Bless O God, the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts that they be of profit to us and acceptable to thee, our Rock and our Redeemer.
Speak O Lord, for your servants listen.
Amen
I would like few thoughts with you this morning, the title of the sermon is "The Bond of Love: A Communion Beyond Our Walls". I have two reasons for this message titled "The Bond of Love: A Communion Beyond Our Walls"
The first reason is rather obvious. We are celebrating communion today and I want you to think about our communion and the communion we celebrate every forth night, the celebration we call
World Wide Communion.
The second reason is less obvious - because as I want you to think about the communion that we have that extends beyond our walls, I also want you to think about the walls that we have built and how they might affect what God has planned for us.As we gather here this morning inside this sanctuary, inside these four walls and pray and sing and lift up the chalice and the paten and take and eat and drink in remembrance of Christ Jesus and how he showed us God's love, tens of thousands, indeed tens of millions of our brothers and sisters around the world are doing the very same thing, this very moment.
Some of these people will be in churches like our own in nations like our own, but most of them will be places like Tombouchou, in Africa, South America, and The Philippines, and they will be celebrating the sacrifice made by God, the offering that Christ made freely on our behalf, it might be in single room schools made out of sheet metal, wood scraps and cardboard.
Or in village squares in which the sound of chickens and the smell of goats will mingle with the sound of hymns and the sweet aroma of candles and incense. Some even now are in magnificent cathedrals with vast pipe organs and huge choirs and paid musicians.
Others, throughout this day, will be gathering together to celebrate in straw huts, where a simple wooden cross tells those who come what the place is, and where the music is supplied by oil barrel drum or a tambourine, or a guitar and all the songs are sung without benefit of hymn books or music directors.
The immensity and the diversity of the family of God that we have beyond these walls is truly mind boggling. We should take note of it, and we should remember it, and we should celebrate it as often as possible.
We have a communion, we have a family, beyond these walls. And it is good and it is beautiful and it is a gift of God to us - and to all humanity, and to our world. It is indeed something to celebrate, this week, next week, and every week.
In Psalm133….. it is written: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers/ sisters to live together in unity. It is like precious oil pour on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes. Like the dew of Hermon that were falling on Mont Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing even life forever.”
The second reason for the title of today's sermon however, as I said at the beginning, is not as easy to explain. Because it asks each one of us to consider the walls around us today, and to think about what they might represent, to think about how they may be barriers to our communion with others, how they might even be a barrier to our communion with God.
Each one of us has a way of shutting things out, a way of shutting other people out. We see that in the Gospel reading today, the disciples of Jesus telling Jesus how they have come across a man driving out demons in his name and how they told him to stop, because he was not one of them.
The answer of Jesus should be instructive for us all today. Jesus says to the disciples "Do not stop him”. No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.
I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his / her reward. We're so small and we're so frightened, and often we are so damaged, that we retreat into a place of safety, a place where we cannot be hurt.
we go to a place of comfort,
And this is understandable so, at times it is even necessary.
I pray that this church with its warmly embracing walls may be such a place for us all. That is what the church is for.
It is meant to be a place of refuge –
But is meant to be an open place - open for others to come in, strangers to come in - and a place for us to go out.
The church, my friends, is more than a building, it is more than a denomination, it is more than one particular way of doing things. We have a communion beyond our walls, love that bonds, and if we don't get in touch with it, if we don't understand; that it is there and open our hearts to it, then all that we do and experience inside these walls is futile.
In short - the places of safety that we enter into should not limit our vision of where God is and how God is working. What we celebrate today when we lift up the chalice and the patten and eat and drink the body and blood of Christ Jesus is the fact that God reached out past the walls that surround heaven and entered into communion with us. Christianity is nothing more than having a personal relationship with the Living God. Knowing that God lives in your heart.
We celebrate in the Lord's Supper the fact that Christ Jesus loved us so much that he was prepared to give up his safety, his peace, his strength, his joy, indeed his very life so that we might become whole and be able to enter fully into God's kingdom.
Our walls - our definitions - our understandings have a purpose, they serve a function, they are necessary to us. But the communion God calls us to so very often extends beyond our walls and our definitions.
The prophets who speak in the places where our rules say they should not be; and those disciples who heal others in Christ's name even though they don't belong to our group.
Today - as we receive the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, remember why it is given to us - savour the moment, enjoy the moment. Take strength from the time that God gives you to build up your strength, and enter into the fullness of the communion God has called you to. See and feel as you meditate the wideness and the breadth of the family that God has created. Understand that diversity need not lead us to division, that those who are not against us are for us in our common vision of making God known to our world, and that God would have us all full of zeal to do his work.
Thanks be to God for the fact that the power of God is in his name and not in us. And thanks be to God that he has chosen - and he calls us – to break every barrier down and to unite our hearts with his - and with all who call upon him.
-- Amen--
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
October 1, 2006