Abundance lies in Fellowship

 

  Read 1 Corinthians 10

For the last couple of weeks, we have leaned toward evangelism. When you are commissioned to make disciples, you can expect some challenges in evangelism from me. Anyone surprised.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will examine fellowship and fellowship meals. We will have a lab today after this service.

We will also look at the Lord’s Supper, which we will partake of next Sunday at both services.  Thanks be to God that the church in Corinth botched them both enough, so we get a little extra insight.

First to fellowship. The Greek root here is koinonia. Today’s words are fellowship, communion, and sharing. It’s about a genuine relationship that originates with our right relationship with God.

Soldiers enjoy camaraderie. Their service to their country and unit is their common bond. Sports teams enjoy a taste of this camaraderie. The team is the bond. Livelihoods, not lives, are at stake, but building character can be a good byproduct of the bonds.

Fraternities and Sororities enjoy brotherhood and sisterhood. The shared, uniting bond is the organization, and often where you meet people later on in a meeting as friends of Bill W.

Graduating classes share bonds. They start out singing Barry Manilow's "Looks Like We Made It," and when you get to be my age, we're still singing. This time, it’s the Bee Gees, Stayin Alive. The school or graduating class is the bond.  The shared experience grows sweeter over time and sometimnes in the absence of classmates.

With Christians, it all originates with our right relationship with God. We couldn’t have gotten there on our own. God did it all, but we have received this gift of life, life abundant, and life eternal.

We are first connected with God. That was necessary but not sufficient for the gooid things he has in store for us. God wants us to have genuine relationships with one another. We are to become more than a group of believers. We are a fellowship of believers. We are family.

Every family is different and the same. We are unique in some ways and alike in others. When people tell me they won't come to worship because they don’t want to feel unwelcome or singled out as the newcomer, I tell them they speak from ignorance. That wins them over right away, nor not!

But it does get their attention that the standard spiel won’t work this time.

What do we do when we are ignorant?  Cry, complain, and get angry?  That’s one approach.

As we grow, we learn to address ignorance with education of all sorts. Study, practice, and more study and practice.

Where is this going.?

If you were at Walmart and wondered if you needed paper towels at home, you might text your wife, husband, son, or daughter and ask them.

You could wait until next time, get home, and find out that you're out, only to discover that next time is right now.

Or you could get some now, get home and find out that you already had more than you needed, and now you have to build a storage shed to keep the excess.

For the person using, I don’t want to feel unwelcome. I tell them to show up and find out.  Let’s find out. I was told once by someone in my neighborhood that they didn’t feel welcome in that church. I had invited her to worship. She said she knew God and believed in Jesus.

When she said she felt unwelcome, she was talking about us. I didn’t believe her.

I told her to arrive that Sunday at 10:00 a.m. for Sunday School.  At that time, we had a senior adult class. That’s all it took.

We understand much about fellowship. As disciples, we know there is more—there is always more—to understand.

Let’s get back to Corinth.

Division was a common theme in Corinth. Who followed whom? Who shared with whom? That included fellowship meals.

Some brought plenty to eat and chowed down, while others had little or nothing to eat. Both conditions existed under the same roof. How can there be fellowship in the family when compassion and mercy are absent from us? Should they not govern? Can love abound in such disconnection?

I don’t think we have this problem here, at least not in terms of food. Once we got low on our potluck smorgasbord. The team that was serving was shorted a little by eating last, but that was an act of love not exclusion.

But look at how we sit. Families sit together. That’s natural, but consider that this family only gathers for a meal a few times a year. That’s a more significant challenge than it was 30 years ago. We are on the go.

The world has claimed many times once solidly reserved for those who worship God. The world wants us to conform to being busy.  We don’t gather for fellowship meals much anymore.

But when we do, get to know the rest of the family. You might eat with your natural family, but change tables and visit when you get to dessert. Change things up. Get to know each other.

We are family.

Do you know who gets this? Kids. They gravitate to the other kids, but they are not perfect.

So, you young folks today, keep your eyes open and don’t let anyone be alone.  Please don’t act like it’s something special to have this person join your table or you join theirs. Jump in and don’t think twice.

We are family.

Please understand that fellowship goes beyond our meals. Fellowship brings people out of the poverty of the world into the abundance of Christ.

My premise for this modern century so full of things and stuff and stuff we didn’t even know we needed is this: Abundance is inclusion.

The Abundance of Inclusion

Koinonia

Poverty comes down to a lack of fellowship.

Those enslaved by poverty may be victims of an entitlement mentality, lack of character and courage, aversion to commitment, or just feeling comfortable as a victim.  Those are surely among the leading causes of poverty in the land of opportunity.

All causes share one commonality.  People in poverty are part of the out group.  They are not part of the family.

If someone in the family hits hard times, the family takes care of him. 

If someone in the family truly has a run of bad luck, the family cares for her.

If a family in the family is hurting, the family comforts the family.

Why are some not part of the family?

Sometimes those in poverty have been invited and declined.

Inclusion would involve change, courage, risk, and love.

There is comfort in remaining the same, even in poverty.

There is comfort in being part of the out group.

 

Sometimes, it was because there was no invitation or at least not a sincere one.

Sometimes, it was because there was an invitation and a bad experience.

Sometimes, there was a deliberate effort not to invite.

It would seem that the efforts of those in the family to reach those outside the family look more like a waltz of bowlegged introverts dancing in the dark than it does the love of the Body of Christ.

The result is détente.

Détente

Détente works for nations that could destroy each other but don’t really want to.  They don’t want to fully reconcile with each other, but they don’t want to destroy each other.

Détente is an artificial sweetener.  It replaces love but has not real substance.

 

People say they are in trouble. We throw some money at the problem.

People say they are hungry. We throw some food at the problem.

People say they feel judged. We ignore their problems so as not to offend.

The result is self-pity on one end and self-satisfaction on the other.

One side feels they are a victim and the other is detached but satisfied they did what they could.

Speaking the truth in love—and surely stepping on a lot of toes that are resting in their respective comfort zone—this is neither family nor love.

Christian fellowship is about inclusion. Inclusion in what?

Inclusion in worship.

Inclusion in meals.

Inclusion in service.

Inclusion in the fun.

Inclusion in the work.

Inclusion in the challenges.

Inclusion in the rewards.

Inclusion in the commission.

Inclusion in the planning.

Inclusion in the execution.

Inclusion in the truth.

Inclusion in life.

 

Back in the days when we served food on Wednesday evenings. Some of you remember. There was worn out and there was Wednesday Wornout.

At the end of our evening meals, there was a brief time allocated for clean up before we begin classes.  This should be an all hands on deck exercise for the able bodied.  Some people gravitated away from the work.  It’s not that it’s hard work.  Wiping off tables, running a vacuum, taking out trash, and occasionally washing a few dishes make up the fifteen minutes allotted.

I have no hesitation about walking up to someone who has been in the church for 60 years or 60 minutes and handing them a washcloth or leading them to where we keep the vacuum.  This isn’t allocation of a labor force, it is inclusion.

If you come into the family you should expect to be treated as family. 

What does that mean?

It means that simultaneously, you are the most honored guest and the lowest servant. 

You are the most honored guest and the lowest servant.

It means that you are family.

There is no need for pretense.

There is no timidity.

There are no special privileges.

 

The family is where you learn love.

The family is where you learn responsibility.

The family is where you learn sharing.

The family is where you learn serving.

The family is where you learn trust.

The family is where you learn family.

 

Some who come into the family of faith have no previous experience in being part of a family.

You can’t teach and you can’t learn family when there is an in group and an out group.

Christians have spent too much time ignoring those in poverty using the excuse of not wanting to judge.

What we are truly saying is that you aren’t really family.  We would rather throw a little food or money your way than get involved in your life

That dog don’t hunt!

 

We keep trying to build a bridge of handouts from the world of abundance to the world of poverty and it keeps collapsing.  It will continue to collapse.  Few make it across from poverty to real life.

Newsflash:   We were never supposed to build a bridge.

We are to invite—with all the sincerity that is within us—those who are not part of the family into the family.  The Family of Faith, the Body of Christ, and the Covenant Community are where poverty is cast aside.

This is where Christians need to Cowboy Up and show some backbone.  We looked at this last week regarding sharing Christ in our conversations, rather than the 'I’ll invite them to Church' approach.

We should continue to help those in need to a limited extent, but not excessively if that help keeps them on the outside of the fellowship.  Most of the time, we should feed the family for a day or three, not pay the water bill for a month.  We should give the person who comes in looking for help a few cans of food not pay their electric bill.

How can I say this?

How can I say this as the pastor of a church that distributes tons of food without forms or qualifications to receive it?

I can say it because it’s time for the church to stop helping people worship other gods.  We are fully complicit in the problem.

We have helped people who, time and time again, turn their backs on God.  We need to speak the truth in love more than we need to give out food.  Society has deluded our wisdom.

We have to stop reinforcing decisions that lead to poverty.

We need to take a lesson from Joshua and challenge people to choose this day whom they will serve.

This day!

Choose the gods of money, profanity, stuff, fear, self-pity, and low character or choose the one true God. Choose the in-group or the out-group. Choose isolation or fellowship. This is the real subsistence that we must share.

We—the church—have helped people so much that they no longer have to decide between the gods of this world and the one true God.  We help them anyway.

We—the Body of Christ—have subsidized poverty as if it were our mission to do so.

We—those who know the truth and walk in the light—have helped orphan our brothers and sisters.

We—those called out of the world by God—have not been our brother’s keeper.

We need to become love—real love, not throw food or money at somebody kind of love—and we must give those in poverty something that they have forgotten was theirs.

 A choice.

 

For those who have always given some food or money, it’s tough not to pay that bill.

It’s tough not to give out a month’s worth of food.

It’s tough not to just cough up some cash and be done with the problem once and for all.

 

Actually, trying to do away with the problem instead of bringing those who are hurting into the family of faith is why the problem is never dealt with.

The root cause of the problem is exclusion from the body of Christ.

We—loving Christians—need to challenge those whom we help to become part of the family.  We must challenge them to choose whom they will serve.

Giving money, food, and clothing time and time again while people serve the gods of self-pity and entitlement is to make an offering to these gods ourselves.

Is this tough love?

No.

This is love.

There is no such thing as tough love.

Some may wonder if we will be discussing evangelism or fellowship this Sunday.  And the answer is…

Yes!

While we understand differences in worship and fellowship, salvation and discipleship, service and evangelism, I don’t think God drew boundaries defined by functional areas in our lives or the life of the church.

All—fellowship and evangelism included—are part of life as God designed it and putting his words into practice.

Some courageous people will genuinely love those whom they don’t know but not be content with the latter condition.  They will bring those in poverty into the family and treat them as their own flesh and blood.

They will cowboy up and really love those who are hurting.

Let’s go ahead and discard the metaphor of last century and say we need to Christian Up and show some backbone.

We need to Christian Up and take on poverty by bringing people into the family.

 

Tough assignment?

Yes.  Only those petitioning God for such a billet and willing to live courageously need apply.  This assignment requires speaking the undiluted truth while successfully crossing the minefield of judgment.  Only love will get us to the other side.

Does this mean that we don’t help people monetarily if they don’t belong to the church?

Sometimes—not always, that is precisely what it means.

How hard-hearted the church will become!

How distant from the people!

How detached!

 

That is the spirit of fear talking.  And we have been listening to it for too long!

 

We have the bread of life and living water but we think if we don’t p,ut out a 30 item buffet for the poor30-iteme nothing to offer.

 

We have the bread of life.

We have living water.

We have the Truth.

And we need to quit discounting that!

Who among us would turn a blind eye to someone sacrificing their child on an altar to a pagan god?

Are you kidding?   We would be all over that.  If we didn’t intervene ourselves, we would call the police, child protective services, or the Marines to stop this atrocity.

We’re all over that!

We watch this unfold every day.  Parents in poverty are faithful to their gods of apathy and ambivalence.   Their lives are a living sacrifice to the gods of selfishness, self-pity, entitlement, and fear and we stand by and watch.

Well, they are not our kids—who are we to…

Stop them from sacrificing them to a pagan god?

It is time to say:

Choose this day whom you will serve.

The God who liberates or the god who enslaves.

The one true God or the god of poverty.

 

We must ask this question.

This is our time.

We are God’s people.

Let’s quit lying to people—primarily those of omission.  Let’s tell them the truth about life.

Let’s tell them there is no life without God.

There is no abundance without Christ.

We are asking people to choose life over death.

We are praying, encouraging, and inviting people to choose life.

And we are finished subsidizing the road to poverty and death.

We have the words of life.

Come and be filled.

Come and be family.

Come and leave poverty and death behind.

 

The message we must convey without wavering is that you were made for life!

 

You were made for life!

You were made to live in its fullness!

 

 

A Note to the Church…

We sometimes think that fellowship is just getting folks together, usually with food or fun or in the case of most churches, both.

We must never forget though, that fellowship is communion.  This is the Body of Christ enjoying each other.  That means that we must be vigilant not to become a country club.  The least of these must never feel like the least of these within the Body of Christ.

 

We must stop measuring poverty in the amount of money or things we have or don’t have.  A life without God is one lived in poverty.

We who know Christ know the way to abundance.  Isn’t it time to put an end to poverty and lead many to a life of true abundance?

Abundance lies in inclusion. Abundance lies in the fellowship of believers.

There is no out-group, just family.

Fellowship is abundance!

Fellowship is abundance!

Amen.

A Prayer for Koinonia...