Dream Big
This last Thursday, RENEWport — that’s Newport’s local leadership council — had its January meeting at Emmanuel. Emmanuel is now RENEWport’s permanent meeting place. The group really likes these spaces — Mrs. Brown’s big dream of Emmanuel as a home for the whole community. And all of us have gotten used to keeping our eyes and ears open, looking for new opportunities to engage in the community, and dreaming of new ways to live more fully into our purposes here, whether by catching news items in the local paper, introducing compatible new connections and uses of this gorgeous space, or keeping the buildings ready for the many things we do here.
Our engagement with community here at Emmanuel is more than just an events calendar or a “to do” list of tasks. It’s life-giving. Community is the antidote to what Atlantic Magazine writer Derek Thompson recently called “the anti-social century,” which comes of the paradoxical effects of advanced technology. I say paradoxical because technology brings us closer together and isolates us at the same time. We spend more time alone, with streaming television and other technological at home comforts taking the place of entertainment we used to enjoy out with friends. Texting and emails take the place of phone calls and in person conversation.
Our constant family, co-worker, and best friend text communication makes our inner circle of family and friends even tighter as we stay in closer touch than ever. But at the same time, super-sophisticated algorithms spoon-feed us news we agree with, that presents a world view we endorse and affirm, and our devices provide quick connections with those who share that view, wherever in the world they are. The more we read our favorite news, the better trained our devices become to make sure that’s all we see, and we become even more isolated, digging deeper and deeper into our own perspective on the world. Marc Dunkelman, author and research fellow at Brown, describes three rings of society — family, village, and tribe. Family — the inner ring — teaches us love. The middle ring (Dunkelman calls it village, but to link it up with our world, I’ll call it community) — community teaches us tolerance. Tribes — the outer ring — those folks we don’t know, but identify with through shared beliefs or interests — tribes teach us loyalty and idealism.
It’s that middle ring — community — that’s key to social cohesion, Dunkelman says. When we skip connecting with community — like when we stay home and become one with our Netflix subscription or text messages with close family and friends, and perspectives we already agree with, we miss out on relationship. Relationship happens when we negotiate different opinions and hear other people’s experience and perspectives while remembering they’re not the enemy to be vanquished just because they see things a different way. When we don’t engage in that middle ring of community, we also miss out on understanding our own unique blessedness — the way each of us is essential in our own way to the world. We miss out on that sense of belonging.
Community
I love our readings today, because they give us context for the essential role community plays in our lives and show us how God’s activity in our community at Emmanuel is life-giving. The Apostle Paul reminds the Corinthians today that we all are blessed with unique and extravagant gifts to generate abundance with God’s help. Each of us is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good, Paul writes. That gift takes different forms, and it’s for the common good, meaning it’s meant to be shared in community. To one is given wisdom, to another knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. (Notice that Paul’s letter says that the gift of tongues is not given without the gift of one who understands them, because we’re all supposed to keep trying to understand each other. That’s me adding that clarification.) All these gifts are activated by the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. What are your gifts?
Wedding at Cana
In John’s gospel this morning, Mary had the gift of observation. She was present in the moment at the wedding at Cana and noticed that wine was running short. She also had the gift of discernment of spirit, and knew that Jesus was the one to call in to help with any abundance issues. Jesus, of course, had the gift working miracles. But Jesus’ response to his mother draws our attention straight to Mary’s official role at the wedding: Whoops — she doesn’t have one. She’s a guest. Woman, what concern is that to you and me? Jesus asks.
I don’t think Jesus is saying that his mother shouldn’t get involved in the community. I think that John’s gospel is trying to get us to focus on Mary’s and Jesus’ roles — and all of our roles — when God’s transformative work gets done. We are meant to engage and get things done! Jesus tells the servants to fill the six stone jars for the Jewish rites of purification with water, and John’s gospel carefully notes the detail that they held 20-30 gallons apiece. Multiplying all of that out, that’s as much as 180 gallons of water that becomes fine wine. We don’t know how many guests were at the wedding, but assuming that they started with what seemed like enough before Mary notices it’s run short, it’s way more than plenty.
When Jesus asks, Woman, what concern is that to you and me?, he’s inviting all of us to consider how we can be of help, and join in the transformative miracle of offering our own unique gifts in the community and receive the gift of belonging. When we engage in community, we experience our own neededness, as American Institute for Boys and Men president Richard Reeves calls it — the way we make ourselves essential to our community. Remember that curious detail in John’s gospel — the steward didn’t know that the fine, abundant supplies of wine came from the 30-gallon water jars, but the servants did. They weren’t the ones in charge, but they took part in the miracle by pitching in, each with their own gifts.
We have no idea what God will do for us and through us when we pour out our spiritual gifts extravagantly. I don’t think Mary was thinking of miracles at the wedding at Cana. She just used her spiritual gifts of presence and observation to point out what the community needed. But then Jesus and all the servants got involved, and that changed everything. Tomorrow, our nation honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday. Dr. King had a dream — a big dream where, as he wrote in Facing the Challenge of a New Age,
the end is the creation of the beloved community.
It is this type of spirit and this type of love
… that will transform the deep gloom of the old age
into the exuberant gladness of the new age.
It is this love which will bring about miracles ... .
What can this miracle of community look like at Emmanuel? Let’s dream big! Amen