2/18/18 “Ties that Bind” by Cathy Tamsberg

Text: 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11, 27

There is a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it
doesn’t change. People wonder about what things you are pursuing. You
have to explain about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you
hold it you can’t get lost. Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you
suffer and grow old. Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. You don’t
ever let go of the thread.

If this sounds familiar to some of you, you’ve heard it before. Written by poet and pacifist William Stafford, it introduced a sermon by our former pastor Mahan Siler to mark the 20th anniversary of the decision to affirm and celebrate same-gender covenants made by this congregation in 1992, twenty-six years ago this month. In a moving reflection by the beloved pastor who led this congregation through that tumultuous time, Mahan identified Micah 6:8 as the “thread” that defines Pullen: doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.

At the conclusion of every congregational meeting regardless of how long it has lasted, we make a circle around the space, hold hands and sing the first stanza of the old hymn, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.” We did this last Sunday after we celebrated pledging our 2018 budget. No cuts are required. As I stood in that circle listening to the lovely harmonies reverberating in the chapel, I found myself asking: What are the ties that bind us? Can we name them so we’re clear about what we need to preserve? The term “bind” means “causing things or people to stick together or to have an emotional attachment.” So what is that thread, that tie that binds us? Today is the first Sunday in the forty days of Lent when we are especially called to reflect deeply on who we are and who we are becoming. So I’m borrowing Mahan’s image of a thread that connects us to ask these questions: What ties each of us to the Pullen family? What ties us to each other? How do they impact who we are as a church and who we are becoming?

Before I say more, let me take us back to the text from 1 Corinthians 12 that George read for us. Paul wrote this letter to the church at Corinth at a time when the congregation was divided by schisms. Wealthier people were taking others to court; priority seating at the Lord’s Supper was being given to those who were rich; and the gift of glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, was accorded more status than the other skills being offered to the church. We Baptists know about church divisions. My life-long Southern Baptist father used to tell a joke about three Baptists who were marooned on an island in the middle of the ocean. After only a brief time of being stranded together, they founded the First and Second Baptist Churches. So picture a real mess when you visualize the church at Corinth to whom Paul is speaking.
Our text and the surrounding verses are Paul’s attempt to address the divisions in the church. “You are the body of Christ,” he says, “and individually members of it.” He reminds them of these things: The spirit has given everyone a gift and no gift is better or more important than the others. You are a diverse group and that is a problem only when some are given status over others. You can’t boast about possessing a gift that you did not earn or merit. The gifts you have been given are to be used for the common good – for the betterment of the community. Individuals can express faith in a broad and liberating range of situations but you must consider whether your choices are helpful for the community. All members are equally important. Now we may want to take issue with the Apostle Paul on a variety of subjects, but his description of the church in 1 Corinthians is pretty amazing for his time – and for ours. He describes a community that honors diversity. Kind of like Pullen. So let me summarize my own thinking and the input of the Lectionary group to name several ties that bind us.
First, as Mahan said, our mission is one of the ties that binds most of us to this church and to each other. The heart-felt, truly passionate desire to reach out beyond these walls and our personal lives connects many of us to one another and the Pullen family as a whole. I have joked over my tenure here that Pullen people have never met a justice issue they didn’t like. Hunger, homelessness, affordable housing, healthcare, education, child abuse prevention, racial equity, ending torture, climate change, LGBTQ equality, clean water and air, gender equality, living wage, immigration, animal rights, voting rights, supporting the justice work of our partners around the world, and given the tragedy of the school shooting this week, life-saving gun control… That’s just a partial list of the things Pullen people care about. Then within these and other issues of social justice we could name more specific needs that touch the hearts of people in this faith community who are using their feet and their funds to address them. For example, on Friday, the Thought for the Week published on the website of the Community of the Cross of Nails in Coventry, England was the story of the grief and the hope of our partners at First Baptist in Matanzas, Cuba, who just received a cross of nails like the one that hangs in the back of this sacred space. We describe our relationships with our international partners as a “ministry of accompaniment” and now two of our partners will accompany each other as they give witness to God’s reconciling love. Two of our partners are now partners because of our mission.

It is a common occurrence for those of us on staff here (and perhaps for you, too) to meet a person in Raleigh who says, “I don’t go to church. But if I did, I’d go to Pullen.” I’m not always sure what the speaker means by that nor how to respond. But it’s clear this is a compliment. People in our Raleigh community and beyond are aware of our deep conviction that we should be actively engaged in God’s work for justice and peace not only where we live but also across our state and nation and even in other parts of the world like Coventry and Cuba. We share a common vision of a just and loving world. We can debate how and when to take particular actions and where to set healthy limits. We do have these debates and sometimes they are hard. But underlying those differences of opinion is a common thread: health and wholeness are God’s design and desire for every person and our planet.

I agree with a second tie that binds us named by the Lectionary participants: listening to all sides and respecting differences. Now I’ll be quick to say that we don’t always get this right. It’s easy to name this as a Pullen value if you’re generally in agreement with the majority. I know there are times when minority voices haven’t felt heard or respected and feelings get hurt when that happens. But I have to say that compared to every other church I’ve been a part of or even read about, we do this pretty well. It’s why we’ve tweaked Robert’s Rules of Order so that no one can “call the question” to cut off discussion and move quickly to a vote in a congregational meeting. Now I admit that there are times that this rule modification has made me weary. I have wished that some speakers would learn to self-regulate. And occasionally I have wished that opinions were shared more kindly. But the point is to allow all voices to be heard. As one person said, “Here at Pullen, nobody doesn’t matter.” Let me say that again: nobody doesn’t matter.

In our discussion of this on Wednesday, someone noted that at the end of challenging congregational meetings when different opinions have been aired and discussed, you will often see people who expressed those divergent views talking with each other in conversations that are not arguments. Bless those of you who go toward and not away from people who hold opinions that are different from yours. Our nation is desperately in need of this gift in these days. I also learned that several decades ago at the end of a contentious meeting, it was Suzanne Newton, bless her, who spoke up to suggest that those present sing, “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love…” Pullen has been doing this ever since. As I noted earlier, there is something that touches my heart about standing in that circle, singing about being a loving community and looking into the faces of our fellow travelers on this journey. I know this is true for many of you. If you’ve never attended a Pullen congregational meeting, I encourage you to try it. It could be short or long or easy or messy or emotional or even boring. But you’ll definitely find Pullenites trying hard to listen to one another, however imperfectly this is done on some occasions.
I believe another, harder-to-acquire tie that binds many of us together is trust. We all know that trust is hard to build and easy to break. It is well-known now that if very young children do not have adults in their lives who can be trusted to care for them and meet their basic needs, those children are likely to have trouble trusting others when they become adults. Trust depends on the deep listening to each other I just described. But it also requires respecting fellow church members enough to assume their beliefs and actions are well-intended even when they seem foolish to us, are inelegantly expressed, or we disagree with them. It requires us to give people the benefit of the doubt and not question their motives.

Years ago I was in a church where the trust level was very low. As a result, every decision was a struggle and meetings were painful. If the pastor recommended a particular action, some members just knew there was an ulterior motive. It didn’t seem possible to them that he could simply have a different vision of what the church should be and do. Money was held in the tight-fisted hand of a church treasurer who operated from a Depression-era money mentality on steroids. There always seemed to be an air of suspicion if you wanted to spend some of the church’s funds. As a result, I felt a breath of fresh air when I came to Pullen. Here, I’d trust my colleague who handles our money with my life and, thankfully, I don’t think I’m alone in this. I trust that the hard-earned money generously given to this church will be used for good by the groups who oversee it and spend it. So compared to many congregations, my sense is that the trust level here is pretty high. As a staff member, I don’t always agree with other staff members or each one of you. That can be frustrating at times. But I try to remind myself that we all want what’s best for Pullen Church even if we have different ideas about how to accomplish this.
Another tie that binds us together, said one Lectionary participant, is a sense that we’re all in this together. This person spoke about how he learned new things about Pullen people and Pullen Church as he moved from one council or committee to another. Each new group taught him something about the community that is Pullen. You know, sometimes we complain that we have so many council and committee positions to fill every year. It takes more than 160 people to fully staff our volunteer positions not counting interest and support groups, ad hoc groups and all the volunteers that make our congregational care, education, worship and missions possible. But these comments were a reminder to me how much value there is in having so many positions and, therefore, so many people who are engaged in the life and ministry of this church in an “official” way. If you’re not involved in a small group here at Pullen, I encourage you to volunteer somewhere. The more you invest, the more invested you will become.

There are times when I marvel when people gather for worship on Sunday or for Wednesday night dinner or for an Adult Ed Committee or Missions and Outreach Council meeting. I get paid to be here, but you could be so many other places at this moment or on a Wednesday evening after a long day at work or school or on a Monday evening when it’s time to talk about our leaky roof. Actually, it has always been time to talk about our leaky roof. But seriously, your presence and your concerns, even when they are expressed in ways that ruffle feathers, reflect your investment in the Pullen enterprise that is bigger than any of us. It began with a cloud of witnesses more than a century ago and will be here long after all of us have gone on to our reward, as my mother would say. Countless people through the years have experienced this “we’re all in this together” feeling and thanks be to God for that.
Finally, I believe perhaps the most important tie that binds us together is love – love for God and God’s creation; love for this church and its witness in the world; love for the people who share the pews with you each Sunday. Someone has said that love is not a feeling but rather a decision-commitment. We may be drawn into love by our feelings. But real love that lasts is so much more than a feeling. It IS a decision. It IS a commitment to look beyond oneself to care for something or someone else. You demonstrate love by your presence here and the ways you offer your gifts to this community.

You know, I’ve learned in my years with you that a lot of people like the “idea” of Pullen. Many good folks come through our doors a time or two or maybe a little more because they like the idea of an open, progressive church. But, unfortunately, some don’t stay long enough or get involved enough to grow to love this community. But among those of us who have invested ourselves here, there is deep love for fellow Pullenites and for the church as a whole. I think I’ve said to you before that one of the most inspiring behaviors I observe in this church is when a member arrives on a Sunday morning or a weekday and goes straight to the church office to see whose name is “on the board.” For you newcomers to Pullen, we have a whiteboard in the church office where we try to keep an updated list of illnesses and deaths like the ones Laura read this morning. So “checking the board” means checking to see who is sick or grieving in our Pullen family. Sometimes I’ll even have a member call me when she or he has missed worship on Sunday to ask whose names were read in the Joys and Concerns. Why do they do this? Because they love this place and all of you and they want to know who needs their prayers or a note or a call or a visit or, in true Baptist fashion, a casserole.

Pullen Church is not perfect by any means. Sometimes our thread gets pulled pretty tight and some may wonder if it might break. It’s often stretched because we try to do so much within our church and beyond these walls. I know that some of you think that “so much” is too much. But whatever your opinion about the volume of activity here, I hope you trust that all of it comes from the hearts of Pullen people who care deeply about each other and our troubled world. These are hard days to be progressive Christians and it is easy to feel lonely, fearful or powerless to stop the forces that generate truly bad policies and laws one after the other. Therefore, it is essential that we respond as best we can to the needs of our fellow Pullenites and the world beyond Pullen.

Whatever ties you to this Pullen enterprise, please hold on tightly to the thread. Don’t let it go. Whether you’re here because of our mission or our openness to different views or you’ve learned to trust “the Pullen Way” and want to be in this place together with people you have come to love – whatever ties bind you to this community, use these days of Lent and Paul’s vision of the church to help you reflect on them and perhaps pull the knots tighter. Know that you are precious to God and precious to us. We want to accompany you just as we accompany our partners in other lands. We want to be joined in heart with you by a thread that you can hold onto all your days.