Open Roof Community

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Mark 2:1-12
Fourth in "Crafting Community" series

On Thursday as I was in the church office, I heard the faint tinkling of Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer.” As strange and out of place as it was, the sound was immediately recognizable. An ice cream truck. For only the second time this summer an ice cream truck had made its way up Wiles Hill! And as I sat on the steps, drawn out by the pied piper call, I saw the back of the head’s of Torin and boys as they went in search of it. And I saw others coming out of their houses, looking around for the source of the sound, as they too, made their way into the streets, to find the cool deliciousness—even though it was only a high of 75 that day.

For Brethren and Mennonites, the call to serve others is kind of like that tinkling ice cream truck. It draws us out. It pulls at us. We know that if we just follow it we’re pretty sure we’ll find something good and sweet.

And if you asked us what is at the core of our faith as Anabaptists, you’d likely (hopefully) hear something along the line of “following Jesus Christ” as would most Christians. But if you pressed further, somewhere in those initial reflections, you would find a large amount of Brethren and Mennonites speaking about how our tradition teaches us that it is in service to others that we glorify Christ. That we are faithful disciples of Christ. We are not just believers in Christ, but we are followers of Christ. And serving our neighbors and the world has, over time, become an essential part of our tradition.

But of course, we didn’t come up with it. The prophet Micah answers the question “what is required of us?” with “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. The Apostle Paul said that followers of Christ were to care for the widows and orphans among us. Jesus said as you did to the least of these, you do to him.
It’s in our faith DNA, even if you have just come to the church. Caring for others through Christ’s love is more important that converting others by fear of his judgment.

I think that service is something that members of this congregation do very well. We are embodying what it means to be a missional church. We each go into our communities, and around the world, to uncover where God is dwelling and where we can be of service revealing the realm of God among us.

And we do this so well in our own lives, that I think there is a question lurking…a question I pose and don’t have a definitive answer to.

If we are doing service as individuals or families, is there a reason to serve as a congregation?
Have we gotten away from serving as a faith body, a community? If we are doing it on our own, why should the Morgantown Church of the Brethren members don work gloves or aprons or face masks or trash bags and do service…together?

It really is a question I have been asking myself, and asking of our congregation, as we face the realities of who we are: busy people, with families, living in different areas. We live in an era where so many non-profits are taking the roles that churches used to do, and thankfully others are getting involved. But is service, or in the words of a bygone era, “charity” work all about filling the needs of those who are served?

Are we missing something essential when we don’t do service work as a body? Because, if we are honest, we don’t do it that much. It is hard to get people to help out with Circle of Friends, the soup kitchen downtown. We’ve stopped trying to get a group together for Habitat for Humanity Building on Faith Week. And maybe I’m wrong, but think about the last year. Have you worked beside others in this congregation in the service of others (and not just ourselves, not just in cleaning the building or making buckwheat cakes)? Have you joined those around you, showing others who we are as a community that believes in service, rather than individuals whose community simply preaches about service?

As I was talking with Torin about the theme this week I was feeling a bit stuck with this question, and he helped me identify it perfectly. When talking about service, I feel it strongly that doing service work as a community—a congregation—strengthens the people in it. But I can’t say why. And Torin, in his infinite fatherly wisdom said, “It’s like if you told a two year old, that it’s important to do something and they ask ‘Why?’ and all you can think of to answer is ‘Because I said so.’”

Well, “because I said so” isn’t a good basis for a sermon. I can’t even express, “because I’ve felt it’s so”, which I have. So, I’ll ask you to help me here: to think back to a time when you did work with a group of people on something really important. Maybe it was a service project, or a work project, or even in the military. Maybe you were in a tough situation with others for a period of time. Like last weekend at Laurelville, we camped and it poured and even though we didn’t need to get in each other’s tents, there was a comraderie between us campers that weekend by virtue of our shared experience.

If you have served with others, how did it affect your relationship? Was it strengthened? Tried? Do you get to know each other better?

I think Mark’s scripture today is valuable for us as we think about this idea of serving. Most of the time, when people came for healing from Jesus, they did it by themselves, or one person came to intercede for them. Here, it is a group—it says “some people.” Of course, if the man was paralyzed he wouldn’t be able to come on his own, he’d need a lot more help. But there are other times with those in desperate situations couldn’t make it to Jesus, and someone came to him to ask him to come back. The Syrophonecian woman came for her daughter, the centurion came for his daughter, Mary coming on behalf of Lazarus. But those who came with the paralytic did it together, a group effort. Why didn’t they just send one person to beg mercy of Jesus?

We often refer to those who bring the paralyzed man his “friends,” but really, there is nothing to indicate that there is a special relationship, is there? It simply says “some people” and “they.” Nothing about friends. Friends or not, they know what needs to happen, they have perceived the need and test it. They act on faith. And Jesus begins to see their passion as he brushes the mud and debris out of his hair, as he sees the roof slowly cracking, then falling in chunks with the light bursting in. Then, as his eyes adjust to the brightness, he gets a glimpse one face, then two, then probably three, eager and probably unashamed at their brashness, unconcerned about property damage and home owners insurance…and the hole in the roof becomes the doorway to Jesus, an act of faith that probably couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be done by just one person.

“And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” which Mark uses as a preface to the healing of the paralytic’s body. Not your faith, not his faith, but by their faith. The collective. The faith that carries the broken.

Well, if they weren’t his friends, before, they certainly were now. And it is clear to me that we are faithful when it comes to serving our friends. Those in this faith community. This is also an important aspect of service, but often we don’t think of it in that way. In my times here I’ve heard stories and witnessed families and individuals in need and you have supported them: financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Service is also about a welcoming hospitality, an openness to receive others, to bring others to the hole in the roof that can heal their brokenness. We don’t often think of bringing others into this loving community as an act of service. Can we begin to see it that way? Is this part of what it means to be a community with an open roof?

In her spiritual autobiography Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott reflects on the little congregation she came to find refuge in, as she was struggling with drug addiction and alcoholism, grief from an abortion and death of loved ones, spiraling downward into an abyss of nothingness. This congregation of about 30 people, in a shabby building, is what I think of when I think of a church with an open roof. From Traveling Mercies:

One of our newer members, a man named Ken Nelson, is dying of AIDS, disintegrating before our very eyes. He came a year ago with a Jewish woman who comes every week to be with us, although she does not believe in Jesus. Shortly after [Ken] started coming, his partner died of the disease. A few weeks later Ken told us that right after Brandon died, Jesus had slid into the hole in his heart that [was left by] Brandon’s loss, and [Jesus] had been there ever since. Ken has a totally lopsided face, ravaged and emaciated, but when he smiles, he is radiant. He looks like God’s crazy nephew Phil. He says that he would gladly pay any price for what he has now, which is Jesus, and us.

There’s a woman in the choir name Ranola who is large and beautiful and jovial and black and as devout as can be, who has been a little standoffish toward Ken. She has always looked at him with confusion, when she looks at him at all. Or she looks at him sideways, as if she wouldn’t have to quite see him if she didn’t look at him head on. She was raised in the South by Baptists who taught her that his way of life—that he—was an abomination. It is hard for her to break through this. I think she and a few other women at church are, on the most visceral level, a little afraid of catching the disease. But Kenny has come to church almost every week for the last year and won almost everyone over. He finally missed a couple of Sundays when he got too weak, and then a month ago he was back, weighing almost no pounds, his face even more lopsided, as if he’d had a stroke. Still during the prayers of the people he talked joyously of this life and his decline, of grace and redemption, of how safe and happy he feels these days.

So on this one particular Sunday, for the first hymn the so-called Morning Hymn, we sang “Jacob’s Ladder,” which goes, “Every rung goes higher, higher,” while ironically Kenny couldn’t even stand up. But he sang away sitting down, with the hymnal in his lap. And then when it came time for the second hymn, the Fellowship Hymn, we were to sing “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” The pianist was playing and the whole congregation had risen—only Ken remained seated, holding the hymnal in his lap—and we began to sing, “Why should I feel discouraged? Why do the shadows fall?” And Ranola watched Ken rather skeptically for a moment, and then her face began to melt and contort like his, and she went to his side and bent down to lift him up—lifted up this white rag doll, this scarecrow. She held him next to her, draped over and against her like a child while they sang….

Then both Ken and Ranola began to cry. Tears were pouring down their faces, and their noses were running like rivers, but as she held him up, she suddenly lay her black weeping face against his feverish white one, put her face right up against his and let all those spooky fluids [of his] mingle with hers.

Communities—congregations—that serve are to be churches with open roofs. A place where, in our deepest fear, we mingle our lives by serving one another. And as the story in Mark presents to us—even the story of Ken and Ranola testifies--- it doesn’t stop with serving one another, or even welcoming those who come in their pain. It’s looking around us, perceiving needs, and helping bring others to that open roof, the place of their healing.

We may be like the blind leading the blind, the broken healing the broken, but that’s what Christ seems to have intended. Coming, to be broken, in complete service to humanity.

And I think that when we join with others, we’ll find that each of us, somehow, is lowered into Spirit’s arms, that our friends are holding us up to Christ’s grace…that in serving others, we are delivered more deeply into the home of God.

Handwashing Service
As a symbol of our call to serve, Brethren have performed footwashing on Love Feast, the symbolic recreation of the Last Supper. Today you are invited, again, to answer Christ’s call to serve. We won’t wash feet, but if you feel so moved, you are invited to come forward and wash one another’s hands. In doing so you are recommitting yourself to discipleship of Christ, to serve and be serve.

I will wash the hands of the first person to come forward, and then they will wash the hands of the next person, and so on and so forth. There are towels draped on the stools on either side of the worship space. As the water runs over your hands, may it serve as a reminder of your calling and symbol of God’s grace.

May your hands reach out with the power of the Holy Spirit to those in need.
May your fingers trace the pain and joy of God’s creation
May you join with others, as a community of faith, as we bring to the world’s
Christ’s message of healing and hope.

You are invited to come forward