One Another | Care for One Another

For our sermon series, we are continuing in our One Another

series looking at God's invitation to community and what

it means to be a people marked by love.

And so our scripture reading is coming from First Corinthians

12/24 B to 26 and it goes like this.

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor

to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division

in the body, but that it's parts should have equal concern for

each other. If one part suffers, every part

suffers with it. If one part is honored, every

part rejoices with it. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks, Catherine. Hey, everybody.

How we doing this morning? Good to see you.

Good to see you. It is delightful to be here, a

little bit cooler today. I'm grateful for, grateful for

the wind and the cooler temperatures.

Hey, my name is Josh. I'm one of the pastors here at

Reality. I say this every week, but if I

haven't met you yet, I'd love to meet you.

I'd love to get to know you a little bit.

We are a community, a church that aspires to be, a community

that can really journey together through the highs and the lows.

When things are going great, and also when they're not, to to be

there and to show up for each other.

That's what this sermon series is about on these one another

passages of scripture and if you're just checking out reality

today, it would love to talk to you.

Come find me, find the hospitality folk at the table

and we'd love to to share more about the the church and and

help you get plugged in. Well, this morning as has

already been mentioned, we're we're in this series on the one

another passages of Scripture. And specifically, when we say

one another passages, there's this, there's this word that's a

recurring theme throughout the New Testament, that's this Greek

word, alay loan that shows up over and over again and usually

it's translated in one another or each other or something like

that. And when we look at each of

these individual passages, we get a glimpse of 1 aspect of

what it means to be community, one aspect of what it means.

To love one another, You could almost think of it like facets

on a diamond, if the diamond is what it means to actually love.

When we zoom in on these individual facets, we get a

clearer picture of what that looks like in reality.

And so this morning we're considering Paul's charge in one

Corinthians 12/25 to care for one another.

What does it look like to care for each other?

Well. Right off the bat, I should

probably say that I don't think that I am an expert at this.

This is probably not something that is my strong suit, more of

a growth area than a strength area on my part.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm like try to be a decent human

and care for other people, but I just, I I don't naturally

gravitate towards care and concern.

In fact, I I notice as I kind of reflect back that my default is.

And I wanna fix problems. And if I can't fix the problem

then I usually go and try and find a problem that I can fix.

That's something that's solvable and I don't.

I've noticed this, for instance, with my toddler Ava, who is a 2

year old right now, and experiencing all of the

terribleness of that. And she will pretty.

I mean she's wonderful most of the time.

And then she has these moments where she just totally loses it.

She melts down, right. And and for me I can engage

those or I noticed that my impulse is to engage those in

one of two ways. Either I want to be like primary

parent caregiver who is helping to resolve the situation or I

want to leave the room, right. There's no there's no in between

like if if if Ali, my wife is is engaging the situation.

I'm like, OK, I'm out of here. I don't want to just stand here

because this is so it's so uncomfortable to be in the in

the in the presence of somebody who's screaming at the top of

their lungs, you know, carefully calibrated to to trigger parents

I think. But this, this, this impulse

shows up in in lots of ways and the more I pay attention, the

more I notice that it's not really how I'd like to be in the

world. I don't think it's that helpful

this impulse to either fix or. Forget a while back, a couple of

my friends who were married were going through just a really

painful chapter in their life. One partner had cheated on the

other and their marriage was in freefall.

They were not doing well and I didn't find out about this

directly through them. I found it out through a mutual

friends who was connected to to both and and so it was one of

these situations where I like I wasn't sure if I was supposed to

know. I thought maybe I wasn't

supposed to know and they didn't know that I knew and.

I just, I wasn't sure how to engage the whole situation and

so honestly, mostly I didn't. Right.

I I I would see them in Group settings and just kind of

chitchat and I was like, maybe I should, you know maybe I should

press in and ask. But like I don't want to make it

awkward and I don't want to bring up like a sore subjects.

They haven't shared it with me. Maybe it's best to just keep my

distance and as I reflect back on that I I I think I mostly

flubbed. The situation like it would have

been kinder at some point to to just say, hey, I'm like in the

loop and I care about you and I heard that this thing is going

on and is there any way I can help?

Is there any way I can support you?

I don't know, maybe you found yourself in this situation as

well, where you have this this impulse to either either to fix

a problem or particularly, as is so often the case in life, when

problems feel kind of unfixable to just.

Keep your distance. I know that's true for me and

and maybe you found yourself in a situation where there's a

friend who's struggling with mental health issues or their

sexuality. Maybe it was somebody who you

noticed was in a space with their anger or their drinking

that you looked at the situation and you were like, they seem not

OK, right? It seems like they're not

really. Well, it seems like there's some

turmoil and some wrestling happening here and.

And at the same time you were just like, but I don't know what

to say. I certainly don't know how to

fix it. And so you just kind of held,

held your space and stayed on the sidelines.

One of my favorite authors, Henry now and talks about the

challenge of compassion when he says diagnosing.

I think, me mostly what we desire most is to do away with

suffering, by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

As busy, active, relevant people, we want to earn our

bread by making a real contribution.

This means, first and foremost, doing something to show that our

presence really makes a difference.

It goes on to comment that when we allow ourselves to operate in

this default, that we actually ignore our greater gift, our

greatest gift, which is the opportunity to enter into

solidarity with those who suffer.

I think for many of us, certainly for me, this impulse,

which I'm trying to change for myself, is concerning because it

it keeps us for entering in in a way of care with people who are

struggling in one way or another.

In One Corinthians, Paul is speaking to this very issue when

he he challenges the Corinthian believers to care for one

another. And and here in this text in

First Corinthians 12, we're actually dealing with parallel

imagery to to what we talked about in the book of Romans a

couple weeks back when we Paul used the same imagery of of the

church as a body. And once again he he picks up

the same metaphor here comparing the church to a body with all of

these different parts. And and it's in this context

that he calls the Corinthians to care for one another.

If you were to look at a map for the city of Corinth, you would

find that it's kind of right at a crossroads in all sorts of

ways. It divides the northern and

southern parts of Greece, and it also divides the Ionian and the

Aegean Sea. In fact there's just just about

5 miles or so of of coast or I'm I'm sorry, of of land on this

isthmus that divides one from the other.

And and Corinth in the time of scripture was known as the

master of Two Harbors because it was this place where ships would

literally come in from one side coming from either Asia in the

One Direction or or Rome in the capital in the other direction.

And they would they would dock where they would come into port

on the one side of the city. And they had this crazy

contraption unlike anything else in the the ancient world.

It was an ancient version of a railroad.

Essentially they used these pavers and and and beams slicked

with with grease and fat in order to to drop loads of cargo

on them. And then they would push this

cargo across to the other port, sometimes even even pushing

small boats over until because of this, as you can imagine,

Corinth was this. This huge hub, it was the IT was

the largest city in Greece and it was a happen in place.

It was the center of commerce and activity kind of like New

York today for just a quick thumbnail example.

And and because of all of this there was a culture in the city

of of going for it like people were ambitious in Corinth.

People came to Corinth to make a name for themselves in order to

get ahead, to get rich, to make it.

And and and there was this, this posture of ambition and striving

that was characteristic not only of the city, but in many ways of

the church as well. And we see this posture showing

up again and again throughout Paul's letter to the Corinthians

as he challenges them to go in a different direction, where

instead of kind of measuring themselves against one another

and constantly worrying about their social status and

standing, that they would enter into this alternative kind of

arrangement. And here in First Corinthians

12, this is exactly what Paul is getting at when he urges them as

the body to enter into care and concern for one another, to do

so equally in a way of of equity.

And so Paul here challenges the Corinthian believers to to

relate, not based on their status or the flashiest, the

flashiness of their gifts, but just because they are brothers

and sisters in Christ. They're part of the same body.

To show up in equity and care. And we find here specifically

these words in in verse 27, that you are the body of Christ, and

each one of you is a part of it. So within the context of these

imagery, there's two words in particular that I want to key in

on this morning and they both come just two verses before that

in verse 25. The first one will be no

surprise to anybody who's been here throughout this series.

It's kind of our signature word for the series, A Lay alone,

which is translated in verse 25 as each other.

But just before that we find this word translated.

Depending on the translation you have in front of you as concern,

or in some cases the the Nasby, the ESV render it as care.

And this word for concern here can can mean any of these

things. It can mean care.

It can mean attention, it can mean concern.

But it has this idea of being attentive to the concern of one

another and rendering support in some way.

Paul goes on to say in the very next verse and verse 26, that if

anybody is experiencing high in the community, we should and we

should come alongside them and rejoice with them.

Someone in the community is experiencing suffering.

If they're down, they're going through a hard space.

We should again come alongside them and be willing to enter

into suffering with them as well.

Over the past few years, I've become increasingly appreciative

of the friends in my life who do this.

It's part of what has sparked this journey for me of beginning

to push back on some of the the the illustrations that I used

earlier to. To try and more effectively show

up for folks in a in a deeper way.

But one story really stands out is my friend Cassandra.

Shortly after Ally and I discovered that we were

expecting our our first child, We were telling some of our

close friends and we were at out to dinner with Cassandra and

Ally kind of, I don't know, in an understated way, almost

sheepishly shared. Well, you know, like.

Found out some stuff and seems like we're pregnant, like going

to have a kid and Cassandra responded.

First of all, I think it was like this slow motion effect for

me, but her entire face just like started to glow and she let

out this incredibly joyful shriek that I'm pretty sure

everyone in the entire restaurant heard.

And you could just see heads turning all around like what is

going on And she was just like so excited, you know it was an

excitement that at that point I think felt too vulnerable,

almost too risky even for us to to fully state even though part

of us was feeling that. But Cassandra entered, entered

into the joy like no holds barred.

She was just fully in it. And it actually allowed us to

enter into that, that joy and the delight, that excitement

that we were experiencing as well.

But you know, it is difficult sometimes, at least for me,

maybe not for you, but it's difficult sometimes to let

yourself really enter into the joy of another person, to to

fully experience it, and even more so I think, to enter into

suffering. One afternoon in May of this

year, Sarah, who's a member of one of our Dorchester micro

churches, received the the shocking news that her nephew

had found her sister dead and Sarah was, as you would imagine,

devastated. The news caught her totally by

surprise. Her sister was young and

healthy, and there was no reason to expect that anything like

this might happen. Her sister and former husband

both lived in Georgia, and Sarah here in in Boston just really

wasn't sure what to do with herself or or how to even be in

the wake of such devastating news.

In the days that would follow, she would connect with her

family in New Hampshire and of course travel to the funeral in

Georgia. But but in the immediate wake of

the news, she didn't know what to do or or where to turn.

And so one thing she did was she she messaged our our micro

church thread. And just basically broke the

news and said, hey, this is what's going on, could you pray

for my family? And I was totally unhelpful.

I was in Montana with Rashad 100% off grade at the time but

other people weren't. Other people were present and

and one member of our community in particular responded with not

just, you know, the thoughts and prayers, but really said, hey

Sarah, is there is there any way that we could be with you in

this time? Like, could somebody drive you

somewhere? Do you want?

Like, yes, we're praying for you, but could we, could we get

on the phone or could we could we get on a Zoom or could we

come to your house to pray with you?

Like, is there anything that we could do to to support you, even

if it's doesn't seem like a big, like, we'll just come and be

with you. And Sarah initially was

hesitant. It felt like an imposition.

It was a work day. Everybody in the group had jobs

and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

But in a conversation with her uncle, he really encouraged her

to lean into the support system that she had.

And so, with some trepidation, Sarah reached out and said, hey,

yeah, like it'd actually be great.

I'm slammed with this project for my floral business right

now. I'm really not doing very well.

If there's anybody who just has bandwidth to just come and be,

I'd welcome that. Didn't even take a minute for

the first person to respond on you from our community

immediately. Dropped what she was doing,

messaged Sarah and was on her way to Easty.

Maggie, another member of our community, was right behind.

And so they went and they showed up and they sat with Sarah on

the floor. I think they hauled some

bouquets around, even went on a couple of deliveries for her

business, but mostly they just tried and hung out and were

present. The next day, another member of

our community, Julia, showed up and did the same thing.

When I was debriefing this experience with Sarah more

recently, she named that, you know, there were lots of things

that were helpful about the experience.

It was helpful to get some help with this project that she would

not have gotten through for her business otherwise.

It was really helpful to to get a check from the group to help

offset the travel costs and some lost income.

But the thing that she highlighted more than anything

was just the fact that people were willing to move their

schedule around to come and just be with her, to just.

Be present, Her community shared her, concerned.

It wasn't just something that Sarah was navigating, but they

took it on and said if you are suffering, I want to be with you

in that, even if that means suffering as well.

They were willing to pay attention.

And isn't this an interesting, even way of talking about

things? In the English language, we we

say that we pay attention. We don't bring attention or

center attention or even manage attention.

We pay attention. And of course, this suggests

that to to pay attention involves a cost, right?

There's a cost to paying attention.

It it means that we are devoting a very limited and scarce

resource to something. It could be going somewhere else

instead, right? When you pay attention to

anyone, you enter in with that person.

You you, you say no to other things, you foreclose other

possibilities that we have limited presence even in this

world of zoom and avatars like you can only be in one place at

the same time. You can only be really truly

present to one place or one person at a given time.

And. For both on Ye and Maggie, I

mean a scientist and a lawyer in Boston, they got stuff going on.

There are other things in their calendars and schedule.

But when their friends had a concern, a moment of suffering,

they said, hey, we share that concern and we're willing to

drop what we have going on and to pay attention to enter in

with you. Friends, I love this because not

only I think is it a beautiful example of what we see Paul's

inviting us to here in One Corinthians, but but also

because this is what Jesus did for us, right?

Jesus healed us not from some distant and abstract theological

transaction that happened in God's accounting software

somewhere, but but he came to actually be with us.

This whole redemptive journey started with incarnation in

fleshman, him being willing to come and just be with us.

And so our God is named Emmanuelle, the God who is with

us and sometimes friends. I think that for one reason or

another, we we fail to follow the lead of this Jesus when

there are concerns that present themselves.

You know, one of the things that I find most just transfixing and

amazing about Jesus are the stories in his life where he

showed up for people and he didn't really do anything.

Right now there are lots of stories in which Jesus came up

and you know, this God, he had lots of supernatural powers and

cool stuff going on. So there were lots of moments

where he, you know, created bread for the whole multitude or

or or storm like calm the storm on the sea.

But there were also these moments.

Moments like with Zakhias, somebody who was a traitor to

his community, ostracized and excluded because of the ways

that he had oppressed others, and an outcast either either

from a place of fear or disdain. And Jesus, encountering Zachius,

invites himself over to the guy's house for lunch.

He just enters in. The scripture doesn't even

really tell us anything that Jesus does or says.

He just shows up. He's just present.

And friends, I'd suggest to you that there is something about

our presence. There is something about our

attention, our care, that when we extend it to one another is

in and of itself healing. But this is a struggle, isn't

it? It's it's a struggle to believe

this when when we don't have anything that we can do to fix

it or resolve it. In fact, as I was talking this

week with Maggie about kind of the internal turmoil she

navigated as she I went to show up with Maggie or with with

Sarah. She said, you know, I had this

impulse of like I'd like should do something like, is there some

way I can help? Is there something I can do?

And it was really challenging for me to just kind of sit there

and just be. It felt like I wasn't actually

accomplishing anything. But I remember the story of Mary

and Martha from the life of Jesus and and thought maybe

maybe this is it, maybe I'm supposed to just be here.

Friends, I think when we bring our attention to extend care and

compassion to others, we beautiful model beautifully,

model not only what it is to be the body, but what it is to walk

in the way of Jesus. The French philosopher Simone

Wheel once said attention is the rarest and purest form of

generosity. Attention is the rarest and

purest form of generosity, and what a gift it is to actually

attend to one another. I'm grateful to say that we're a

community that I think in a lot of ways already does this really

well. I I told one story this morning,

but there are countless others that we could tell.

I know you all have rallied to provide meal trains for folks

after they've had kids. Talking with Mandy last week, it

was interesting to to discover that sometimes the people

organizing the meal trains weren't even people who like

we're friends with the people who needed the help, right?

What a beautiful expression of community and and so many other

ways, whether it's packing bags and and and preparing gifts for

BPS teachers. Whether it's just calling to

check in on somebody, whether it's raising money or or giving

funds to support and generosity. There's so many ways in which

our community does and continues to show up for one another.

And this morning, I really want us to consider maybe what is

that next step for each of us to bring attention to bear and to

enter into, to solidarity with one another.

And in order to continue into this, this next section of our

time together, I want to invite us to actually practice

something. We're gonna do an exercise, so

we're gonna be experiential this morning, just letting you know

now so you can begin to brace yourself for talking with other

people. But, you know, it's so

interesting. There are these concepts like

care, which are honestly so simple, like even figuring out

what am I going to stand up here and talk for 20 minutes about

care. It's kind of like, it's obvious,

right? We all know what it means to

care for each other. It's not.

It's not hard to imagine it, but but so often, for one reason or

another, because of our own anxiety or not being sure how to

show up or our own discomfort, we stopped short of actually

doing. And so we're going to, in a

moment create a very small opportunity, a window to

actually practice care for one another for the people seated

next to you or near you in the space today.

But before that, I I want to invite you to just reflect for a

moment, what is, what does care look like for you in your own

life? Some of you I know are are

knocking this out of the park like you default to checking in

on people to showing up when there's a need.

You naturally step in and and care really well, and some of

you, perhaps a little bit more like myself, end up getting

taken out for one reason or another.

Either you're running so fast that you don't even notice, or

or don't have time to pivot into something.

Don't make the time to pivot into something.

Perhaps for some of us, the biggest problem is really just

not being in deep enough community.

You know, as I've kind of catalog, where do I see examples

of this kind of care happening most often?

I've noticed that they happen in in relational community, right.

They happen when we know each other, when we have the kinds of

relationships where we feel like we can trust each other boldly

enough to actually let each other know what's going on and

when there's a beginning to be a culture of of that kind of care

and generosity. It's been interesting.

In the same group that that Sarah rendered, you know,

expressed this need and and saw this influx of care.

Just a month before that there was another instance and and a

couple weeks after that there was another instance.

And you know, I think sometimes when we begin to develop a

culture where this is the norm, where we can count on one

another, then we continue counting on one another.

And so maybe for you the invitation this morning is just

to say Pen, who are those people?

Maybe it's a a community group or a micro church here at

Reality, maybe it's some other structure.

But I'm convinced that in order for us to to really live in the

way of Jesus and press into the kind of one another imagination

for church that the New Testament give us, we have to be

in these kind of thick relationships with other

Christians. So where do those relationships

exist in your life? And and if they don't, no

problem. But where might you begin to

cultivate them, to begin to experience and have that for

yourself and be able to share it with others, maybe for you.

The problem is kind of more internal, the conversations.

I don't want to be an imposition.

I don't want to make things weird and it's just a matter of

courage, of stepping in and saying, you know, I'm willing to

be a little bit awkward in order to take a chance on extending

love to someone else. All right?

As we reflect on that this morning, I'm going to invite you

into this exercise and this is how it's going to work.

So first step is for everyone here to find one or perhaps two

other people, preferably 1-2 if you need.

And bonus points if it's somebody that you're not, like,

super connected with. A lot of you are sitting with

your bestie or your partner or something like that, so you get

bonus points if you if you skip out.

But there's no pressure. There's not a right way to do

this. You can have an experience of

care with whoever you're at. So I'm just going to give us a

minute to shuffle. But everybody needs to find one

or perhaps two other people in order to participate in this

exercise. OK, all right.

So shuffling commence. All right, so now for the

purpose of this exercise, you're both going to participate, but

you are going to participate differently, OK?

In each group, there's going to be one person who is a speaker

and one. Or if you're in a group with

three, perhaps two people who are a listener.

OK? And for both of you, this is an

opportunity to to practice exactly what we're talking

about, to enter into community and care.

If you're the speaker, you're going to respond to this prompt

and you can do it at whatever level of depth you feel

comfortable with. There's no right way of doing

this. But the prompt that you're going

to answer is what is one thing you've been concerned about

lately? What's one thing that you've

been concerned about lately? OK, So you're just going to

share one thing that you've been concerned about lately with your

partner. And if you're the partner, this

is really hard. You're only going to listen, All

right? That means that we don't

immediately jump off to tell the person about the one time when I

had a similar experience that was like what you're telling me.

But even better, right? It means that we don't

immediately jump in with the resources that we know or the

advice that we have or or the suggestions.

You're just going to listen. In fact, there's only really one

thing that I'm going to allow you to say for the purpose of

this exercise, and that is some variation of tell me more.

OK, so you'd say tell me more about a specific part of what

they're asking or just about the whole thing.

But basically, we're going to take 4 minutes for this.

And if you're the listener, the only thing you're allowed to say

is tell me more. OK, Some of you have been

waiting for this. You're like, ah, I can say

something uninterrupted, All right.

And if you're the speaker, let me invite you to Again, feel

free to jump in at whatever level is comfortable for you.

But if there is something that's on your heart, consider whether

this might actually be a gift, right?

You don't have to go all the way to the deep end.

Please don't share anything that's wildly inappropriate.

But yeah, let people know what's what's real for you, this

person, as they attempt to enter in and care and concern for you.

All right, so the speaker attentive listening.

Kim's gonna play some music underneath, and and my last

invitation to you is as you navigate this brief conversation

between the two of you, just notice your experience, Notice

how it is to share or to listen to another human.

All right, so the question once more is what's one thing that

you've been concerned about lately?

Begin. All right.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, friends. I wasn't in your conversations,

but I heard some laughter. I observed some tears.

Now, isn't it interesting that so often, I mean, we come to

church. We dress up.

People say how you doing? We say good.

They're suffering all around us, right?

I mean, sometimes we feel it more than others, but people

here are navigating real concerns.

Are we the kind of people who know?

Are we the kind of people who share?

And if not, how might we take a step towards more deeply

embodying the kind of gospel community that Jesus invites us

to, that Paul writes about? I'm curious.

I'm gonna take just a moment, but I'm curious if there's one

or two people who just on the spot impromptu, noticed

something in this experience, whether of sharing or listening

and and being present to your your partner, that you'd be up

for. Sharon, just coming up on the

mic. One sentence or two real quick.

If everybody's uncomfortable, we can keep moving.

Hey, yeah, introduce yourself and just share.

Introduce yourself and just share what you noticed.

Hi everyone. My name is Trish.

I was speaking with Emma and I was the listener.

And I think one thing that was really hard about being silent

was wanting to let the other person know and affirm them that

I'm like, hearing what they're saying.

Yeah. So it was really hard not to,

like, ask followup questions. And I ended up leaning into that

anyway. But yeah, it's, it's hard to be

a listener because already your mind is like, oh, you could do

this or that. And like, yeah, drawing away

from that is really tough, but I think it was a better experience

because then you can hear more about the other person.

So, yeah, yeah. Thanks so much, Trish.

Yeah. Anybody else One more, just

something you notice please. Hey, thanks.

Just introduce yourself and share what you noticed.

Hi, my name is Ray and I had the pleasure of being listened to by

Sam as I spoke and what was really powerful was just his

question asking me to tell me more about an aspect of what I

had shared was so. Powerful for me because it

really meant he cared in a way that him saying he cared for me

couldn't do. Like his.

It was deeper than just hey, I care for.

It was just like, oh, you want me to go deeper into what I am

ready to shut up about Because you probably are getting bored

to tears by what I'm saying. But no, you want more.

But really powerful. Awesome.

Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, Friends, the the worship team is gonna gonna come up and

we're gonna enter into kind of a extended time of of response now

as we consider this. But again, just invite you to

consider what are some of those ways perhaps that that you

filter rather than sharing what's really true for you or

that you interrupt other people in various ways or or don't show

attention and care. David Augsburger has this quote

that I love. He said being heard is so close

to being loved that for the average person, they're almost

indistinguishable. Being heard is so close to being

loved that they're almost indistinguishable.

Friends. What might it look like if we

were to love one another as we extend care?

Hey, the carpets are going to be open as the music plays.

These are sacred spaces just for you to to enter into a dialogue

with God about what you're noticing.

Maybe you need to receive care this morning and, and if that's

true, I'm going to be up here. Mandy can be available, and we'd

love to just pray with you, but consider what might God be

inviting you into as we seek to be a community that cares well

for one another?