A Living Sacrifice
What a joy it was to meet the Verhoek family this past Communion Sunday and to hear from Nick about their family's testimony of immigrating to the United States in the 1950's and of how PBPC was an integral part of their family's journey. Their testimony was a great encouragement to the church.
I like Anne Lamont's description of her church as a funky little church because that's what we are too. We're a funky little church now – vastly different from the large church back in the 50's and 60's when the Verhoek family were attending here. But this is still the place where you can find people living out their faith in Jesus Christ. People here are sharing their lives together with purpose, with heart, with balance, gratitude, and joy. Our humble little church is still a place where people practice their faith, however imperfectly. We all take turns getting to the end of our rope, but this funky little church helps us to tie a knot and to hold on.
Life together in the church is a mixture of people at every stage of life. Take any one of us apart from our community of faith and our lives would be so much less. There is no such thing as a perfect church because every church is made up of imperfect people who through the grace of God are trying to be more Christ-like. Mature Christianity is learning that true faith is found in funky little churches.
Theologian Robert Brown said, "I believe that we are placed here to be companions – a wonderful word that comes from the Latin "cum panis" (meaning "with bread"). We are here to share bread with one another so that everyone has enough."
As we become companions among ourselves, awareness grows that such companionship deserves to be extended. Our bread – our faith – is shared. Another writer, a woman named Abbie Graham, explained it like this: "God lives not, I think, in bread and wine, but in the breaking of bread, in the sharing of wine. Bread unbroken does not fortify the heart, but bread divided among all who hunger will sustain the spirit." There is just something about sharing our bread, sharing our faith, sharing our lives together in the Church that makes life right. This rightness is a safe harbor for our tender hearts as we move through this challenging world.
This coming Sunday we will look at Romans 12:1-8 and consider what it means for us to live our lives each day as living sacrifices before the Lord. I'm looking forward to seeing you this Sunday!