Know Each Other and Be Known

Last week we talked about the Great Connection. The Great Connection has two dimensions that run two ways, vertical and horizontal. Jesus teaches us the two greatest commandments are:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and

Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Matthew 22.37-39

The second commandment is dependent on the first. But if you miss the second you don’t really have the first. In the first letter of John it says,

“If you say you love God but don’t love your brother, you are a liar and the love of God isn’t really in you.”

This is the second part of the Connection and we’re going to focus on that second part this whole month as we explore how we can “Know Our Community.” We are going hear a different testimony each from folks in our community and what specific things they see in the course of their vocations. But before we get to that I want us to focus on knowing each other here, this group of believers that we call a faith community.

Are we community? Do we know each other? Back in the ‘80’s and 90’s a popular vision statement for some churches was this:

To know Jesus and make him known

What I am proposing is more like, Know Jesus, Know Each Other, Make Him Known. Without that middle part, the first and last parts probably don’t happen very effectively.
In fact we do have a new mission statement that we unveiled last week. Here it is:

Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ and create community.

Are we community? Do we know each other? I know we believe we are a friendly church, right. But Rick Warren put it well – “People are just looking for a friendly church. They’re looking for a church where they can make friends.”

1. To have community we must learn to know others and make friends.

How do you make friends? You learn a person’s name. You look for the “you too?!” moments when to your delight you discover shared interests. Then you ask more questions and learn more about them. You invite them to spend more time with you. I realize this can’t forced and it can’t be faked. We certainly have barriers to community. We are like little self-contained pods in our homes. We only venture out when we have to – to eat, to shop, to work. And then the rest of the time we watch our television and play with our toys. Toys and television are not usually very conducive to relationships. . But if we would try for community, there will be rewards. Mostly, we don’t try enough.
Look at the New Testament Church. They had obstacles to community as well. It cost something to be a Christian. It cost you family relationships. It was dangerous. That’s why the church went underground in many places. But what didn’t suffer was their togetherness. They had each other and they knew it. Maybe each other was all they had.

“Day by day they spent much time in the temple together, they broke bread in each other’s homes and ate their food with glad and sincere hearts.” Acts 2.46


That word sincere has an interesting origin. It is Latin and the second part, cere means “wax.” In Rome when they sold marble and other kinds of statues, sometimes the seller would try to hide cracks and imperfections in the statues by filling them in with wax. If a potential buyer caught this would lower the value of the statue. So sellers would advertise their statues as sin cere, without wax. What you see is what you get.

The early believers were without wax with each other; they were sincere.
Are we without wax here today? Is what you see what you get?

2. To make community we must be willing to be known.

Community is a two-way street. If you want friends you have to make a persistent effort to be known by people. It’s a curious thing, but sometimes, in anger someone will say, “You don’t know me, you only think you know me!” They say it like they’re proud of that, that they have remained unknown. They wear it like a badge of honor and use it to ward off anyone who might come to close.

Remember, isolation produces decay and death. This is the sickness of our modern and postmodern society. In the words of Robert Putnam, we are a society “bowling alone.” Putnam and others suggest that having healthy relationships increases the quality and length of your life. In fact, by joining a group, Putnam says, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half. So our new slogan for small groups is gonna be:

Join a group or die.

We need face to face contact with people. And I’m sorry, but email and facebook and texting just isn’t the same. A couple weeks ago I mentioned that a friend of my friend, Jay, died. Myself and Jay’s other close friends were there at the funeral to support and console him, as we should. At the meal afterwards I reveled in the company that was keeping me that day. I realized that here are some of my best friends. Jay, Jim, Trevor know me. They don’t put me down for my faults and they don’t spend much time praising me for accomplishments. The love me for who I am.

I confess things to my friends that I can be set free from sin and weakness. I remember going through a difficult period a few years ago and I told my friend Matt about it. I was worried that he would think less of me when I told him everything. He looked at me and thanked me for trusting him and confiding in him. I felt loved.

“You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.”
Psalm 90.8

Making friends and loving people means risk. You have to get vulnerable. Get busy loving or get busy dying. You know, that’ the alternative.

Remember the words Jesus uses in the Last Day when he divides the people like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats – the cold truth to those who go away to punishment is:

Depart from me, I never knew you.

3. To have community is to reach out to people different than you.

Making friends often means finding someone who has a lot of the same interests and views. But if community is only people who think, act, and look like me, then it’s not really community, not Kingdom community. Remember how the Holy Spirit gives a variety of gifts to a variety of people. Variety and diversity are good. They make for a healthy church. It may be the person who is very different from you that needs your interest and friendship the most.

Jesus had harsh words for the Pharisees because they treated everyone like they were different, meaning inferior. The Pharisees made it hard for everyone else to follow God. When called upon to help, the Pharisees “wouldn’t lift a finger.”

We know better. We exist to serve those not yet part of us. Now, what are you willing to do to know each other and be known?