Our Community Life preaching series kicked off with Jorg’s message on the worth and dignity of every human being as he shared with us Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s fight for this principle; and last Sunday Clarence convinced us of the 4 pillars that should support our decisions in life. Today you were to have heard my father preach on learning from religious faiths other than our own.  As he is still recovering from his fall, I will speak on the session that I was to take next month, that addresses the last 2 principles -- how love should govern our relationships and how Christ in our community should result in mutual respect, support and bonding. I am sure you don’t need me to tell you how you have to love each other, respect & support each other, you’ve heard it many times already and are probably tired of hearing it!  How many ways can I talk about the obvious? 

I have entitled my message this morning, Let’s Focus on the Family. I’ll start with a confession. Contrary to what you may think, I am not a family-oriented person, at least not in the popular image of a lovey-dovey, sentimental and romantic one. Contrary to what you may believe, I am also not a church-oriented person, where I am compelled to brotherly and sisterly love even with people I don’t like.  But I have discovered that these are in fact strong reasons why I need to belong to a church family. I need to be transformed. When I am alone, it is very easy to think I am theologically advanced. I agree with everything I think and say! I do not hear opposing views or perspectives. When I am alone, it is also very easy to think I am spiritually advanced. I watch a Hallmark movie and am moved to tears. I tell myself that I am a very compassionate person. But when I spend time in community with a person who annoys me, it is amazing how quickly I experience “compassion fatigue”. In community I discover who I really am and how much transformation I still require.

I daresay many of us live with this contradiction in our lives. On the one hand, we need people to share our lives, to enter into close personal relationships, to share insights and to interact with. On the other hand, we have no desire to be with some other people. We avoid even minimal contact, much less extended interaction or continuing relationships, with them. And we sometimes exclude them from our circle without knowing anything about them, and without the slightest interest to get to know them before excluding them.

Would you say We here, all of us, are a Family? We speak of “doing life together” in pastoral and sentimental terms which in reality is often more difficult than we imagine. Mostly we view family as where we run to for our creature comforts, where our laundry is done, our meals are cooked, and all other little luxuries. This runs over to our church family too, we expect to find in church, not only find love, respect, bonding here but also answers to our personal and emotional problems.  That’s not wrong, we should help and support each other.  We are after all one big happy loving supportive family.  But is that what you find here? 

Let’s focus on the word, Family. Our teacher is Jesus. WWJD?  “What would Jesus Define” family to be?  If you read the Gospels closely, it seems pretty clear that Jesus’ idea of family was not always cozy. Very early in life, when Jesus was 12 years old, he went to Jerusalem with his parents to celebrate the holidays. Without telling his parents where he was going, he disappeared for three days. 12-year old Jesus disappears for 3 days! Where was he? He was hanging out with the rabbis, but his parents did not know where he was for 3 days. After a lot of searching, they found him and Mary asks: “Child, how could it be that you would treat us, your parents, this way?” Jesus said: “Don’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2: 41-51)

When I hear that story I think, what if my son disappeared for three days when he was 12. And when I found him, if he had said, “Well, I was where God wanted me to be”, I would certainly have had an opinion as to where I thought God wanted him to be!

If you read the Gospels closely again, you will find that Jesus had some pretty amazing things to say about family. Listen to these --

• “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

• “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

(Matthew 10:37)

• “For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household.” (Matthew 10:35-36)

Then there’s the story from Mark 3, repeated in Matthew 12 and Luke 8 meaning that it is an important story. Jesus had begun his teaching, preaching and healing ministry when his family, his mother and brothers and sisters, came to get him. Because there was a crowd around him, they sent a message across. Someone interrupts Jesus’ teaching to tell him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” Jesus addresses those listening to him and replies, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then pointing at those near him, says, “Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

So when we hear Christians talk about focusing on the family, family values and being pro-family, they obviously are suggesting that there are others of us who are somehow anti-family.  So isn’t it interesting to know what Jesus had to say about families? And as you have seen, for Jesus, family was not primarily biological relationships, but of commitment to a mission. “Whoever does the will of God” is family. For Jesus, family is about shared mission rather than about blood ties. Jesus expands our understanding of family.

So back to our one big happy loving supportive family. Like any true family, we more often than not, give each other headaches. We did not choose the members of our FCC family, they were given to us by God’s grace. In any true family there will be diversity of opinions, there will be annoying people, there will be conflict. But in this family we are given a special vision and special shared mission – to serve as an open, inclusive and welcoming church for all people – and this puts us in a crucial place to witness.  We are asked to reach out beyond our walls, reach out beyond ourselves, and reach out beyond our pet peeves, our self interests to effect reconciliation and healing for all. And like in any true family, one learns that the problems we pose for one another are not obstacles but ways of refining our understanding of each other, and if we can embrace the problems (and each other) then I believe, the love, support and respect will appear with little effort.  But we must remember that God calls us to live in community not for ourselves, but for others.

Back to the expanded understanding of family that Jesus teaches. At FCC we generally feel good about where we are, about our openness and inclusiveness.  We proudly declare FREE, Everyone is Equal. We value how we do not distinguish between straight and gay, married or divorced, HIV+ or HIV-, singles or families. We value our intellectual freedom. We value our acceptance of diverse theological views.

Yet, as soon as we begin to celebrate our inclusiveness, I begin to feel somewhat exclusive and arrogant of those who are not part of this inclusiveness. I then betray myself by becoming exclusive.  And it becomes very easy to start drawing the circle around us.

So, being a part of this inclusive family places upon us a responsibility to share the insights and experiences we have come to value, beyond just the GLBT community. We need also to respond to other communities who are in perhaps in earlier stages of struggle with homophobia and heterosexism, and it should not be a response of smugness. Rather, it should be one of helping to bring others to the experience we have come to know. D.T. Niles, the Indian theologian, likens this to "one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread." By the grace of God, we have found bread here. That places upon us an obligation to share the good news with others. "I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some." 
ALL people. Being an open and inclusive community puts us in a special position of being able to create dialogue between not only the humanly diverse, but also the theologically diverse and also the religiously diverse, perhaps bringing into the conversation Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus – and finding ways which all people can begin to respect each other, learn from each other, and find ways to work together. We first need to clarify our own theological thinking and then become open to the theologies of other faiths that may inform and enrich our own experiences. We need to constantly be reminded us that God calls all of us to live life together, he doesn’t just call the Christians.

“Who are my mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers?” Jesus asks. Well, they are people of every race and nationality and continent and religion and gender and sexual orientation. They are people who need me and people whom I need. They are people who share a common vision of a human family feasting together at God’s heavenly table – God who is our heavenly parent and therefore makes us all brothers and sisters with one another. These are my mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers.

And it is those, I think, who manage to love both the families given to us by birth or adoption and the families given to us by the grace of God, it is those of us who manage to love beyond the limits of biology and blood, theology and religion, who are truly focussed on the Family, and living out Jesus’ family values. A tall order especially when you look at the state of the world around us today. But I believe its worth striving for.

Dear Lord

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Help us to be a family that loves beyond ourselves. Not a family that always turns inwards and engages in noisy discord. Help us to be the church you envision us to be – one generous in spirit, in welcome, in taking the stand of justice, inclusion and human dignity.

And at the end of the day, make us more faithful and loving people, make us more passionate and courageous people. Break open our hearts and transform us into greater Christ-likeness.

May all who enter the doors of our church, your church, find life – the fullness of life that you promise.