[Sermon] Finding Wholeness in Community

Pastor Hector Garfias Toledo + July 14, 2024

Love Fits Week 2 - Love's Perfect Fit: A Seamless Piece in the Puzzle of Faith

In his sermon for the second week of the Love Fits worship series, Pastor Hector explores the theme of embracing our brokenness within the community of faith. Drawing from the teachings of 1 John, he emphasizes how acknowledging our imperfections and sins fosters deeper connections and spiritual growth among believers. By recognizing and accepting our brokennsermon-finding-wholeness-in-communityess, we pave the way for God's healing grace to transform our lives and strengthen our fellowship.

From automatically generated captions, lightly edited for readability by Chat GPT

Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, our Mother, our Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Sibling, our Friend, our Savior, and the person next to us who helps us to stay in balance.

Well, let’s do a little recap of what we started talking about last week. We talked about, as David said, God being the center of our fellowship as a community of faith. We talked about fellowship, koinonia, as the people of God gathering, in which each one of us participates in God's new order. We also discussed that as congregations and as individuals, sometimes we are working and walking our faith journeys and ministry towards something that is not always very clear. Yes, for those of us, like my type, who like to know everything—where it's going, the steps, and the process to get there—sometimes not knowing where we are going exactly can be frustrating and tiring, right? But not only that, think of your own lives. Think of our own ministry in this congregation and the times when we do not have clarity about how we are moving forward. What happens when we do not have clarity?

Chaos. Chaos, stress, mistakes, anxiety. Anxiety. Asher is listening to me, like always, yes? Right, that is what happens when we lack clarity. Some tensions, misunderstandings, and conflicts emerge in the life of the fellowship of believers. And that is why, as we said last Sunday, it’s extremely important that we as a community of faith create the spaces for confession—spaces where you and I can acknowledge our brokenness, our inability to have everything under control, but also where we practice forgiveness. Remember that we read that paragraph used in the reception of new members in this congregation, where we invite and commit ourselves to stay and practice forgiveness because that is the only way that you and I can live the healing that the Lord Jesus Christ brings into our lives.

Now, talking about anxiety, frustration, and joy, puzzles are pretty much like that. There is this sense that, oh, we are going to put together this puzzle, and we are going to see this big picture that we love. That’s why we buy them, right? Because we want to put together this picture. But they come with a cost. Because when you put all the pieces on the table or on the floor, that joy almost evaporates immediately, and the anxiety, frustration, and confusion set in. There are even tensions among those participating—like, which is the first piece we need to use as the center? Where are the pieces that really fit in this puzzle? Well, imagine you have a puzzle and you don’t know what it’s going to look like.

Last winter, during Christmas, my daughter received from my son-in-law Paul’s siblings this puzzle called the $2 Million Puzzle. When we saw it, we were excited because, by this time, I would probably be in Hawaii, not here, because the point is that you put it together, and you can win $2 million. The challenge with this puzzle, unfortunately, is that it’s actually a QR code. QR codes in themselves are a headache because nobody understands what they mean until you use your phone, of course. So, the point is with this puzzle that when you put it together, you take a picture or you scan the QR code that you put together, and then you receive the news of your prize, which can be from $1 to $2 million. So, if you want to retire today, just go buy one.

When you know something great is going to happen, but you cannot see it yet, it’s hard. It is very hard. The writer of the first letter of St. John begins in chapter 3, the passage that we read today, with the words, "We are called children of God." We are called children of God, and yet, the author says, we do not see God's fullness because it has not been fully revealed, just like a puzzle. Yet, the author begins again and centers us and grounds us in this truth in our lives, in our identity, in the intimate relationship that God has with us. In this identity, in this relationship, we abide in God, in Jesus, because in the author's eyes, God and Jesus are the same. We find our lives, the purpose of our ministry, the purpose of our stewardship and generosity. Yet, the author says, even though you are children of God, unfortunately, as people who live in this world, you are facing brokenness and darkness. The communities face this reality, and we are called to withstand this uncertainty and this loss that we face in our lives.

Just as a matter of example, as David was asking, how many of us are children? Are you a child? Do you have children? We know that it comes with challenges. We know that being a child sometimes doesn't mean that having parents guarantees that we are not going to face challenges. But having the guidance of a person who plays a parental role in our lives can give us direction and wisdom to make decisions that help us to see life from different perspectives and help us to move forward. Communities, you and I must face such reality, withstanding this uncertainty in life and this loss in life. Yet, the full revelation of God in our lives, the full revelation of the relationships among ourselves, is not something that comes immediately, as happens with puzzles. It is a journey. It’s an ongoing transformation. It’s an ongoing piecing our lives and experiences together that, little by little, helps us to understand the purpose in our lives, the meaning in our lives, and to understand, as we've heard within young worshippers, that sometimes the way that God is in us and around us is through the person next to us, to whom we can cling, support one another, and work with one another. But as children of God, we still experience this in our lives. Sometimes we feel very close to God, and there are times when you and I feel far from God. Even if we try hard, this statement that we are called to be children of God just doesn’t feel as real in our lives. Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt that it’s hard to understand and embrace this truth? Have you ever felt that sometimes you are so close to God that your life is fulfilled, full of joy?

In your bulletin, on page four, you have a little opportunity for conversation. I invite you now to take a moment and think. The instructions are there. When may be a time or times in your life when you feel close to God as a child of God? And what have been times in your life when it’s hard to really experience that closeness of that relationship with God? Take a moment to write or draw those two different aspects of our faith journey. And then I will call you back, and I will ask you to maybe find someone and exchange and share with somebody else. So, let’s take a minute, just drawing or writing. If you are not ready for that, that’s fine, it’s okay. But I invite you to think and reflect on that. So, take your pen or pencil.

When are the times when you feel close to God, and when are the times when it’s hard for you to feel that relationship in your life?

If you have something, either one or both, I invite you now to move around. If you are able to walk and find somebody else in another pew, that’s fine. If somebody around you is in the pew, that’s fine. But if you can also identify some of our participants as siblings in Christ, who can all go around and approach them, I invite you to take just a couple of minutes and share when are those times when you feel that you are a child of God, and when are those times in your life when you don’t feel that relationship close. Take a moment. Don’t be afraid. You are...

[Music]

I would like to invite you, and I know that this is a very short time, but this is just an opportunity for you to start the conversation and to continue with a cup of coffee after the service. But I invite you. Is there anyone, one or two of you, who would like to share anything that you heard? When are times in general when you feel that you are a child of God? Anyone? You can just yell it so I can hear it. When are times when you feel truly as a child of God?

First time seeing children. Say again? First children. The first time that you see your children, the blessing of seeing a new life. Anyone else? When is a time when probably we don’t feel that God is closer to us, or close to us, and we don’t feel as a child of God? Anyone who wants to venture? Just one of you in the back, Peter?

Say again? In the wilderness. In the wilderness, when we are lonely perhaps and when we don’t have the opportunities. There are times, right? There are times in the wilderness of our lives. The point, my siblings in Christ, with this conversation that I want you to start, is because it is extremely important that we remember that the fellowship, that the joy can be complete when we are able to walk together, to support one another, to accept the reality that in our lives there is brokenness and that sin is a reality. In this book of the Bible, in this letter of John, sin is not necessarily immorality, but it is about not being able to serve and to love others. That is what sin is implied and conveyed in the letter.

The author of this letter, if you remember, I told you, is addressing an issue in the congregations. In these congregations, there are divisions, tensions, people who have decided not to respond to God's call to live as children of the light, but they have decided to turn inward, creating their own ways of how we should be or what we should become, turning away from God's grace and love. So, the author is inviting Christians to be able to identify the brokenness in the midst of the reality of being children of God. And that is not an easy task that you and I face in our lives.

Last Wednesday in our Bible study, there were a couple of questions that I believe reflect this tension and this dilemma in which we live. The questions were: If the author of the letter says that darkness is to pass, why are we still experiencing this darkness today in our world and in our lives? And I don't need to go too far because it just takes us to the past few days to realize that this is a reality. And the second question was: How are we going to name those who have turned against God's order, those whom the author calls deceivers? Are we supposed to do something, or are we supposed to stay here and be spectators of what is happening in our society?

The author, I believe, is challenging us to always come back to the center, to the grounding place of God's grace, when we are going to address these issues in the midst of our communities, in the midst of our families, in the midst of our own personal lives. That we are children of God—that’s where the conversation starts. It is not so much about how much I like you or how much I like or dislike the other, because that's our tendency, that we make decisions about others based on how we assume they like us or not. The author says, before you face the challenges, before you identify those whom you believe have turned against the will or the order of God, remember who you are, whose you are, and that they are also God's children.

Not all children are perfect. If you were a perfect child in your family, raise your hand. You're right.

To conclude, I want to say this: We cannot be part of normalizing sin in our communities and in our societies. We cannot use the excuses of the pandemic, of the election year, or whatever, to normalize sin—shaming, pointing, blaming, and judging. Our society unfortunately pushes us to that, and the author said that is not the way of walking in the light. You are children of God. In your life, you are going to affirm who you are and whose you are. And with our lives, we are going to shake off the imperfections and behaviors of darkness by loving others, yes, by naming their sin, but also being willing to allow others to name my own sin.

Belonging to Christ is the call that you and I have. It is crucial in our lives. It is where our lives are centered. In this piece of our lives, we are reminded that we are children of God. E. Stanley Jones, who was a Methodist missionary and theologian, said, "Every person who belongs to Christ belongs to every person who belongs to Christ." And with that, you and I go on in this life, in this life that sometimes is like a puzzle that brings joy, that brings frustration, that brings sometimes confusion of not knowing how the pieces are going to fit together. Today, we remember that our life grows around the love of God for all people, so that the joy of the community of faith may be complete.

My puzzle taught me a few things—and I say mine; I already took it from my daughter. The puzzle taught me the following: The future certainly is not revealed; we are unable to see it. To go on with our lives in faith, in our communities, we need endurance. Yes, we need to remember that frustration and hope coexist and that revelation sometimes may not be exactly what I want. By the way, when we finished the puzzle, I don't know how many days later, my daughter scanned the QR, and yes, we won—$1!

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us. Just look at it: we are called children of God, and that's only the beginning. Let's go on to be the church, the children of God, every day.

And with that we say, amen.