The Offering: How Relationships Transform When You Offer Community (Rom. 12:13, 15)

For many, these are difficult times.  Most of us have been touched by the economic struggles in some way.  Some of you have lost jobs.  Some of you have had pay cuts.  Most of us know people who are struggling.  A couple of weeks ago my family took our first hit.  Kendra’s supervisor sat her down and told Kendra that her hours were being cut.  Her salary would be reduced by 20%.  Of course, we thankful she still has a job.  Nonetheless, it was a significant cut.

 

Times are so tough that one counseling-hotline I read about is seeing a drastic increase in calls related to the economy.[1]  The hotline is based in Los Angeles which has one of the country’s highest unemployment rates.  They are handling callers who are desperate because of lost jobs, lapsed medical insurance, and home foreclosures.

 

But even without the current financial struggles, tough times are no stranger.  Sherwin Nuland was a surgeon for 30 years and is now an author.[2]  In one of his books, Lost in America, Nuland uses a quote for his epigraph.  The quote is attributed to Philo of Alexandria, an ancient Jewish scholar.  Here is the quote: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is carrying a great burden.”  Philo wasn’t being pessimistic.  He was being realistic.  At any given moment, many of us are facing a significant challenge.  It may be concerns about an aging parent or a rebellious child.  It may be a struggle with a teacher or a friendship.  It may be lingering doubts about the existence of God.  It may be questions about church.  At any given moment, many of us are carrying a great burden.  Tough times are no stranger.

 

Times were certainly tough for those reading Romans.  We’ve heard on previous Sundays how Jews and Jewish Christians were expelled from the city of Rome but have now returned.  At least one scholar suggests that they have returned with great financial burdens.[3]  Can you imagine what life would be like if the city and county Mayors had the Sheriff escort you out of Shelby County with only what you could pack in your car, and then, a few years later, notified you that you could come back?  What would you come back to?  Would your house still be there?  Would you still have a job?  Do you remember when Hurricane Katrina drove thousands to Memphis?  They arrived like refugees.  No jobs.  No home.  No resources.  Maybe that’s what it was like for these Jews and Jewish Christians returning to Rome.  When they showed up at church that first Sunday perhaps all they had was the suitcases in their car.  Times were tough.

 

And one of the most important spiritual questions in tough times is this: Where’s God?  What is God’s plan for dealing with tough times?  There is an Episcopal Church on Wall Street called Trinity Church.[4]  Trinity Church sits in the center of America’s financial chaos.  In a recent interview, one of the ministers said he’s seen a significant increase in church attendance.  It started with an increase in support staff from nearby financial organizations.  Now, the executives are coming.  The minister said this:  “Someone who was here for 9/11 says this is the closest thing she has seen to that time.“  People are flooding that church looking for help.  What is that help?  What is God’s plan when times are tough?

 

One of the most profound answers to that question comes in Rom. 12:13, 15: 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality…15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. (Rom. 12:13, 15 TNIV).  These simple words communicate God’s plan for tough times.

 

First, Paul writes, Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.  That translation misses the depth of Paul’s original words.  Literally, Paul wrote this: Share in/ participate in the needs of the saints.  The word “share in” or “participate in” is a word often translated “fellowship” or “communion.”  It’s the verb form of the noun koinonia.  That’s the word from which the word “community” derives.  Say it out loud with me: koinonia; koinonia.  Koinonia means to enter into, to become a partner with, to share in something.

 

This is the word that describes what happened when Jesus came to earth: 14?Since the children have flesh and blood,? ?he too shared in their humanity?? so that by his death he might break the power??? of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil?—… (Heb. 2:14 TNIV).  The word “shared” is the word koinonia.  It’s the word Paul uses in Rom. 12.  When it came to us, Jesus practiced koinonia.  He shared in our humanity.  He entered into our humanity.  He participated in our humanity.  That’s koinonia.

 

And Paul calls the church to practice koinonia.  When it comes to the needs and burdens that people have, we are to enter into those needs.  We are to participate in them.  We are to make those burdens ours.  That’s what Paul means when he urges us to Share in/ participate in the needs of the saints.  Just as koinonia led Jesus to make our flesh and blood his own, koinonia leads us to make the needs of another person our own.  If every person we meet is carrying a great burden, the church is the one community that makes those burdens ours.  When someone is going through a tough time, God’s plan is for the rest of us to make that tough time our own.  God’s plan for tough times is koinonia. 

 

In her book Looking for God Nancy Ortberg writes about her oldest daughter.[5]  One evening the daughter returned home from a special service at church.  Something had touched her deeply during the service.  In response, the daughter wrote these words on a sheet of paper: Help me not to be okay just because everything is okay with me.   Nancy, the mother, copied the words and put them on the corkboard in the kitchen: Help me not to be okay just because everything is okay with me.   It became a daily reminder in their household of God’s vision for koinonia.  Nancy writes that it reminded her that, “if someone else is not okay, then to some degree, I am not okay.”  What if this became the daily prayer for us during these tough times: Help me not to be okay just because everything is okay with me?  God’s vision is that the church be the group that practices koinonia.  We are the one group that acts as if the tough times others are facing are our tough times.  God’s plan for tough times is koinonia.

 

But what does that look like?  In a sense, the rest of our text answers this question.  Listen again to Paul’s words: 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality…15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. (Rom. 12:13, 15 TNIV).  Let’s take this last phrase and consider how it expresses koinonia: Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Koinonia exists when we participate in, we share in, two things.  First, koinonia exists when we participate in the praise that others feel when something in their life goes right.  Second, koinonia exists when we participate in the pain that others feel when something in their life goes wrong.

 

Let’s tackle the second part of the phrase: mourn with those who mourn.  This may seem simple but it is not.  In fact, Paul is pointing to something which is increasingly rare today.[6]  In an interview recently, psychologist Douglas LaBier said that Americans suffer from Empathy Deficit Disorder.  LaBier claims that many Americans are “catastrophically unempathetic.”  That is, when we face someone in pain we don’t empathize with them.  Most of us instead try to gloss over their pain or change the subject of conversation to something besides their pain.  We are not comfortable being in the presence of someone in pain.  Yet in a culture that is catastrophically unemphathetic, here is God’s plan: koinonia.  Especially in tough times, the church is called to be the one community where empathy is found. 

 

A couple of years ago one of the newly widowed women at Highland drove to a mid-week Bible study at a home.  As she pulled up to the home, one of the tires on her car split and went flat.  It was, in the words of one of the women who witnessed it, the straw that broke the camel’s back.  All her grief and all her pain just came pouring out.  But the fifteen other women jumped immediately into action.  They gathered around her and hugged her and expressed loving words to her.  They found her AAA card and called a car service.  One of the women prayed over her.  After their Bible study, the women collected money to pay for a new tire.  They made this woman’s grief their own.  They mourned with the one mourning.  That’s koinonia.

 

But the second half of this phrase leads into even more challenging territory: rejoice with those who rejoice.  While we might be inclined to shed a sympathizing tear with someone in pain, we are much less likely to cheer when something goes well for someone else.[7]  When someone at the office gets a promotion while we get cut, we don’t want to rejoice with the one rejoicing.  When someone in the neighborhood gets pregnant while we are struggling with infertility, we don’t want to rejoice with the one rejoicing.  Yet God has called us to be that extraordinary community in which this very thing happens.  And how important this is in tough times!  When circumstances are hard, the good things that happen are more significant than ever before.  When that one good thing happens, what we want more than anything else is someone to share it with, someone to be happy with, someone to celebrate with.  That’s where the church comes in.  We’re called to be the ones who put our pride and our envy aside and make someone else’s good news our good news.  When something positive happens to someone else, we are called to act as if that positive thing happened to us.  That’s koinonia.

 

For the four and a half years that I preached for a church in New Mexico, Larry Hawkins did the announcements on Sunday mornings.  But for Larry, announcement time wasn’t just a time to communicate about events.  It was a time to communicate about people.  Larry had grown up in this church.  His father had been an elder.  And now he was an elder.  Every week Larry was on the phone with, in the homes with, or having lunch with members of that church.  Every week he’d hear first hand from them about their bad news and their good news.  Thus when it came to announcement time on Sunday mornings, Larry would often toss the written announcements aside and spend five minutes pointing out individuals and telling the good things that had happened to them.  He’d have Betty stand and he’d mention how she just found out she’s having a baby.  And we’d all clap.  He’d have Bob raise his hand and Larry would mention how Bob just got a new job.  And we’d all clap.  I didn’t realize it then, but I now see that Larry was shaping us into a community that rejoiced with those who rejoice.  That’s koinonia.

 

Last October Highland took a congregational survey.  We’re received the results and are processing them.  I want to share two items from those results.  First, the survey asked you to reflect on your experience at Highland.  An overwhelming number of you stated that Highland is a church where people can depend on one another.  It was the second greatest strength of Highland that you listed.  Highland is a church where people can depend on each other.  In other words, many of you experience koinonia here.  You’ve got people here who rejoice when you rejoice and who mourn when you mourn.  That’s good news.  Because that’s God’s plan. 

 

But let me share a second item.  The survey not only asked you to reflect on your experience at Highland.  It asked you to reflect on your experience at home.  It asked you to rate some weaknesses about yourself at home.  The second greatest weakness was this: you don’t tend to seek help from others.  Your family doesn’t seek help from others.  In other words, when you are mourning, you don’t tend to let others know.  And that is a hindrance to koinonia.  Too many of us at Highland are trying to navigate the tough times on our own.  We’re not taking advantage of God’s plan.  We’re pasting on a smile and putting on a show, when in reality we are carrying a great burden.  God has created a community that exists to enter into your pain and praise.  And for those of you who don’t ask for help, let me urge you to start asking.  Let us start mourning with you and rejoicing with you. 

 

There is, however, one more expression of koinonia to explore: Practice hospitality.  (Rom. 12:13 TNIV).  In her book Making Room Christine Pohl writes that many of us have the wrong image of hospitality.[8]  For many of us hospitality means entertaining family and friends.  It means inviting friends or family to the house for burgers or ribs.

 

But what Paul has in mind is something deeper.  Literally, Paul writes this: Practice/pursue the love of strangers.  The word “hospitality” literally means love for strangers.  Ultimately, hospitality is not something we offer to friends and family.  It is something we offer to strangers.  And Paul urges us to “practice” this love of strangers, or literally to “pursue” it.  We are to seek out opportunities to show love to strangers. [9]  

 

With this phrase, koinonia moves into deep waters.  Up to this point, we’ve been talking about koinonia as “what’s yours is mine.”  Koinonia is a community where I take the pain or praise that is yours and I make it mine.  I enter into it.  What’s yours is mine.  But with this last phrase, koinonia  also becomes “what’s mine is yours.”  Whatever resources I have, whatever I posses is now yours.  Even if I don’t know you very well, koinonia leads me to say “what’s mine is yours.”  I will allow you to enter into my life.  And how desperately that is needed in tough times!  God’s plan is that the church be the one community where we invite others in need to take advantage of our resources, even if we’ve just met.

 

Eugene Maddox tells of growing up in a home where he and his mother usually ate in cafeterias because his mother did not cook.  Sometimes they would be invited to the home of her boss.  Maddox loved these times because it was one of the rare times he got homemade food.  Once, when he was about 15, he and his mother were invited to the boss’ house.  There were two other guests present: an elderly woman and her servant, an African-American lady named Addie. When it was time for dinner, everyone dug in.  But halfway through the meal, Maddox noticed that Addie was missing.  Maddox just assumed she wasn’t feeling well.  On the way home Maddox asked his mother where Addie had gone.  She explained that Miss Addie had been asked to eat at a separate table.  At that time whites and blacks did not eat together.  Both Maddox and his mother hurt for Miss Addie.  Three days later Maddox came home from school.  His mother was cooking a meal. She never cooked.  But tonight she was cooking.  And she was cooking a roast.  Maddox asked, “Mom, what’s going on?”   She replied, “I have invited Miss Addie for dinner.“  Maddox later wrote “That night was the most wonderful dinner I ever had…”  When times are tough, there is almost nothing like hospitality—the love of strangers.  That’s the kind of community we are called to be.  That’s God’s plan for the tough times.

 

We’re going to practice koinonia right now.  Our invitation or ministry time is going to have three elements.  First, we want to mourn with those of you who may be mourning.  Some of you have lost a job.  You’ve lost a loved one.  A relationship isn’t going well.  School’s not going well.  You’re struggling with a sin.  Some of you here carry a great burden.  If that describes you, I’d like to ask you to stand where you are.  If you are carrying a burden this morning, please stand.  We want to mourn with you by praying over you.  If you are seated near someone standing, would you stand and place your hand on them.  Let’s pray: Father, you entered into our pain through your Son, Jesus.  He took on our burden.  And we want to do the same for those who are standing.  Their pain is ours pain.  And because of that, we ask you, just as they have been asking you, to lighten their burden.  We ask you, as if their burden belonged to us, to provide what they need this week.  Show us how we might enter more fully into their burden this week.  We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

 

We also want to rejoice with those who rejoice.  If something good has happened in your life recently, I urge you to share it with someone today.  Let them enter into your joy.  But I’ve specifically asked some individuals to briefly share something good that’s happened in their life recently.  One by one they will come to the microphone and briefly share that good thing.  After each person shares, I invite you to respond by saying “Praise God!”  Let’s really enter into their joy.  As each one shares, respond by saying “Praise God!”

 

A third thing we want to do in our invitation and ministry time is to practice koinonia more generally.  Staff and elders are going to be in the aisles and down front.  While we sing this next song, please come and share a need you have and let us pray with you about it.  Let us share in your need in this way.  Let’s stand and sing.