November 17, 2002 - Twenty
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
I Corinthians 12:12-31
NRSV
KJV
CEV
“True
Fellowship:
Moving Beyond Regular or Decaf”
Our
Two Pursuits: Achieving and Connecting
Edward Hallowell is a senior lecturer at the Harvard Medical School, and he writes in a recent book that for most people, the two most powerful experiences in life are achieving and connecting. Achieving and connecting.
He says that most of what grabs ourattention and commands our energies fall under these two categories. Connecting has to do with our relational world, things like falling inlove, forming great friendships, hearing words of deep affection from our parents.
Achieving has to do with the world of accomplishments. winning a contest, pursuing a successful career, realizing a difficult goal. Hallowell says that most of what engages us in life falls into those two categories, achieving and connecting.
He goes on to point out that oursociety is increasingly devoted to, obsessed with and enslaved by achieving. And that our society—compared with most others in thehistory of the world—is increasingly bankrupt and impoverished when it comesto connecting, to relationships.
Now, achieving is not a bad thing. When it is done in the right way for the right reasons, it is a goodthing. But it is no substitute forcommunity.
There is an irony, I think, in oursociety’s obsession with achieving. I’venever known anyone who was isolated, alone and unconnected who had a meaningfuland joy-filled life. Conversely, I’ve never know anyone who succeeded atrelationships—who cultivated great friendships, who was devoted to family, whomastered the art of giving and receiving love—who had a bad life. Never. No matterhow little money they had, no matter what rung they occupied on the corporateladder.
People who give themselves to pursuingrelational greatness—people who have friends they can laugh and cry with,learn with, dance with, fight with, grow with, live and die with. These are the human beings in our midst leading magnificentlives. And when they die, not oneof them regrets having devoted themselves to people, their friends, theirchildren, or their families.
One of the most famous researchprojects on relationships was conducted over a nine year period. It is called the Alameda County Study. It was headed by a Harvard social scientist who tracked the lives of 7000people in Alameda County California. The study found that the most isolated people were three times morelikely to die early than people who had strong relational connections. The study found that people who had bad health habits—smoking, overeating, alcohol use—but strong relational ties, lived significantly longerthan people who had great health habits who were isolated. In other words, they found it is better to eat Twinkies with good friendsthan to eat broccoli alone.
There was another study that waspublished in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers took 276 volunteers and infected them with the virus thatproduces the common cold. Thisstudy found that people with stronger emotional connections did four timesbetter fighting off physical illness than those who were more isolated. Four times better! People with strong emotional connections were lesssusceptible to colds. They shedless virus, and they produced significantly less mucous than relationallyunconnected subjects. So it is literallytrue what my grandmother told me years ago: Unfriendly people aresnottier than friendly people!
I believe studies like these aresimply confirming at a biological level what the writers of scripture taught along time ago. We were created for fellowship. We were created for community,and we cannot have fullness of life without it.
What is more important? We cannot serve and know God without somehow being connected. Over and over throughout scripture there is this message that we cannotknow and love God without knowing and loving the people who mean so much to him.
There is a phrase in the book ofGenesis that is worth noting, because the writer of Genesis sets it up verycarefully. Recall in the creationstory of Genesis the little refrain that keeps popping up throughout that firstchapter: And God said, and it wasso, and God saw it was good.
God says, “Let there be light.”And God saw there was light. And God said it was good. The writer shows us that everything that exists is the effortlessactivity of an all-powerful God. Everything God creates is unspeakablydelightful.
And God said, and God saw that it wasgood. We read this phrase over andover, until the final act when the story comes screeching to a halt.
God creates a man in his image and Godlooks at this man—who bears God’s own image—and God says “It is notgood for the man to be alone.” Godlooks at the man that he and sees, not goodness. This is a radicalcomment about the fundamental importance of human relationships.
I’d like for you to noticesomething. The Fall has not yetoccurred. There has been noFall. Yet God says, “Not good.”
There is no sin, no disobedience,nothing to mar the relationship between God and the man. This human being is in a state of perfect intimacy with God. Every wordthat Adam and God share is filled with closeness and joy. The only look Adam has known from God is a look of delight and pleasure. He is loved, to the core of his being, by an all-knowing God. And yet theword that God uses to describe him in that state—in paradise—is “alone”. And God goes on to say that this aloneness is not good.
Now, I mention this because sometimesin church circles when people feel lonely, we will tell them not to expect toomuch from human relationships. Wetell them that inside every human being there is a God-shaped void that no otherperson can fill. And that is true.There is inside everybody a God-shaped void that no other person can fill.
But apparently, according to thewriter of Genesis, there is also inside this man that God creates a sort ofhuman-shaped void that even God chooses not to fill. God, who is perfectly intimate with this man, still calls him alone.
No substitute will fill this need inus for human relationship. Notmoney. Not achievement. Not business. Notbooks. Only fellowship withpeople—flesh and blood men and women—is what we were created for. It is the one indispensable condition for human flourishing. Yet, fellowship does not happen automatically.
It is a little ironic in our society. We will go to school and take seminars and read books. We will devote immense amounts of time to achieving. But often we will godays, weeks, months, even years without giving serious thought to connecting orcoming together, doing the life-giving work of fellowship.
ConnectedPeople Can Face Life’s Tests Together
There’s a story that been making therounds recently on the Net. Perhapsyou’ve seen it. Two guys weretaking a chemistry class at the University of Alabama. They were so confident coming into the final that two days before theexam, they decided to go to the University of Tennessee to party with somefriends. However, they oversleptand did not make it back on time. Theytold the professor that they had been coming back to study, but that they’dhad a flat tire on the way. That iswhy they’d missed the exam.
The professor told the fellows theycould make up the test on the following day. The two guys were so relieved that they stayed up all night studying.
The next morning the professor placedthem in separate rooms and handed them the test booklet. They looked at the first problem. Itwas worth five points. It was quitesimple. They were happy to see thatthe test would be easy.
Then they turned the page. Question number two read, “Which tire?” Ninety five points!
At that moment, these two guys neededeach other. Oh, what they wouldhave paid for an opportunity to be together!
If we hope to withstand the tests lifehands us, we need to cling not only to God, but also to one another. With the space remaining, I’d like to offer two principlesfor people who really want to experience true fellowship.
First, people who wish to experience true fellowship invest large amounts oftime in relationship development. Peoplewho value fellowship invest large blocks of time in relational development. Those who have spent time with me know that I think a lot about thehistory of the early church, particularly as it is recorded in one chapter ofscripture, the second chapter of Acts.
One of the most counter-culturalstatements in that chapter is, “Every day (day after day) they continued tomeet together.” You may havenever considered that phrase before. Theseearly Christians met every day. They met in the temple and in homes. They met to worship. Theymet to eat. They did life together,and that takes time.
In our day we often try to createfirst century fellowship on a twenty-first century timetable. And we’re shocked when it doesn’t work! Thesingle greatest barrier to true fellowship is simply our pace of life. The biggest, single requirement for authentic intimacy—and thiswill require some life adjustment for most of us—is large chunks of unhurriedtime.
People who really value fellowship donot try to microwave friendship, parenting or marriage. None of us can listen in a hurry. Theapostle Paul understood this when he described true fellowship as having thetime to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. None of us can do that kind of intimacy in a hurry.
Second, people who wish to experiencetrue fellowship muster up enormous quantities of humility which they oftenchannel into acceptance and service
Earlier this fall, my daughter Mollyand I were eating down at George Webbs before an evening meeting here at thechurch. Behind us in the next boothwere three girls who, apparently, had just walked over from playing tennis atHart Park. I couldn’t help butoverhear two of the girls berating one another girl who, obviously, was notpresent.
“Oh, Jennifer is so weird,” theysaid. “What is her deal. Where does she get off trying to play tennis?” This rant went on for several minutes while the third girl behind me satquietly. “So, Sarah, the othertwo finally asked. “Why do youplay with Jennifer anyway?”
“Because you won’t.” said Sarahgently.
At that moment, my heart swelled, andI wanted to do two things. I wantedto get this girl’s telephone number and call her parents and tell them what anincredible daughter they have. (Icontained myself; the headline would have been hard to explain: Local Pastor Solicits Teen Telephone Numbers at Local Eatery.)
The second thing I wanted to do atthat moment was hug my little Molly and to say to her, “Young lady. When you grow up and you are 15, this is what I want for you! I want you to have the kind of heart that will accept others and willstand up for underdogs and fight for outcasts.”
Do you understand what it means togive the gift of acceptance? Do youhave any idea how much power there is in giving the gift of attention andencouragement to people? Each of us has that power. Wherever we stand on any organizational chart, whatever we have achievedor not achieved, whatever we have accumulated or not accumulated . . . if wewill rightly channel our humility, we can offer acceptance to another humanbeing. And that can have a powerfulimpact.
In sixth grade whenever we wanted to explore the feasibility of a cross-genderfriendship—in other words, whenever one of us would want to ask a girl to“go steady”—we’d usuallysend a note through a messenger. Andthe note would read: