The Multiple Gifts of Spiritual Community

February 6, 2022 • 5th Sunday after Epiphany
Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 & Romans 12:4-10 (The Inclusive Bible)
Pastor Jeff Wells

[You can view the worship video recording at: Facebook.com/churchofthevillage/videos.]

The text below is only notes for a “dialogue sermon” that included 
three members of the Church of the Village community. I encourage you to watch the full worship video to be blessed by this powerful conversation.

We are doing something different with the message today. I was inspired by my friend and close collaborator in the Living Earth Movement, Rev. Bonnie Tarwater, who does a lot of dialogue sermons at the Church for Our Common Home. So, today, I am dialoguing with three member of the Church of the Village community. Our communal message will take the place of our communion sacrament. I encourage us to see this conversation as our communion today – the sharing and receiving of the gifts of God and one another and our coming together as one body in love and affirmation.

Two Sundays ago, I preached on the value of relational religious diversity and our aspiration to practice that as the Church of the Village. In that message, I referred to a phenomenon gaining adherents among some theologians called “multiple belonging,” which refers to persons who feel an allegiance to more than one religious belief system or set of practices. In our worship planning meeting for today, thinking about that label, “multiple belonging,” led us to realize that speaking only of religious difference is much too limiting. None of us bring only our past or present religious experiences into community. We all bring multiple gifts to our life together. We bring the fullness and the richness of who we are and the many and varied gifts of our experiences, learnings, accumulated wisdom, our passions, the challenges we have faced and all the ways those have shaped us. To the extent we are open to giving and receiving these gifts, we become a much richer community for it. 

In preparing for this message, I thought about the Agape Sangha Meditation group that we started many years ago. It used to meet Sunday mornings before worship. During the first several months of the pandemic, Joy Sanjek led us in meditation five days a week. Then 2 days a week for several months. That practice was very loving and healing for those of us who participated. The name Agape Sangha was meant to bring together the practice of self-giving love with communal Buddhist meditation practice. Sangha is the Buddhist term for a community of spiritual companions who practice together and care for one another with loving kindness. I think of the Church of the Village as Sangha.    

So, we are going to see short videos from Hala Abu Husein, Helen Peterson, and Tziporah Kasachkoff. I asked each of them to share about what gifts they bring, what gifts they have received from being part of our community, and what else they wanted to share about themselves or their connection to the Church of the Village. After the videos, the four of us will be spotlighted on Zoom for some “live” conversation.

[video]

Your reflections were so meaningful, powerful, and moving. I know those watching and listening must have a lot of comments to share and questions to ask. I encourage everyone who is able to join the preacher breakout room after worship for an extended conversation with our dialogue participants. 

I am so grateful to each of you for taking the time to talk with me this week and reflect on your lives and your connections with this community. I would like to explore just a bit more with each of you. And I am going to change the order from the videos and begin with Helen. 

PJ to Helen:

Since Helen’s gifts are strongly expressed through her dance and poetry, I invite her to read one of her recent poems now.

Pastor Jeff to Tziporah:

Thank you for sharing your story about learning to appreciate diversity. You also said on Thursday that different beliefs can co-exist as long as people love one another as people. Can you talk about how you have experienced that in the Church of the Village? 

Pastor Jeff  to Hala:  

You said earlier this week that you are shaped more by Arabic language than by Islam. Can you share how that has been an important part of your connection to this community? 

Conclusion:

What a gifted group! You can see how much each of them has to offer from their own life experience, dreams, empathy, beliefs, and so much more. I could have chosen to interview any person in our community and they would have had as diverse and distinctive a life story and personhood to share. The key is having an atmosphere and an ethos that values and provides the opportunity for this kind of mutual enrichment. 

This experience was deeply emotional and enlightening for me. I hope it has been for all of you and for everyone listening. Common theme about the importance of love, of being valued for who we are, of a sense of belonging. 

Challenge everyone to do some homework this week. Connect with one other person in our community who you do not know well. Share with each other the gifts that you bring and receive from each other the gifts the other person has to offer. And if you really want to be ambitious and take on a project – commit to doing that every week or once a month with someone in the Church of the Village you don’t know. Can you imagine it – if, eventually, we could all connect in that way with every other person in our community? Imagine how we could all grow in relation to one another and within ourselves. Imagine how much deeper our connectedness, our appreciation of one another, our love for each other would be. 

(c) 2022 Jeffry Wells
All rights reserved.