KOINONIA

a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday November 20th, 2005

I want you to know that at the top of the pad of paper that I use each week to organize my thoughts, before sitting down on Saturday to write them out word for word, was the note “Find a better joke.” I guess last week’s offering (originally written by Carlislian Stephen Wright) about “breakfast anytime” being “French Toast in the Renaissance” was just a little too obscure, so this week I was prepared to spend several hours finding something better. And then yesterday morning I opened my e-mail and there was this, from Beliefnet’s Joke of the Day.

Three children were talking about their religions. "I'm a Catholic," said one, "And our symbol is the crucifix." "I'm Jewish," said the second, "And our symbol is the Star of David." The third child said, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist and our symbol is a candle in a cocktail glass!"

We’re about halfway through now this informal series I’ve been preaching this fall about “The Purpose Driven Unitarian.” This all started out, you may recall, when I realized that the five pillars around which I have built my ministry for the past fifteen years or so: Worship, Education, Fellowship, Community Outreach and Pastoral Care, were virtually identical to the five purposes described by megachurch pastor Rick Warren in his best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Evangelism. And so I thought it might be kind of fun for me to explore how my ideas about these important spiritual topics might be a little different from his, and also where they overlapped. So two weeks ago I spoke on the topic of Worship, which is not only a celebration of the Creative Power which gives us life, but also an expression of our gratitude for that gift, which we demonstrate through our devotion to the things “that make God smile,” and the sacrifices we willingly make in order to achieve a higher purpose. And then last Sunday I spoke about the idea of Vocation, or “calling,” and how we might each discern our unique spiritual gifts for service by listening to our Hearts, applying our Abilities, empowering our Personalities, and employing our life Experience in order “to be of use” to our neighbors and the Greater Good. And on future Sundays, as we move on into the holidays, I intend to talk about Education, and the process of “self-culture” by which Unitarians and Universalists have traditionally continued to grow and improve ourselves spiritually; and also Outreach, or the ongoing commitment to affirming and sharing our free religious faith in ways that transform the world.

But today we are at the heart of the matter. Today’s topic is community, or in Greek koinonia -- a word whose core meaning is “shared” or “common,” and which is often translated into English as “fellowship” or “communion.” Community is about the common life we share with one another, our shared interest in a common whole, the communion we enjoy in fellowship with one another, within our communities of faith. It’s about our shared goals and values, our common dreams and aspirations. The experience of becoming part of an authentic community is one of the most commonly shared motivations for joining and attending a religious organization -- and this is true regardless of denomination, and across the entire spectrum of theological belief. Within Unitarian Universalism we sometimes describe our congregations as “communities of memory and hope,” shaped by covenants of mutual trust and support. But no matter how we may choose to frame the subject, a sense of community truly is at the heart of the matter. What do we commonly share, and with whom do we commonly share it? Answer these questions, and you will know in which community (or communities) you belong, and from which you are excluded.

The New Testament uses several other metaphors to describe what it means to be part of a community of believers. And the first of these is the word “church” itself, which in Greek is ecclesia -- those who have been “called out.” The Apostles Creed uses the phrases “holy catholic church” (hagian katholiken ecclesian) and “communion of saints” (hagion koinonian) to describe two of the key beliefs of second century Christianity. The Greek word hagios means literally something that is consecrated or set aside, while the word “catholic” (with a small “c”) literally means something that is liberal, universal, and all-inclusive (again, from the Greek words kata and holos: “completely whole”). Thus, one of the earliest understandings of Church in the Christian tradition was an all-inclusive community of those who had been called out and set aside to enjoy fellowship with one another. The Latin version is even more striking. To be called is to have a Vocation. To be set aside is to be Sanctified. And fellowship -- koinonia -- is Communion, which of course is how all communal communistic communities commonly communicate.

A second, and probably even earlier New Testament metaphor for the church is that of “the Body of Christ” with its “many members.” Those of you who have recently been to an Easter Service here at FRS will probably be familiar with this notion -- it is the community of the faithful who “stand again” in the place of their crucified teacher who comprise “the risen body of Christ.” And although the early church quickly moved away from this metaphorical understanding of the resurrection to a more literal teaching about the resurrection of the flesh, it is unquestionably a central image in the original letters of Paul, and remains a compelling understanding of community today: a diverse gathering of individuals who embody a shared heritage of instruction along with common traditions, goals, and values.

I know that on many occasions I’ve described one of the responsibilities of ministry as that of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” It’s a cute little maxim, with its clever verbal parallelism, but in many ways it is also deceptively superficial in its cleverness. Ministers lead communities of faith, and they lead them through Service, by both precept and example. Ministers are expected to practice what they preach, and to be an inspiration to others, and of course it’s understood that we never screw up or make mistakes. Ministers attempt to embody the ministry of the church -- not so that the rest of the community can thereby be excused from their responsibility to serve, but rather so that they might be guided in it. And these responsibilities for shared ministry basically fall into two areas.

The first responsibility is to hold people safe. To let them know, by our physical presence if nothing else, that there are other people in the world who care for them, and are concerned about them, even at those times when they may feel most alone. We can’t always protect the ones we love from every contingency of human existence. People suffer, and feel pain; they experience failure and frustration and loss...but as long as there is a compassionate community of the faithful who are willing to share those burdens by making them common ones, life’s afflictions become a little easier to endure.

And the second responsibility is to hold people accountable: to help them see (and perhaps at times even to compel them to see) that the decisions we make and the actions we take all have consequences, which not only effect our own lives, but also the lives of others, in ways we can’t always even begin to imagine or anticipate. Life is a series of choices, and each decision we make typically cuts off the opportunity to make some other decision somewhere down the line. Not always, of course. Sometimes we recognize our mistakes in time; sometimes life offers us “do overs.” Some people simply blunder through life never worrying about the consequences of their behaviors (and typically leaving a broad trail of wreckage behind them), while others are so concerned about the possible consequences of their decisions that they become paralyzed, and incapable of taking any action at all. Holding people accountable (and perhaps more imporantly, our own willingness to be accountable to other people) is about both discouraging other members of the community from making bad choices, and encouraging them to act on the good ones.

These basic lessons of safety and accountability are nothing more than what any half-way decent parent would attempt to teach their own children. We want our young people to know that they are loved, and we want them to understand that their choices have consequences for good or ill. And this brings me to a third metaphor for what it means to be part of a religious community, which is the understanding that we are all children of God, and brothers and sisters to one another. The experience of being part of a family is our earliest experience of community, and in many ways we never really get over it. Likewise, the time we spend with our children is precious and irreplaceable -- and once it is gone, we will never get it back again. And this is why it is so important that, rather than allowing church to conflict with your family activities, you need allow church to BECOME a family activity. Church needs to be something that we all do together, so that our children can learn from our example that they are safe, that they are loved, that their decisions have consequences, and that they should always try to choose the path in life that leads them to the good: to joy, to happiness, to real and meaningful accomplishment, rather than that other path that leads disappointment and suffering and harm.

Creating a healthy community, and sharing in its common life, requires several important personal qualities. It requires Commitment -- a willingness to make the community a priority in our lives, and to give our best selves to it. It requires Honesty: the commitment to being truthful with one another, and to communicating openly and frankly. It also requires Humility: the recognition that none of us are perfect, or more important than those around us, and a conscious decision to be patient, to be understanding, to be forgiving of our natural human foibles as we all attempt to understand one another and find our common way. Healthy community requires Civility, or at least a certain degree of Common Courtesy. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we all need to insist on a lot of formality; rather it means respecting the dignity and integrity of everyone we meet, and recognizing that the values we share in common are much stronger than the disagreements that push us apart. Healthy community insists upon high levels of Trust, and Trustworthiness -- an attitude which is ready to believe the best about other people, and which respects privacy and confidentiality while resisting the temptation to gossip. Finally, healthy community requires high levels of Participation, so that being fully present for one another becomes a matter of habit rather than an act of will. The more time we spend with together, the more of ourselves we are willing to invest in our relationships with one another, the better we will get to know each other, and our community will be better and stronger for the experience.

Of course, even the best communities sometimes experience conflict. And this is where I find Rick Warren’s insights especially fascinating. (I suspect that with a congregation of more than ten thousand members, he’s had a fair amount of experience in these matters). According to the Sermon on the Mount, Peacemakers are blessed as the Children of God. Yet peacemaking is not about avoiding conflict, or running from it or pretending it doesn’t exist. Rather, peacemaking grows out of the recognition that relationships are always worth restoring, especially if we value being part of God’s family. Here are Rick Warren’s seven biblically-based steps for restoring conflicted relationships.

1) Talk to God before talking to the person. “Tell God your frustrations. Cry out to him. He’s never surprised or upset by your anger, hurt, insecurity, or any other emotions. So tell him exactly how you feel. Most conflict is rooted in unmet needs. Some of these needs can only be met by God. When you expect anyone -- a friend, spouse, boss, or family member -- to meet a need that only God can fulfill, you are setting yourself up for disappointment and bitterness....”

2) Always take the initiative. “It doesn’t matter whether you are the offender or the offended: God expects you to make the first move. Don’t wait for the other party. Go to them first....Delay only deepens resentment and makes matters worse. In conflict, time heals nothing; it causes hurts to fester....”

3) Sympathize with their feelings. “Use your ears more than your mouth....Begin with sympathy, not solutions. Don’t try to talk people out of how they feel at first. Just listen and let them unload emotionally without being defensive. Nod that you understand even when you don’t agree. Feelings are not always true or logical. In fact, resentment makes us act and think in foolish ways....”

4) Confess your part in the conflict. “Confession is a powerful tool for reconciliation. Often the way we handle a conflict creates a bigger hurt than the original problem itself. When you begin by humbly admitting your mistakes, it defuses the other person’s anger and disarms their attacks because they were probably expecting you to be defensive. Don’t make excuses or shift the blame; just honestly own up to any part you have played in the conflict. Accept responsibility for your mistakes and ask for forgiveness....”

5) Attack the problem, not the person. “You cannot fix the problem if you’re consumed with fixing the blame. You must choose between the two....”

6) Cooperate as much as possible. “Peace always has a price tag. Sometimes it costs our pride; often it costs our self-centeredness. For the sake of fellowship, do your best to compromise, adjust to others, and show preference to what they need....”

7) Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution. “It is unrealistic to expect everyone to agree on everything. Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, while resolution focuses on the problem. When we focus on reconciliation, the problem loses significance and often becomes irrelevant. We can reestablish a relationship even when we are unable to resolve our differences...we can disagree without being disagreeable....God expects unity, not uniformity, and we can walk arm-in-arm without seeing eye-to-eye on every issue. This doesn’t mean you give up on finding a solution. You may need to continue discussing and even debating -- but you do it in a spirit of harmony. Reconciliation means you bury the hatchet, not necessarily the issue...”


When we discover how to focus on the things we have in common, when we are realistic in our expectations for ourselves and others, and when we consciously decide to be encouraging and supportive, rather than critical and uncooperative, authentic community is close at hand. So reach out to your neighbors and fellow creatures, in a spirit of love and concern, with an attitude of honesty and accountability, and in a covenant of mutual trust and support, and know that we share both memories and hopes, which are the substance of our common life together.