Surely the worst sermon ever written, but some people got something out of it. It passed the criteria of people referring to it later in the week. But still, the worst sermon ever.For the record, I am not preaching on any of the lessons specifically today. Having spent several hours of my life researching what the significance of adoption was to Roman culture, I can conclusively state that while the topic is really fascinating stuff, adoption isn’t. And the same goes for the gospel reading for that matter.
Instead, I am just going to let them sit on their own today and instead, speak plainly what Paul and the Gospel writer were both trying to tell us. The long and the short of which is that Christian community is about unconditional love and acceptance. And that that sort of unconditional love and acceptance can’t be found anywhere but in the Christian community because to achieve that, to even approach unconditional, is going to take a miraculous amount of forgiveness and acceptance.
Some of us are here today because we know this already. Some of us are here today because we are considering a partnership in the future. Some of us are here today because they are my friends and didn’t know how to say no way no how, lady. And so today’s sermon is mostly for them, because they maybe don’t know what I get out of church or why it matters enough that I am heading off to seminary.
So, because I didn’t like any of the metaphors available to me today, I am going to present my own. This metaphor is called, The Well, and it is actually Shannon Lee’s.
Once upon a time, there was a village. This village was around before electricity and indoor plumbing so everyone from the richest merchant to the lowliest serf had to get water from the communal well. Some of the people were old and didn’t have to work anymore, so they spent most of the day hanging out at the well. Some were working really hard or something about their lives was shameful to them, so they snuck out to the well at odd times and didn’t stay long. Most people who went to the well, however, went at the same time everyday so that they could see their friends and share all of the good and bad things in their lives and maybe do a little gossiping about other people, too.
One day, a rich overlord came to the village to install indoor plumbing. It would be great, he said, because people wouldn’t have to carry water every day. They could get more work done and they would only have to pay for their share of the water, for their own plumbing, not everyone else.
Most of the people thought this was great. Now, some of the old-timers kept going to the well because it was a habit, and sometimes people who couldn’t afford to fix their plumbing went to the well. But most people stopped going to the well. And they were a little bit sad and lonely. After while, people forgot that the water coming from their tap was the same water they had drawn from the well and they became mistrustful. Some of them installed filters and others began drinking imported mineral mountain spring water.
People forget all about the well. And they forgot that they used to share with each other, not just the water but the good and the bad things in their lives too. People not only became mistrustful of the water, they became mistrustful of each other. And the village was a hard place to live.
The best and the thing about parables is that everyone can hear what they need to learn. The nice thing about preaching on a parable, especially one you helped make up, is that you get to explain yourself. Jesus actually did this on occasion, but usually his explanation was as confusing as the parable itself.
In this parable, the village is the Christian community. And the well is the church. Christ is the water and people are people. An interesting thing has happened in the world, and I think it took a long time to fully flower, but the personal Jesus, the individually bottled spring water, actually is the antithesis of what Jesus did for us. And indoor plumbing is actually the antithesis of how we are meant to live.
You see, it isn’t just in the bible that people are made to live in community with each other, even sociologist that aren’t interested in the bible at all, tell us that people are made for community. If we live by ourselves too long, we go a little bonkers. And so people are always forming communities, we form nations and political parties. We form special interest groups and fan clubs. We form families. We are always trying to create a place to belong and we spend a lot of time trying out different communities, to see if they suit our needs or if they match our ideals. We do this with churches too. But then, a lot of churches are catering to indoor plumbing ideals just like the rest of the communities we form without Christ in the center.
This is because we are trying to bottle church when church is actually a well. You can’t bottle a well, it has moving parts and a geography. It is simply not amenable to glass bottles and designer labels. If we managed to bottle up a well, well, it wouldn’t be a well anymore. It would be bottles full of dirt and wood splinters and maybe some bits of an electric pump. You know, I don’t really have an answer for churches. Some get it, some don’t. I suppose all I can say is churches are made of people, and people are people.
But if we do find a church that is still a well, and for what it is worth, St. David’s is a well, right down to it’s immovable geography, then we find a place were water flows, where Christ exists just as he is meant to. And at the well, people are people. But with one extra special addition. The water. The forgiveness. In fact, the forgiveness and the acceptance that are so unconditional that people can be people and they can be community without having to pretend to be a certain nationality, or a certain political party or a certain special interest or a certain sort of fan.
In fact, people can be people and they can share all their good news and their bad news and they can know that even if something goes wrong, even if they hurt someone’s feelings or accidentally serve tainted fish at a banquet, no matter how horrible or awful it might be, there is always that forgiveness, that Christ, that water, to wash away the awfulness and eventually bring things to right.
I’ve shared my share of bad with this church and with the people here who are part of my other communities. Today. Today I want to share some of my good. There is only one person here today who was at my first marriage ceremony. Luckily, it’s the groom. But the biggest difference between the marriage I entered 13 years ago and the one I am living in today is the unconditional forgiveness that exists today that definitely wasn’t there then. Then, I made family out of someone I thought would fit into my community. Now, I make community, unconditional community out of family. I am both please and grateful that all of you have come to be part of that community and to bear witness to our family.
