“Called to Community”

The numbers refer to projected pictures that accompanied the sermon.

1. I hear in Paul’s words today his longing for us to move beyond the ordinary way we think of ourselves. He wants us to experience something richer, bigger, and more satisfying than the world dishes out to us. As a preacher, it’s my job to try to help the potent truths that Paul is trying to show us to get inside our awareness and renew our minds and even transform our lives. Paul only had words as his tool, but today I have pictures as well. So I invite you to open your eyes as you open your mind, and prepare to expand your awareness of who you are.

2. So who are you?

3. If you’re a man, what kind of man are you? This guy’s probably thinking, “Hey, I’m pretty cool, I’m a babe magnet.” How would you describe yourself?

4. If you’re a woman, what kind of woman are you? Not this kind. [Picture of life-size puppet caricaturing an old woman.]

5. This is how I see all the women here. [Picture of beautiful woman.] How would you describe yourself?

6. Paul uses the analogy of our bodies to help us see ourselves in a new way. As Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 12, our body is composed of many different parts–the foot, the hand, the eye, etc. Each one of those parts contributes its own unique gifts to our body, so that we can eat, work, play, and do all the things that we do.

7. The same principle is at work in each of our body parts. For example, let’s look at the eye.

8. It itself is made up of different parts that all contribute their own unique gifts so our eyes can see the world around us.

9. Each of these various parts is made up of individual cells. This is what the cells in the back of our eyes look like.

10.Here are some other eye cells. Different kinds of cells each contribute different parts of our eyes’ amazing ability to discern thousands of colors, adapt to different amounts of light, detect movement , gauge distance, and make sense of the world around us.

11. And the same principle is true within the cells. And what are cells made up of? Molecules that link themselves together to create these dynamic, living cells that are capable of performing all kinds of functions in service of the organism, according to the characteristics of the molecules that form them.

12. And the molecules are made of atoms whose very nature is to find and bond with other atoms. And these basic building blocks of the universe are themselves made up of protons, neutrons and electrons, which are all bound together by what physicists call “the strong force.”

13. Physicists tell us that just after the universe was born at what they call the Big Bang, everything was like a uniform soup of subatomic particles. The book of Genesis describes it as “without form, and void.” The profound Mystery that science cannot explain is why there was built into everything this persistent impulse to find other things and gather together into cooperative groups where each part contributes what it has to the whole. The whole universe and everything in it was created for community.

14. And as Paul reminds us, we were created for community too, whoever we are. Just like an atom is useless unless it’s contributing its own qualities to a molecule, and an eye or hand or foot has no purpose unless it’s contributing its abilities to a body–

15. and just like bears can’t bear to be alone,

16. and cats seek out other cats,

17. or sometimes even dogs,

18. and birds of a feather flock together,

19. and ducks feel just ducky when they’re together,

20. so we humans were also created for community. As it says in Genesis, “God said, it is not good that man should be alone.”

21. “Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

22. And we create families–

23. All kinds of families.

24. And we form relationships with our neighbors,

25. And we create neighborhoods.

26. And we recreate churches–look! Here we are.

27. When everybody adds there own note, we create beautiful harmony together ...or

28. ...at least a lot of noise!

29. When everyone adds their faith, hope, love, and desire for God, we grow together into the Body of Christ. We ourselves embody something of Christ’s own spirit of love, truth, light, and life. This is what we were created for. We ourselves were created for community. As Paul said, “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

30. And when we all offer our gifts “according to the grace given to us”, Christ’s work of redeeming and transforming the world continues in our church, in our community and in our world.

31. The powers and principalities of this world can exploit us as long as we stay locked in our own personal world of greed, competition, mistrust, and strife.

32. But Paul challenges to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.”

33. This renewing of our minds helps us see who we really are. We are created for community–not only we, but everyone and everything in the universe.

34. It helps us see our true purpose–not to end up with the most toys when we die,

35. but to make our own unique contribution to the betterment and transformation of the world, according to the gifts God has given us.

36. Paul said, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice means offering our whole selves to God, so that we ourselves can be part of God’s purpose of transforming the world from chaos and strife into the kingdom of God.

37. One person whose mind has been renewed is Ben Stein. For many years, Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's," in which he has been reporting on the movie stars and famous people who frequent Morton’s exclusive steak houses. Recently he decided to stop writing this column that helped feed our culture’s obsession with the people who have supposedly reached the pinnacle of success. In his final column, he wrote,

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches... A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him. A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad. The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV.... I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards. Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as...good an economist as Friedman...or as good a writer as Fitzgerald....But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms. This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has bestowed upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

38. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Do you see the renewing transformation that has taken place in Ben Stein’s mind?

39. It is by offering his life as a living sacrifice that he has discovered something richer, bigger, and more satisfying than he had found by seeking success and fame.

40. He found himself helping God transform the world from chaos into community.

Who are you? Why are you here? Are you willing to offer a little more of your self as a living sacrifice to God today?