Reflections on “What I Need from My church: Fellowship” Galatians 2: 7-10; Genesis

 This Sunday was World Communion Sunday.  I always wonder how many churches around the world celebrate World Communion Sunday.  On the one hand, perhaps it does not matter as long as it pushes us to consider how we are connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.  On the other hand, it could also symbolize sort of a condescending way to relate to the worldwide Christian community - sort of, we decided that today we would celebrate our connectedness whether you want to or not.

We continue down our preaching series on"What I Need from My Church" with a focus on fellowship.  the idea was to build on the warm feelings we have about fellowship and push us to see how we are connected beyond our walls.

“What I Need from My church:  Fellowship”  SAPC, Denton; October 3, 2021; World Communion Sunday; Fall, 2021 series

Galatians 2: 7-10  On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.

Introduction:  We continue in our preaching series on what we need from our church to grow in our discipleship, to help us recognize God’s claim on our lives, and to know God’s grace and love.

On this World Communion Sunday, we reflect on our need for fellowship.

move 1:  We begin with a theological reflection on how the Triune God models fellowship.

a.  To see God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; To see God’s acting as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; reveals a “God in fellowship with God’s own self.” 

1.  “The Genesis account does not say “Let me make humankind in my own image, but let us make humankind in our own image according to our likeness.” 

2. This is not a “me” God, but a “we” God.

3.  God from the beginning is, not God as a bad math problem (how do we get three in one), but God as community.

b.  To be made in God’s image is to be people who are called into fellowship with others.

1. God as three persons in fellowship with each other.

2. God in fellowship with us.

3.  We in fellowship with God and with others.

Being in fellowship is a reflection of what it means to be God’s people.

Move 2:   We know that importance of fellowship

a. one of the comments we have have heard continuously through the pandemic is how much people miss being together in person and making connections in community.

1.  We are so grateful for what technology allows us to do - worship or gather in small groups or do bible study via the livestream or Zoom.

2.  the possibilities for community have expanded during the pandemic.

3. But we have also learned how much we miss sharing a pew with someone else.

4. Greeting other church members; 

having basically that same conversation every week with the same person standing in roughly the same place in the sanctuary;

Greeting new people who come through our doors and learning about them;

lingering past lunchtime over conversations in the Narthex.

We miss those touches, literally in many instances, of fellowship we find at church.

b.  But we speak of our need for Christian fellowship it is more than that.

1.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together (29):  True Christian community is that we are bound despite ourselves by Christ, and those believers seeking some pleasant camaraderie or glow of fellowship will be deceived.

2.  As followers of christ, we are bound tougher in powerful ways with other believers.

3. In other words, Christian community is more than the FB community or social media where you can delete someone when you get mad at them or tired of them; 

or you can write on their FB page some searing comment and never have to face them or see the look on their face as they read your comment.

4.  Being in Christian fellowship means recognizing the bond we have with others through christ and learning to lie together because of that bond.

5.  We need the church to teach us how to be in relationship with others as Christ calls us to live in relationship.

c. Fellowship also pushes us outward. 

1.  Example from Israelites.

Small, minority group struggling to survive and find their in the world.

often displaced and at the mercy of others.

the tendency was to retrench and insulate themselves against others in the world.

How fascinating that we read their instructions for celebrating the Festival of Booths and see the command to reach out to strangers and to reach across all economic categories in their society.

Their calling as God’s people included reaching out in fellowship to others.

2. Example of early Christian church.

Again, a small group struggling to find their place in the world.

The temptation to insulate and hang on with a few others who believed in jesus until Jesus comes again.

But, Jesus had sent them into the world, so they make plans to go and engage the circumcised and the uncircumcised - they understood their calling to be in fellowship wiht their fellows Jews and the Gentiles . 

3.  So we go into the world far away from us recognizing we are called to Christian fellowship with our brothers and sisters around the world.  

It ought to speak to how we view the world.

2.  Into our world close at hand, recognizing we are bound together in Christ, a bond that transcends all the things that divides us.

Move 3: As we come to our Lord’s Table on World communion Sunday, we have a visible reminder of our Christian fellowship.

a. Presbyterians have celebrated World Communion Sunday since the mid-1930s. At that time North Americans were experiencing the economic upheaval of the Great Depression, and many were concerned about the instability in Europe and the possibility of another world war. A group of. Presbyterian ministers met to pray and talk about the church’s role in such a time. Rediscovering the unifying power of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, they reaffirmed that in Christ all Christians are one, regardless of nationality, race, or ethnicity. From their meeting came the first World Communion Sunday in 1936. In the years that followed other denominations began to celebrate this special Sunday.

1. Today we gather with people in this sanctuary;

We gather we people in their homes who join us on livestream.

wE gather with all our brothers and sister in Christ who come to our Lord’s Table today.

2.  On this day, I am reminded that the word “Companion” literally means “with bread.” (Martha Spong, “My Companion at Table,” Christian Century, October 4, 2013, electronic version)

3. With bread, the body of Christ; 

with wine or juice, the blood of Christ we are joined together by Christ in fellowship.

Conclusion:  “What happened once I started distributing communion was the truly disturbing, dreadful realization about Christianity:  You can't be a Christian by yourself” Take This Bread:  A Radical Conversion, Sara Miles (96)

Reflections on “What I Need from My church: Stewardship” 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Matthew 25: 14=30

This week's sermon was part of the fall series with the focus on stewardship, which also introduced or fall stewardship campaign.  I am finding each week that the church plays an important role in challenging its members and modeling for its members some of what it means to be disciples of Christ.  Each week, I have a growing awareness of the importance of the church's work.

“What I Need from My church:  Stewardship”  SAPC, Denton; October 17, 2021; Fall, 2021 series

matthew 25:  “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents,[f] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 

Introduction:  We continue in our preaching series on what we need from our church to grow in our discipleship.

I suspect if I ha given you a list of all the topics we would cover under the category thins we need from our church, you might answer, “Are you sure we need that stewardship stuff?”

Move 1:  You already know the church teaches stewardship. 

a.  when you heard the Scripture readings this morning, you probably were going, “Oh yeah, here comes stewardship.” 

1.  If I asked you to pick a Bible text for a stewardship sermon, many of you would pick one of these.

2. No surprise to any of us who hang out around St. Andrew in the fall that the church teaches about stewardship.

b. Why does the church take on this role?

1. In part, because the church has found that giving needs to be taught.

1.  In fact, Robert Bohl reminds us that  “The New Testament church leaders discovered that stewardship did not come naturally; it was a learned discipline. “  (The ‘S’ Word Stewardship is a spiritual matter, not a code word for raising money, Robert Bohl, https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/stewardship/)

2.  The passage we read this morning from paul’s letter to the church in Corinth is part of Paul’s teaching to the early church about what it means to follow the risen Christ.

3. the early church had pushed away from the religious practices of the Temple and the Jewish authorities because the early church proclaimed Jesus was the Son of God and had been resurrected from the dead.

4.  Paul is busy visiting and writing to early church communities about what it means to be a Christian.

5.  Part of being a Christian meant giving back to God and giving to care for others.

6.  So Paul had to teach the early church about giving.

c.  Robert Wuthnow. A sociologist who taught at Princeton University has studied stewardship in churches for many years.

1. One of his insights has been about the impact of consumerism on Americans.

2.  He suggests that as “Americans grow more and more wealthy, money becomes a kind of narcotic.  The more we have, the more we need.  

3.  He argues that this narcotic of consumerism,  “claims our focus to such a degree that we become immune to how much prosperity we really have and immune to the poverty in the world around us. (As quoted by  - Walter Brueggemann, "The Liturgy of Abundance, The Myth of Scarcity," in the Christian Century, March 24-31, l999.)

4.  this might not be much of a challenge if all that mattered was our own interests.

5. But as followers of Christ, we are called to look beyond ourselves, to care for others, to return back to God rom what God has given to us.

6.  In order to do those things, we have to be taught about giving, which is why one of the things we need from our church is stewardship.

Move 2: Part of effective teaching is giving people concrete examples and opportunities to put what they are taught into action.

a.  That is what Jesus does in the his story about the talents.

1.  He describes three different ways of responding to being given money.

2. He invites those listening, he invites us who hear the story now to put ourselves in the place of each of those three and try on how we might respond.

3.  We can imagine we are the one who takes the money and risks it.  

What can ask ourselves would it be like to take the gifts we have from God and use them to take risks on behalf of the gospel.

4. Or, we can imagine what it might be like to take the middle road, not as risky, but still putting the gifts to use.

5. Or we can imagine what it might be like to take the safe route and just hold on to the gift from God and not risk it at all.  

6.  jesus takes teaching about giving and gives  a concrete illustration that any of us can imagine — if we dare!

b. stewardship campaign gives us an opportunity to take an action.

1. Several years ago our fellow church in Grace Presbytery, FPC, Ft. Worth, initiated plan to help become tithers, that is people who give 10% of their income back to God.

2. As good Presbyterians, they created a task force to figure out the best way to implement the plan.

3. They discovered early on that they need to find concrete actions for the members to make as they moved toward increasing their financial giving.

4.  One member of the task force said, “We have discovered it is far easier for Christians to act their way into a new way of thinking than it is to think their way into a new way of acting.” (“The ‘S’ Word

Stewardship is a spiritual matter, not a code word for raising money,” Robert Bohl, https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/stewardship/)

5. The concrete action leads to new understanding.  

6. When I read the article, I was reminded of when I first was out of college and working. I joined Westminster Presbyterian Church in Corsicana, TX.

7.  I joined the church, and they gave me a box of offering envelopes (some of you still like to use envelopes!). 

8.  I would set the envelopes out on a table and each week would use one. If I did not make it to church, the envelope waited until I did go. If I missed several weeks, I had several envelopes to fill and take to church. 

9  Of course, there was a huge temptation to just throw away the envelopes and start over if the pile of unused envelopes grew too high.

10.  My wife and I now make our offering through our bank’s billpay, but the memory of those envelopes continues to inform my giving.

c.  Discipleship and stewardship is not just about the giving of money.

1. Time and effort.

2.  habitat for Humanity 

3.  A concrete expression of how to care for those who need shelter.

4. In fact, that task force at FPC, Ft. Worth learned that giving people opportunities to give of their time helped make the invitation to give of their financial resources easier to articulate.

5.  Why?  Because the learning to give by actually giving of our time, or money, or effort leads to increased understanding of the importance and value of giving in all ways.

d.  One fo the challenges of the pandemic continue to be how to we engage people for whom gathering on the livestream is the primary way they connect to St. Andrew.

1.  how do we teach giving to those who are not part of our local community?

2.  We do not have the perfect answer, but part of the answer is we teach about giving, we give concrete examples of how to give, and we invite people in our area and outside our area to prayerfully consider how they can give fo their time with groups like habitat for humanity, or offer their financial giving to return back to God a portion of the resources God has given to them.

Conclusion:  in other words, we continue the tradition of Paul and teach about the “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9: