Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
June 10, 2012
Year B: The Second Sunday after Pentecost
1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15
Psalm 138
(2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1)
Mark 3:20-35
What Kind of Community?
You may have missed it, but this past Tuesday was Election Day. The voter turnout was predictably very light for this primary election.
Four districts in Madison voted right here in Grace Hall. Each time I passed by I looked in and the very bored-looking poll workers glanced up expectantly, hoping that a voter had arrived to break the monotony.
George Hayman was working the polls and I had some fun all day stopping by and saying hi, asking how many hours he had still to go, and then torturing him a little bit by being able to come and go as I pleased while he was stuck manning his table, waiting in vain for voters to turn up.
Tuesday was quiet, but it’s safe to say that our next Election Day will be very different. It will be a presidential election, of course, and the many people who only vote once every four years will be out in large numbers, especially since it’s looking like this will be a close race.
Behind all the campaign rhetoric, behind all the political strategy, behind all the ideology, every election is attempt to answer the same question:
What kind of town – what kind of state – what kind of country – what kind of world - do we want?
Every election – from choosing members of the Board of Ed to electing the President of the United States is a way for us to answer the question:
What kind of community do we want?
It’s obviously an important question and hopefully it’s a question we think about carefully before we cast our vote.
But, today’s lessons suggest a much more important question:
What kind of community does God want for us?
The lesson from First Samuel captures a key moment in the history of Israel, the birth of the monarchy in the 11th Century BC.
At least the way the story is told here, while all the other nations of the Near East had their tyrannical kings the people of Israel had so far resisted joining the crowd, insisting that God alone was their king.
But, now, maybe because the prophet and judge Samuel’s sons are not up to the job of succeeding him or maybe because of a desire to be like all the other countries, the people of Israel demand that Samuel give them a king.
In a powerful and moving passage, God reassures Samuel that he’s not the one who’s being rejected but it’s God who is being forsaken by the people. God tells Samuel to warn the people what kings do, but in the end, give them what they want.
And so Samuel tells the people that a human king will be very different from the divine King who led the people out of Egypt.
Samuel warns them that a human king will take their sons and daughters, their land, their animals and their slaves.
Samuel warns the people of Israel that they are choosing the kind of community in which vast amounts of wealth and power will be in the hands of the king. But still the people insist, saying:
“We are determined to have a king over us, so that we may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
So they got their king. And sure enough, the history of the Israelite monarchy is very much a mixed bag. It’s a history filled with great achievement but filled also with violence, greed, corruption, betrayal and, ultimately, defeat and collapse.
The people of Israel got the kind of community they thought they wanted.
What kind of community do we want?
What kind of community does God want for us?
In today’s gospel lesson, the Evangelist Mark combines two themes.
The first is the increasing opposition to Jesus. Just before the passage we heard today, Jesus has been out demonstrating his power in word and deed and now faces growing opposition from both predictable and maybe not so predictable sources.
Mark tells us that Jesus is now home where he embarrasses his family. They’re embarrassed because “people” are saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” The scribes accuse Jesus of being possessed by demons.
Jesus refutes that charge and then warns that it is an unforgivable sin to credit Satan with the good works of God.
That’s all very important, but Mark’s other theme is more interesting and relevant for us.
Jesus is at work building a new community. Jesus is building the community that God wants.
Just before the passage we heard today Jesus appointed the twelve apostles – a deeply symbolic act signifying the creation of a new Israel, the birth of the kind of community that God has always wanted and still wants for us.
It’s the kind of community in which the scribes – the well-educated people – don’t get special treatment and in fact manage to miss God at work right there in front of them.
What kind of community does God want for us?
When Jesus was told that his family was outside, he looked around at his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
What kind of community does God want for us?
God wants a community of love in which only God is king – a community in which when we do God’s will we become not just citizens of God’s kingdom but members of God’s family.
God wants a community of love that praises God for being God, that gives thanks for being alive and for all the good gifts we are given, and cares for those who are broken by fear, sadness and pain.
God wants a community of love that gathers week after week to practice being the kind of people we were always meant to be – people who listen to God’s Word, who ask forgiveness from God and from each other, who extend a sign of peace to those we love and to those we can’t stand, to those we’ve known forever and to those we’ve never seen before.
God wants a community of love that gathers at God’s Table, reaching out and taking God into our bodies and into our hearts.
God wants a community of love that doesn’t just exist within these walls and behind these doors, but a community of love that bursts out of this place, transforming the world into the community of love that God has always wanted for all of us.
We’ve got a long way to go – and sometimes, like the people of Israel insisting on having a king like everybody else, we choose to follow our earthly rulers – we choose to be like everybody else - rather than choosing to do God’s will.
We’ve got a long way to go, but, if we keep our eyes open, we can see signs of God’s community of love all around us.
We see God’s community of love in a young Kathy Meyer who a few years ago started a Relay for Life team in honor of a sick friend that has so far raised $12,000 for the fight against cancer.
Speaking of Relay for Life, we see God’s community of love in our own Barbara Bartolomeo who a few years ago wanted to honor her niece who had died of cancer and now has stepped up to serve as the chair of the Madison/Florham Park Relay.
We see God’s community of love in some among us spending their time picking up furniture and appliances from donors and then delivering them to people in need.
We see God’s community of love in a bunch of guys from Grace spending a couple of days working at Haven of Hope, helping to prepare cottages that offer a much needed break for families with seriously ill children. And then, we see it again when some of those same guys give even more help on their own, asking for nothing in return.
We see God’s community of love when the Food for Friends barrel overflows with - unexpired! - food and when the soup kitchen sign-up sheet has every line filled in.
We see God’s community of love when we care for someone else’s kid as if he or she were our very own.
We see God’s community of love every time we sacrifice our time and our wealth even if it hurts a bit, every time we pick up the phone and call someone we know is struggling, every time we pray for the needs of others, every time we pray for our enemies, every time we invite someone to join our celebration, and every time we welcome another member of Jesus’ family to our community.
In just a few months George and the other poll workers will be back at work. They’re going to be very busy on Tuesday, November 6
Like every election, at the heart of this election there’s the question: what kind of community do we want?
We all have to think about that and come up with an answer.
But we already know the answer to the much more important question: what kind of community does God want for us?
It’s not a community led by tyrants and filled with violence, greed, corruption and betrayal and, ultimately defeat and collapse. It’s not a community in which vast amounts of wealth and power are in the hands of very few.
No, God wants a community of love.
What kind of community do we want?
Amen.
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