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Seekers Church: A Christian Community
Sermon for Covenant Christian Community
November 13, 2005
Peter Bankson
Good morning. It is a privilege for me to share this time of worship with you.
Last spring, when Reverend Lola signed up for a class in our School of Christian Living it felt like a new chapter in our life as a faith community. Oh, in the past we have welcomed folks to our school who were not part of our worshiping community, but when you came here to be with us on Tuesday evenings it felt like a real welcome to our new home. Now you are sharing our space. Thanks be to God!
This morning I want to offer a few reflections on a familiar story from the Gospel of Saint Matthew - the one usually called parable of the talents. I chose this because in Seekers Church, our tradition is to base our daily Bible study and weekly sermons on the lectionary used by many churches of different denominations and this is the Gospel lesson for this week. Sharing these readings with many other congregations gives us a sense that even though we are not affiliated formally with these other churches, we can choose to walk together. Moreover, because we have a different preacher each week, the lectionary gives us some continuity from week to week, and a way to know what Scripture will be coming up in the weeks to come.
In Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus is giving one of his many lessons about the nature of the "kingdom of God." This translation is from "The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language."
[The realm of God is] "… like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master's investment. The second did the same. However, the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master's money.
"After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on, be my partner.'
"The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master's investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.
"The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid to disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound, down to the last cent.'
"The master was furious. ' That is a terrible way to live! It is criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.'
"'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. Moreover, get rid of this "play-it-safe" who will not go out on a limb. Throw him into utter darkness.'"
In this story, Jesus says that, among many other things, the realm of God is like a risky investment:
I do not know about you, but the idea of a "risky investment" sends me running for cover. I came from a family that had enough, but the experience of my parents through the Great Depression gave them a sense of caution when it came to investments. I remember once in the 1970's when my dad, disregarding his own rules, invested a few thousand dollars in a software development initiative to develop an automated billing system for dentists. However, in 1974, most dentists were satisfied to pay a clerk to do that job and there was not much of a market for the software. The software developer went bankrupt and my dad lost his investment. He vowed, "I'll never do that again!" and went to his grave convinced that he had made a mistake investing in that venture.
Like my dad, I have been careful, but there is a small, woman-owned, publishing business that we invested in, about ten years ago. She had a clear vision and has done good work. Nevertheless, the publishing business is going through huge changes and she is on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. My wife and I stand to "lose" many times more than my father lost.
When I learned about the bankruptcy, I checked my inner voices, expecting to hear a critical spirit like the one I saw in my dad. Surprisingly, what I felt was that this was a noble venture and frankly, I am glad we did what we did -- to support the call of someone who was committed to publishing books that would help break down the lingering prejudices against women and their life journeys. It is not the result that I hoped for, but I am not angry about it.
Do not get me wrong, this is not the outcome that Jesus describes. Jesus does not talk about what would have happened in the Realm of God if one of the trusted servants had invested his five thousand dollars in a venture that went bankrupt! That, as we say, is left for us to ponder!
Even so, making "risky investments" is not easy for us. Yet this is just what Jesus says the Realm of God is like: "It is criminal to live cautiously like that! [Burying what God has given you.] If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least?"
The first thing I want to offer this morning is this: The realm of God is like a risky investment. Jesus calls us to invest our talents and bring in a return on our investment.
In Seekers Church this season, our worship is focused on the understanding that the city of God -- or the 'realm' or the 'kindom' of God is nearby -- among us and around us. We have been using a responsive reading that helps us remember that there are many parables about what the city of God is like, and they describe a world with lots of diversity: The parable of the Talents is the 17th parable in The Gospel of Matthew alone! Each parable describes something about the realm of God, but each one is different. I think it is important to recognize that there is some truth in each of these, and that their diversity is a distinct, important message as well. This says to me that there are lots of ways to look at the realm of God; there are lots of ways to think about what it means that Christ is risen and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to follow the path Jesus set for us: to preach Good News to the Poor, to reach out to those in need, to live our lives so that we really are Good News to others. What does this mean -- for US, living in Washington DC, in 2005, in the middle of all the trials and tribulations that we feel so close around us?
Diversity is important for health and creativity. I lived in Japan as a teen - I learned there were at least 2 ways to do lots of things: floors, walls, shoes, eating utensils ... Living in Japan taught me an incredibly important lesson: "If I can see more than one good, sensible, interesting way to do something, who knows how many other ways there might be?!
For the past four years, I have helped lead a pilgrimage to Guatemala, to help small villages in the highlands build schools for their children. I see in Guatemala an incredible variety in language, food and clothing. In the highlands, an area not much bigger than the state of Maryland, the Maya people speak 23 different languages! Look at these two huipiles, typical women's clothing from two different villages. Think about the diversity they represent.
(Show the two huipiles.)
Diversity takes more forms than race and culture. Bio-diversity is a major form of insurance against disease. We are different for good reason! In some interesting ways, people are like beads: Each bead is a bead, but each one is unique. Look at these. See the differences - and yet all of them are beads, right?
(Put the beads on the huipiles)
The second idea I hope to leave with you is that diversity is an important gift from God.
Rev Lola asked me to think about sharing "What is Seekers Church seeking? We took our name from the writing of Robert Greenleaf. In 1976, when we were thinking through what it meant for us to be a separate and distinct part of the Church of the Saviour, Robert Greenleaf was writing his book on Servant Leadership. Early in that book, he writes about the connections between prophecy and servant leadership in a passage that spoke deeply to the founding members of Seekers Church. They decided we should take our name from that passage, because we are a people who are intentionally on the way, and committed to bringing forth prophetic leadership from contemporary sources. Here is the passage from Servant Leadership:
I now embrace the theory of prophecy, which holds that prophetic voices of great clarity, and with a quality of insight equal to that of any age, are speaking cogently all of the time. Men and women of a stature equal to the greatest of the past are with us now, addressing the problems of the day, and pointing to a better way … better able to live fully and serenely in these times.
The variable that marks some periods as barren and some as rich in prophetic vision is in the interest, the level of seeking, the responsiveness of the hearers. The variable is not in the presence or absence or the relative quality and force of the prophetic voices. Prophets grow in stature as people respond to their message. If their early attempts are ignored or spurned, their talent may wither away.
It is seekers, then, who make prophets, and the initiative of any one of us in searching for and responding to the voice of contemporary prophets may mark the turning point in their growth and service.
(Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, pg 8)
Our call is to bring forth prophetic voices in our time … from any one among us … in unexpected ways. … I have copies to share with you (attached).
I think of our path as a faith community as one very much like the folks who lived in Ephesus or Pamphilia in the first century. Jesus came and died and had been risen over there in the Holy Land. Here in our town, we heard the stories from a few travelers and we were curious. Then we had a visit from this fiery evangelist (Paul, or Gordon Cosby, take your pick) and we felt moved to do something more. So now, we are trying to understand and live by what has been written, and make sense out of what we are experiencing here and now. We are being called to BE the Good News of Christ - the Gospel - in Washington, DC in the first decade of the 21st Century.
We are trying to listen and encourage the prophets among us, and we wonder what that really means. It is not easy for us to follow someone with a bright, new idea - especially if it seems like a risky investment! In the meantime, lots of us are working in places that need to know the Good News, so we are encouraging each other to BE that Gospel in all the places where we live and work.
Our spiritual path includes key elements of the Church of the Saviour tradition: the Inner Journey, the Outer Journey and the Community Journey. Our call as a church focuses on this.
Our call draws attention to several 'marks' of Seekers Church. The first is shared leadership for the faith community. We have no lead pastor. In fact, like Covenant Christian Church, our leadership is called forth from within our own faith community. Our Stewards, members of the community who choose to be Stewards after a couple years of preparation, take unlimited liability for the life and health of our faith community.
As a community, we have a clear commitment to empower women and children. This has ked to a long-standing commitment to support For Love of Children, and the Hope & a Home ministry of FLOC. One of our co-founders, Fred Taylor, was also the founder of FLOC. For years, we had a Hope and a Home mission group, and one of our members has served as board chair for FLOC during its recent restructuring. We have also provided significant financial support for Manna, a non-profit that rehabs houses in DC for "people, not profit." Manna was general contractor on our renovation.
We also help support other ministries to help children and youth. This includes Bokamoso, a ministry to youth in Winterveldt, a township outside Pretoria, South Africa. Bokamoso, or "place of hope," is a place where kids from Winterveldt can find hope and support as they reach for their futures in a country that is changing rapidly. A group from Bokamoso will be coming again early next year (January 13th - February 5th). They will be at worship with Seekers on January 15th. We hope to have a sing-along following our worship, an opportunity for the youth of Bokamoso to teach us some of the songs and dances that give them hope. We hope that you all will be able to come join us for that day! We will share with you a full schedule of their performances as soon as we can get it ready.
Another quality of Seekers Church is shared leadership. We offer many women and men opportunities to preach and teach. Since we began in 1976, our staff support has been mostly women (5 of 8). We have always had a commitment to inclusive language in liturgy and song. In addition, many of the ministries we have supported with our financial gifts are organizations called to work for justice for women and children.
Another mark of Seekers Church is our support for ministry in daily life. Mission groups carry our life together. Every mission group supports ministry in daily life for its members. For example Celebration Circle, our worship mission group supports Sandra, who is on the staff at Joseph's House (an AIDS Hospice); and Deborah, who teaches at Wesley Seminary; and me. Two of our mission groups focus their call on support for the ministry of their members in those "ordinary structures of our lives:" Artists and Mission Support Group. We also have a special group for healers that support mediators and therapists in the ministry of their work.
What is our corporate call? For years, our corporate call focused around For Love of Children and Hope & a Home. Since 1992, we have been also carrying a call to put our roots down in a place of our own, here on Carroll Street at the edge of Washington DC.
Now that we have been here for more than a year, there are many ideas emerging about what God is calling us to in this place. One idea that seems to have some life right now grows out of the way this building has been embraced by so many different groups. I wonder if at least part of our call might not be to hold a place for creativity and diversity here on the border between DC and Takoma Park. There are many dimensions of diversity in the groups who gather here:
· Religious - Seekers, Covenant Christian Community, Fabranges Chedar Jewish Community, Hindu, Soul Fire Inside, World Music, Insight Meditation Community of Washington
· Artistic - Kids art camp, YogaRhythmics, InterPlay, Dance Exchange, Shakespeare in the Parque, Open Circle, Flute Choir, Violin lessons
· Citizenship - Historic Takoma, DC ANC, City of TP (Housing), Howard U. Urban planning, WPFW, Guatemala pilgrimage
· Education - SisterMentors, Nonviolent Communications.
This idea is so fresh I do not really have words for it. However, a group of us has been meeting for about a month to discern whether God is calling forth a new mission group.
As people, we are alike in so many ways, and yet there is power in our differences. There are places you can go that I cannot … and vice versa. Therefore, you and I can bring the Good News of Christ to different people, sharing his call to bring justice and peace. If this is part of who we are, then maybe we can acknowledge our common values and characteristics. We all want a warm, dry place to gather. We all want to bring justice, reconciliation and healing. Can we honor our differences and risk investing our lives to welcome in the realm of God, here and now?
Looking at the Gospel for this week - this is risky business! It would be easier to bury our talents in the ground and overlook the possibility that this place is a center for diversity. It would be simpler to recruit more people like me to be part of Seekers Church and fill up this place with OUR activities. It would be easier to close the doors when we were not here and keep this nice new building for ourselves.
We knew from the beginning that we did not want to do that. We wanted a place where the community could gather to do, in its own way, what we are called to do. As our call says, we "…come together in weekly worship rooted in the Biblical faith with shared leadership; and disperse with a common commitment to understand and implement Christian servanthood in the structures in which we live our lives."
This feels like at least a "five-talent" investment: to offer ourselves as a place to build community among the folks who are using this space; to discern a common vision and build the trust that it would take to work together to do, not only what we have come here to do by ourselves, but to see how what we are doing can be linked with others who are here.
When I think of that work, I am reminded of the importance of containers. This basket contains whatever it is holding. The liturgist contains our prayerful presence. This place might contain a growing community among the 35 groups who are gathering here to respond to their own needs in this place. A good container holds its contents safely - and just long enough. This wool bowl might be an example of the importance of a container - sturdy enough to hold its contents, opaque enough so the beads did not distract you until I lifted them out, with a mouth wide enough to make it easy to get the beads out.
(Pass the wool basket around.)
I believe the Gospel lesson for today calls all of us to invest what God has given us - invest it in ways that will keep hope alive and help bring justice and peace to our world in THIS time. Moreover, I believe that there is a growing community gathering around this place that can bear witness to God's Good News.
I have seen that in your life here. The Covenant Christian Community is an important part of this place. I saw it when I was here for Reverend Lola's birthday party. I see it in your Thanksgiving basket ministry. I see it in the way you share responsibility for leadership within your family of faith - encouraging and supporting each other to invest the talents God has given you.
The third thing I hope to leave with you is that Seekers Church is an incubator for modern prophets and a container for diversity.
In the Gospel lesson, Jesus reminds us that the realm of God has three important characteristics:
· Talents are distributed by God, and not always the way we'd prefer
· We are called to make something of God's gifts to us, no matter what they are.
· God's gifts are to be used: God is NOT interested in having us hoard, save or protect what we have been given.
If we are called to be God's people, then we need to be about investing what we have, to reveal the realm of God in our midst. How might we work together to share the Good News today … and tomorrow?
Amen.
SUPPORT MATERIALS
Cards with Seekers; call and "Why we named ourselves Seekers"
Two very different Guatemalan huipiles
Three necklaces with varied beads
A crocheted wool basket
Our call is to be a "Seekers community" which comes together in weekly worship rooted in the Biblical faith, with shared leadership; and disperses with a common commitment to understand and implement Christian servanthood in the structures in which we live our lives.
By "Seekers community," we mean an intentional body which sees Christ as our true life source. Koinonia with one another and genuine self-giving to the world are the ways we can be in Christ today. Seekers are not persons who have arrived, but persons who are intentionally on the way.
By shared leadership, we mean empowering the gifts of women and men to help our worship flow out of and feed into the life of the community. We are committed to evoking and giving space to new gifts of preaching, liturgical leadership, creative worship forms, giving, mission and other acts of faith.
For us, Christian servanthood is based on empowering others within the normal structures of our daily lives (work; family and primary relationships; and citizenship) as well as through special structures for service and witness. We desire and welcome participation in Seekers of women and men of every race and sexual orientation. In Seekers Church, we will equip and support each other in all of these areas and seek a balance among them.
The Seekers community sees itself called into Christ's ministry of deliverance from bondage to freedom in every personal and corporate expression. We recognize the value of each individual and seek to heal any wounds of discrimination inflicted by our society and church.
Seekers is committed to participation by persons of all ages. We see children, youth and adults of all ages as valuable and valued parts of our community, and desire their inclusion in our care, our ministry and our life together.
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