Made for Each Other

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 9, 2012

Genesis Sunday

Made for Each Other

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Nine hundred million,

in fact 914,000,000.

That’s how many people are members of Facebook.

Almost 1 billion people.

I am one of the 914,000,000,

although I hardly qualify.

It is very rare when I go on the site.

I have a growing queue of people

waiting for me to friend them,

but they all languish on the side of the screen,

like box cars waiting to be connected to a train.

In my case the train sits idle on a siding,

the engineer nowhere to be seen.

I’ve let those “friend” requests sit for such a long time,

that now I fear that even if I do click yes

and make the connection

they will respond with a click

to “unfriend” me immediately

for my having ignored them for so long.

Facebook, for as big as it is,

is about community,

about connecting with family, with friends,

sharing moments of our lives,

from the special,

things like weddings, birth of children, graduations,

to the very ordinary – 

“just got back from the grocery store,

broccoli wasn’t fresh.”

When God said right at the beginning of the Bible,

“It is not good that man should be alone,”

(Genesis 2:18)

I don’t think God was limiting the thought to marriage;

I think he had community in mind,

that we should live among family and friends.

We are communal creatures;

We thrive in the presence of others,

and we tend to wilt like a flower in August heat

when we are alone.

The myth of the rugged individual,

the stolid loner, utterly self-reliant,

is just that – a myth.

It isn’t what God wants for us;

God created us for community.

                      

When God as a pillar of fire

led Moses and the children of Israel out of Egypt,

he led them into the desert wilderness,

and then kept them there for 40 years

to build them into community.

To read the first five books of the Bible,

the Pentateuch,

is to be witness to the construction

of the godly edifice we call community,

brick by brick, block by block.

The Ten Commandments,

the Levitical Code –

they are all about community –

teaching us that not only shall we love God,

but we shall love our neighbors as ourselves.

(Leviticus 19:18)

What’s the first thing Jesus did once he began his ministry?

He built a community – a community of disciples.

He didn’t pick one or two,

he picked 12.

Twelve men, each different, each unique,

each with his own strengths and faults,

each his own man,

yet each part of the larger community.

Turn to the Acts of the Apostles,

the story of the beginning of the church,

and what do we read:

that three thousand became part of the new  community

in just one day.

(Acts 2:41)

You and I are part of a global community

of followers of Christ,

more than 2 billion women, men and children.

We’re part of smaller communities as well,

communities we call denominations;

for us, the Presbyterian Church (USA).

And we are part of a still smaller community

we call the church,

this church,

this Body of Christ.

We are raised to be strong in our individualism

and yes, we are each different, each unique,

with the gifts given us by God through the Holy Spirit,

but we are called to community by that same Holy Spirit.

There is reason why Jesus says

“where two or more are gathered in my name,

there am I.”

(Matthew 18:20)

We cannot live out our faith alone,

as much as we might think we can,

as often as we might think we’d prefer to,

for that is not what God intends for us.

We are called to community

because community nurtures us,

builds us up, helps us to be our best,

even as it watches out for us,

watches over us.

As the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us,

if we fall, there is someone to help us back up;

if we are cold, there is someone to warm us;

two are stronger than one,

and three are even stronger.

The wonderful irony is that the rugged individualist

will be more rugged in community.

We are called to community

to share our gifts with one another,

to build up one another,

and, of course, to look after one another.

As God taught the Israelite community

in their formative days in the wilderness,

“If there is among you anyone in need,

a member of your community in any of your towns …,

do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted

towards your needy neighbor.”

(Deuteronomy 15:7)

Compassion is one of the threads that binds community,

compassion and empathy,

concern for others,

looking beyond our own needs,

sharing what God has given us.

The strong look after the weak;

the swift look after the slow;

those with more help those with less.

When the threads of compassion and empathy fray

community breaks down.

In my office there is a photo of me

taken back in my days at Princeton Seminary.

It is a photo of me with my three study-group brothers.

We had much in common as we all began our seminary careers:

all four of us were older, second career students,

all of us having come from the business world,

three of us with MBAs.

We were accomplished and confident, each of us,

yet we knew that together we would be stronger,

that together we would each be more complete

than we could be on our own.

Throughout our three years in Seminary

we studied together,

helping one another with coursework.

But more important, we prayed for one another,

we prayed with one another,

we were there for one another

to celebrate joys

and to share sorrows.

The bond that tied us together then is still there,

even after all these years,

and even over the distance of thousands of miles.

One of my brothers is a missionary in northern China;

another leads a church in Hong Kong;

the third recently moved to Louisville

to join the staff of the PCUSA.

It isn’t Facebook that ties us together

it is our faith in Christ

nurtured in community.

“The one thing no species can ever be is self-reliant.

Being entangled is the condition of life itself.”

Author Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote those words

(NYT Aug. 26, 2012)

as an observation of his life as a farmer,

a man who works the land,

who tends animals,

who keeps his eye on the sky for rain and sun.

His was a practical observation,

but it is also a deeply theological statement,

that we are not self-reliant,

that life is communal, all life,

for that is the way God created it.

And so we celebrate the community

that we call Manassas Presbyterian Church.

as we gather in community to worship,

as we gather in community at our Lord’s Table,

and today as we stay in community to enjoy our picnic.

Here in this community we pray and learn together,

we sing and laugh together,

we eat and drink together,

we weep and mourn together,

we care and are cared for together,

we are refreshed and renewed for service together.

Here in this community

hope abounds,

grace abounds,

love abounds,

gifts given us by God in Jesus Christ,

gifts given us to be shared with one another

as we follow the one who calls us each,

calls us all –

together, community,

our Lord Jesus Christ.

To God be the Glory!

AMEN