space with their anger or their drinking
that you looked at the situation and you were like, they seem not
OK, right? It seems like they're not
really. Well, it seems like there's some
turmoil and some wrestling happening here and.
And at the same time you were just like, but I don't know what
to say. I certainly don't know how to
fix it. And so you just kind of held,
held your space and stayed on the sidelines.
One of my favorite authors, Henry now and talks about the
challenge of compassion when he says diagnosing.
I think, me mostly what we desire most is to do away with
suffering, by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.
As busy, active, relevant people, we want to earn our
bread by making a real contribution.
This means, first and foremost, doing something to show that our
presence really makes a difference.
It goes on to comment that when we allow ourselves to operate in
this default, that we actually ignore our greater gift, our
greatest gift, which is the opportunity to enter into
solidarity with those who suffer.
I think for many of us, certainly for me, this impulse,
which I'm trying to change for myself, is concerning because it
it keeps us for entering in in a way of care with people who are
struggling in one way or another.
In One Corinthians, Paul is speaking to this very issue when
he he challenges the Corinthian believers to care for one
another. And and here in this text in
First Corinthians 12, we're actually dealing with parallel
imagery to to what we talked about in the book of Romans a
couple weeks back when we Paul used the same imagery of of the
church as a body. And once again he he picks up
the same metaphor here comparing the church to a body with all of
these different parts. And and it's in this context
that he calls the Corinthians to care for one another.
If you were to look at a map for the city of Corinth, you would
find that it's kind of right at a crossroads in all sorts of
ways. It divides the northern and
southern parts of Greece, and it also divides the Ionian and the
Aegean Sea. In fact there's just just about
5 miles or so of of coast or I'm I'm sorry, of of land on this
isthmus that divides one from the other.
And and Corinth in the time of scripture was known as the
master of Two Harbors because it was this place where ships would
literally come in from one side coming from either Asia in the
One Direction or or Rome in the capital in the other direction.
And they would they would dock where they would come into port
on the one side of the city. And they had this crazy
contraption unlike anything else in the the ancient world.
It was an ancient version of a railroad.
Essentially they used these pavers and and and beams slicked
with with grease and fat in order to to drop loads of cargo
on them. And then they would push this
cargo across to the other port, sometimes even even pushing
small boats over until because of this, as you can imagine,
Corinth was this. This huge hub, it was the IT was
the largest city in Greece and it was a happen in place.
It was the center of commerce and activity kind of like New
York today for just a quick thumbnail example.
And and because of all of this there was a culture in the city
of of going for it like people were ambitious in Corinth.
People came to Corinth to make a name for themselves in order to
get ahead, to get rich, to make it.
And and and there was this, this posture of ambition and striving
that was characteristic not only of the city, but in many ways of
the church as well. And we see this posture showing
up again and again throughout Paul's letter to the Corinthians
as he challenges them to go in a different direction, where
instead of kind of measuring themselves against one another
and constantly worrying about their social status and
standing, that they would enter into this alternative kind of
arrangement. And here in First Corinthians
12, this is exactly what Paul is getting at when he urges them as
the body to enter into care and concern for one another, to do
so equally in a way of of equity.
And so Paul here challenges the Corinthian believers to to
relate, not based on their status or the flashiest, the
flashiness of their gifts, but just because they are brothers
and sisters in Christ. They're part of the same body.
To show up in equity and care. And we find here specifically
these words in in verse 27, that you are the body of Christ, and
each one of you is a part of it. So within the context of these
imagery, there's two words in particular that I want to key in
on this morning and they both come just two verses before that
in verse 25. The first one will be no
surprise to anybody who's been here throughout this series.
It's kind of our signature word for the series, A Lay alone,
which is translated in verse 25 as each other.
But just before that we find this word translated.
Depending on the translation you have in front of you as concern,
or in some cases the the Nasby, the ESV render it as care.
And this word for concern here can can mean any of these
things. It can mean care.
It can mean attention, it can mean concern.
But it has this idea of being attentive to the concern of one
another and rendering support in some way.
Paul goes on to say in the very next verse and verse 26, that if
anybody is experiencing high in the community, we should and we
should come alongside them and rejoice with them.
Someone in the community is experiencing suffering.
If they're down, they're going through a hard space.
We should again come alongside them and be willing to enter
into suffering with them as well.
Over the past few years, I've become increasingly appreciative
of the friends in my life who do this.
It's part of what has sparked this journey for me of beginning
to push back on some of the the the illustrations that I used
earlier to. To try and more effectively show
up for folks in a in a deeper way.
But one story really stands out is my friend Cassandra.
Shortly after Ally and I discovered that we were
expecting our our first child, We were telling some of our
close friends and we were at out to dinner with Cassandra and
Ally kind of, I don't know, in an understated way, almost
sheepishly shared. Well, you know, like.
Found out some stuff and seems like we're pregnant, like going
to have a kid and Cassandra responded.
First of all, I think it was like this slow motion effect for
me, but her entire face just like started to glow and she let
out this incredibly joyful shriek that I'm pretty sure
everyone in the entire restaurant heard.
And you could just see heads turning all around like what is
going on And she was just like so excited, you know it was an
excitement that at that point I think felt too vulnerable,
almost too risky even for us to to fully state even though part
of us was feeling that. But Cassandra entered, entered
into the joy like no holds barred.
She was just fully in it. And it actually allowed us to
enter into that, that joy and the delight, that excitement
that we were experiencing as well.
But you know, it is difficult sometimes, at least for me,
maybe not for you, but it's difficult sometimes to let
yourself really enter into the joy of another person, to to
fully experience it, and even more so I think, to enter into
suffering. One afternoon in May of this
year, Sarah, who's a member of one of our Dorchester micro
churches, received the the shocking news that her nephew
had found her sister dead and Sarah was, as you would imagine,
devastated. The news caught her totally by
surprise. Her sister was young and
healthy, and there was no reason to expect that anything like
this might happen. Her sister and former husband
both lived in Georgia, and Sarah here in in Boston just really
wasn't sure what to do with herself or or how to even be in
the wake of such devastating news.
In the days that would follow, she would connect with her
family in New Hampshire and of course travel to the funeral in
Georgia. But but in the immediate wake of
the news, she didn't know what to do or or where to turn.
And so one thing she did was she she messaged our our micro
church thread. And just basically broke the
news and said, hey, this is what's going on, could you pray
for my family? And I was totally unhelpful.
I was in Montana with Rashad 100% off grade at the time but
other people weren't. Other people were present and
and one member of our community in particular responded with not
just, you know, the thoughts and prayers, but really said, hey
Sarah, is there is there any way that we could be with you in
this time? Like, could somebody drive you
somewhere? Do you want?
Like, yes, we're praying for you, but could we, could we get
on the phone or could we could we get on a Zoom or could we
come to your house to pray with you?
Like, is there anything that we could do to to support you, even
if it's doesn't seem like a big, like, we'll just come and be
with you. And Sarah initially was
hesitant. It felt like an imposition.
It was a work day. Everybody in the group had jobs
and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
But in a conversation with her uncle, he really encouraged her
to lean into the support system that she had.
And so, with some trepidation, Sarah reached out and said, hey,
yeah, like it'd actually be great.
I'm slammed with this project for my floral business right
now. I'm really not doing very well.
If there's anybody who just has bandwidth to just come and be,
I'd welcome that. Didn't even take a minute for
the first person to respond on you from our community
immediately. Dropped what she was doing,
messaged Sarah and was on her way to Easty.
Maggie, another member of our community, was right behind.
And so they went and they showed up and they sat with Sarah on
the floor. I think they hauled some
bouquets around, even went on a couple of deliveries for her
business, but mostly they just tried and hung out and were
present. The next day, another member of
our community, Julia, showed up and did the same thing.
When I was debriefing this experience with Sarah more
recently, she named that, you know, there were lots of things
that were helpful about the experience.
It was helpful to get some help with this project that she would
not have gotten through for her business otherwise.
It was really helpful to to get a check from the group to help
offset the travel costs and some lost income.
But the thing that she highlighted more than anything
was just the fact that people were willing to move their
schedule around to come and just be with her, to just.
Be present, Her community shared her, concerned.
It wasn't just something that Sarah was navigating, but they
took it on and said if you are suffering, I want to be with you
in that, even if that means suffering as well.
They were willing to pay attention.
And isn't this an interesting, even way of talking about
things? In the English language, we we
say that we pay attention. We don't bring attention or
center attention or even manage attention.
We pay attention. And of course, this suggests
that to to pay attention involves a cost, right?
There's a cost to paying attention.
It it means that we are devoting a very limited and scarce
resource to something. It could be going somewhere else
instead, right? When you pay attention to
anyone, you enter in with that person.
You you, you say no to other things, you foreclose other
possibilities that we have limited presence even in this
world of zoom and avatars like you can only be in one place at
the same time. You can only be really truly
present to one place or one person at a given time.
And. For both on Ye and Maggie, I
mean a scientist and a lawyer in Boston, they got stuff going on.
There are other things in their calendars and schedule.
But when their friends had a concern, a moment of suffering,
they said, hey, we share that concern and we're willing to
drop what we have going on and to pay attention to enter in
with you. Friends, I love this because not
only I think is it a beautiful example of what we see Paul's
inviting us to here in One Corinthians, but but also
because this is what Jesus did for us, right?
Jesus healed us not from some distant and abstract theological
transaction that happened in God's accounting software
somewhere, but but he came to actually be with us.
This whole redemptive journey started with incarnation in
fleshman, him being willing to come and just be with us.
And so our God is named Emmanuelle, the God who is with
us and sometimes friends. I think that for one reason or
another, we we fail to follow the lead of this Jesus when
there are concerns that present themselves.
You know, one of the things that I find most just transfixing and
amazing about Jesus are the stories in his life where he
showed up for people and he didn't really do anything.
Right now there are lots of stories in which Jesus came up
and you know, this God, he had lots of supernatural powers and
cool stuff going on. So there were lots of moments
where he, you know, created bread for the whole multitude or
or or storm like calm the storm on the sea.
But there were also these moments.
Moments like with Zakhias, somebody who was a traitor to
his community, ostracized and excluded because of the ways
that he had oppressed others, and an outcast either either
from a place of fear or disdain. And Jesus, encountering Zachius,
invites himself over to the guy's house for lunch.
He just enters in. The scripture doesn't even
really tell us anything that Jesus does or says.
He just shows up. He's just present.
And friends, I'd suggest to you that there is something about
our presence. There is something about our
attention, our care, that when we extend it to one another is
in and of itself healing. But this is a struggle, isn't
it? It's it's a struggle to believe
this when when we don't have anything that we can do to fix
it or resolve it. In fact, as I was talking this
week with Maggie about kind of the internal turmoil she
navigated as she I went to show up with Maggie or with with
Sarah. She said, you know, I had this
impulse of like I'd like should do something like, is there some
way I can help? Is there something I can do?
And it was really challenging for me to just kind of sit there
and just be. It felt like I wasn't actually
accomplishing anything. But I remember the story of Mary
and Martha from the life of Jesus and and thought maybe
maybe this is it, maybe I'm supposed to just be here.
Friends, I think when we bring our attention to extend care and
compassion to others, we beautiful model beautifully,
model not only what it is to be the body, but what it is to walk
in the way of Jesus. The French philosopher Simone
Wheel once said attention is the rarest and purest form of
generosity. Attention is the rarest and
purest form of generosity, and what a gift it is to actually
attend to one another. I'm grateful to say that we're a
community that I think in a lot of ways already does this really
well. I I told one story this morning,
but there are countless others that we could tell.
I know you all have rallied to provide meal trains for folks
after they've had kids. Talking with Mandy last week, it
was interesting to to discover that sometimes the people
organizing the meal trains weren't even people who like
we're friends with the people who needed the help, right?
What a beautiful expression of community and and so many other
ways, whether it's packing bags and and and preparing gifts for
BPS teachers. Whether it's just calling to
check in on somebody, whether it's raising money or or giving
funds to support and generosity. There's so many ways in which
our community does and continues to show up for one another.
And this morning, I really want us to consider maybe what is
that next step for each of us to bring attention to bear and to
enter into, to solidarity with one another.
And in order to continue into this, this next section of our
time together, I want to invite us to actually practice
something. We're gonna do an exercise, so
we're gonna be experiential this morning, just letting you know
now so you can begin to brace yourself for talking with other
people. But, you know, it's so
interesting. There are these concepts like
care, which are honestly so simple, like even figuring out
what am I going to stand up here and talk for 20 minutes about
care. It's kind of like, it's obvious,
right? We all know what it means to
care for each other. It's not.
It's not hard to imagine it, but but so often, for one reason or
another, because of our own anxiety or not being sure how to
show up or our own discomfort, we stopped short of actually
doing. And so we're going to, in a
moment create a very small opportunity, a window to
actually practice care for one another for the people seated
next to you or near you in the space today.
But before that, I I want to invite you to just reflect for a
moment, what is, what does care look like for you in your own
life? Some of you I know are are
knocking this out of the park like you default to checking in
on people to showing up when there's a need.
You naturally step in and and care really well, and some of
you, perhaps a little bit more like myself, end up getting
taken out for one reason or another.
Either you're running so fast that you don't even notice, or
or don't have time to pivot into something.
Don't make the time to pivot into something.
Perhaps for some of us, the biggest problem is really just
not being in deep enough community.
You know, as I've kind of catalog, where do I see examples
of this kind of care happening most often?
I've noticed that they happen in in relational community, right.
They happen when we know each other, when we have the kinds of
relationships where we feel like we can trust each other boldly
enough to actually let each other know what's going on and
when there's a beginning to be a culture of of that kind of care
and generosity. It's been interesting.
In the same group that that Sarah rendered, you know,
expressed this need and and saw this influx of care.
Just a month before that there was another instance and and a
couple weeks after that there was another instance.
And you know, I think sometimes when we begin to develop a
culture where this is the norm, where we can count on one
another, then we continue counting on one another.
And so maybe for you the invitation this morning is just
to say Pen, who are those people?
Maybe it's a a community group or a micro church here at
Reality, maybe it's some other structure.
But I'm convinced that in order for us to to really live in the
way of Jesus and press into the kind of one another imagination
for church that the New Testament give us, we have to be
in these kind of thick relationships with other
Christians. So where do those relationships
exist in your life? And and if they don't, no
problem. But where might you begin to
cultivate them, to begin to experience and have that for
yourself and be able to share it with others, maybe for you.
The problem is kind of more internal, the conversations.
I don't want to be an imposition.
I don't want to make things weird and it's just a matter of
courage, of stepping in and saying, you know, I'm willing to
be a little bit awkward in order to take a chance on extending
love to someone else. All right?
As we reflect on that this morning, I'm going to invite you
into this exercise and this is how it's going to work.
So first step is for everyone here to find one or perhaps two
other people, preferably 1-2 if you need.
And bonus points if it's somebody that you're not, like,
super connected with. A lot of you are sitting with
your bestie or your partner or something like that, so you get
bonus points if you if you skip out.
But there's no pressure. There's not a right way to do
this. You can have an experience of
care with whoever you're at. So I'm just going to give us a
minute to shuffle. But everybody needs to find one
or perhaps two other people in order to participate in this
exercise. OK, all right.
So shuffling commence. All right, so now for the
purpose of this exercise, you're both going to participate, but
you are going to participate differently, OK?
In each group, there's going to be one person who is a speaker
and one. Or if you're in a group with
three, perhaps two people who are a listener.
OK? And for both of you, this is an
opportunity to to practice exactly what we're talking
about, to enter into community and care.
If you're the speaker, you're going to respond to this prompt
and you can do it at whatever level of depth you feel
comfortable with. There's no right way of doing
this. But the prompt that you're going
to answer is what is one thing you've been concerned about
lately? What's one thing that you've
been concerned about lately? OK, So you're just going to
share one thing that you've been concerned about lately with your
partner. And if you're the partner, this
is really hard. You're only going to listen, All
right? That means that we don't
immediately jump off to tell the person about the one time when I
had a similar experience that was like what you're telling me.
But even better, right? It means that we don't
immediately jump in with the resources that we know or the
advice that we have or or the suggestions.
You're just going to listen. In fact, there's only really one
thing that I'm going to allow you to say for the purpose of
this exercise, and that is some variation of tell me more.
OK, so you'd say tell me more about a specific part of what
they're asking or just about the whole thing.
But basically, we're going to take 4 minutes for this.
And if you're the listener, the only thing you're allowed to say
is tell me more. OK, Some of you have been
waiting for this. You're like, ah, I can say
something uninterrupted, All right.
And if you're the speaker, let me invite you to Again, feel
free to jump in at whatever level is comfortable for you.
But if there is something that's on your heart, consider whether
this might actually be a gift, right?
You don't have to go all the way to the deep end.
Please don't share anything that's wildly inappropriate.
But yeah, let people know what's what's real for you, this
person, as they attempt to enter in and care and concern for you.
All right, so the speaker attentive listening.
Kim's gonna play some music underneath, and and my last
invitation to you is as you navigate this brief conversation
between the two of you, just notice your experience, Notice
how it is to share or to listen to another human.
All right, so the question once more is what's one thing that
you've been concerned about lately?
Begin. All right.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, friends. I wasn't in your conversations,
but I heard some laughter. I observed some tears.
Now, isn't it interesting that so often, I mean, we come to
church. We dress up.
People say how you doing? We say good.
They're suffering all around us, right?
I mean, sometimes we feel it more than others, but people
here are navigating real concerns.
Are we the kind of people who know?
Are we the kind of people who share?
And if not, how might we take a step towards more deeply
embodying the kind of gospel community that Jesus invites us
to, that Paul writes about? I'm curious.
I'm gonna take just a moment, but I'm curious if there's one
or two people who just on the spot impromptu, noticed
something in this experience, whether of sharing or listening
and and being present to your your partner, that you'd be up
for. Sharon, just coming up on the
mic. One sentence or two real quick.
If everybody's uncomfortable, we can keep moving.
Hey, yeah, introduce yourself and just share.
Introduce yourself and just share what you noticed.
Hi everyone. My name is Trish.
I was speaking with Emma and I was the listener.
And I think one thing that was really hard about being silent
was wanting to let the other person know and affirm them that
I'm like, hearing what they're saying.
Yeah. So it was really hard not to,
like, ask followup questions. And I ended up leaning into that
anyway. But yeah, it's, it's hard to be
a listener because already your mind is like, oh, you could do
this or that. And like, yeah, drawing away
from that is really tough, but I think it was a better experience
because then you can hear more about the other person.
So, yeah, yeah. Thanks so much, Trish.
Yeah. Anybody else One more, just
something you notice please. Hey, thanks.
Just introduce yourself and share what you noticed.
Hi, my name is Ray and I had the pleasure of being listened to by
Sam as I spoke and what was really powerful was just his
question asking me to tell me more about an aspect of what I
had shared was so. Powerful for me because it
really meant he cared in a way that him saying he cared for me
couldn't do. Like his.
It was deeper than just hey, I care for.
It was just like, oh, you want me to go deeper into what I am
ready to shut up about Because you probably are getting bored
to tears by what I'm saying. But no, you want more.
But really powerful. Awesome.
Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, Friends, the the worship team is gonna gonna come up and
we're gonna enter into kind of a extended time of of response now
as we consider this. But again, just invite you to
consider what are some of those ways perhaps that that you
filter rather than sharing what's really true for you or
that you interrupt other people in various ways or or don't show
attention and care. David Augsburger has this quote
that I love. He said being heard is so close
to being loved that for the average person, they're almost
indistinguishable. Being heard is so close to being
loved that they're almost indistinguishable.
Friends. What might it look like if we
were to love one another as we extend care?
Hey, the carpets are going to be open as the music plays.
These are sacred spaces just for you to to enter into a dialogue
with God about what you're noticing.
Maybe you need to receive care this morning and, and if that's
true, I'm going to be up here. Mandy can be available, and we'd
love to just pray with you, but consider what might God be
inviting you into as we seek to be a community that cares well
for one another?