"You Is Important"

A very special thank you to our children for leading us in worship April 26.  Your Magic Kingdom message was wonderful and I love each of you for who and what you are. Thank you so much!

 Acts 2:41-47

1 Cor 14:26-31

In the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett, which was made into a major motion picture, we glimpse a  view of Southern life that is filled with class distinctions and racism, yet also profoundly tells the story of just how important 'the help' (the African-American maids who work for white folks) are to just about every facet of life for a Southern white family in the mid part of the last century.

African-American girls and women were employed by middle and upper class white families to not only dust and mop and do laundry, but also cook their meals and raise their children. One maid might stay with a family for generations. The children often felt much closer to the maids than they did their own mothers, who were off working on charity work for the Junior League while their children were home being tended to by these kind and caring maids.

One particular maid in the book, Aibileen,  is trying to instill in the little girl under her care, Mae Mobley, a sense of self-esteem, something her mother seems unable or unwilling to instill in her daughter.  The maid keeps reminding the little girl of her worth by saying the phrase over and over again, "You is kind, you is smart, you is important."  Mae Mobley repeats it back to her. Their relationship is endearing, at one point Mae Mobley telling Aibileen, "You're my real mama, Abi."

The next few weeks, we are looking at the uprising that continues in the days following Jesus crucifixion and resurrection. The rumblings and yearnings of the first disciples and the first apostles, those who decided to keep the movement of Jesus alive and moving and growing.  Values that they all shared were a common sense of humanity, the need to encourage one another and their neighbors, the need to life one another up.  These early stories reminded me of the encouraging and nurturing relationships developed between maid Aibileen and the sweet Mae Mobley.  And that echoing phrase, "You is kind, you is smart, you is important."

Today we focus on the encouragement "You is important."  In 1 Corinthains 14 we read
What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.  

This scripture and the scripture in Acts 2 that suggests that everyone did what was best for the community stress the strong desire of the early faith communities to value the importance of every single person. The realization that every single person had a profoundly important role to play in the development of the faith community and that each one of them depended on the gifts of the other members to bring out their own.  Each person had a very important role to play and everything they did individually was to be done for the building up of the community. Acts tells us that the movement grew by the thousands in those early days.  Enormous exponential growth.  You have to wonder if that growth was because of this value they all shared.  The need and desire to put one another first, to value the importance of one another and the realization that each person was important to the whole.

Mae Mobley feels at her best when she is around her loving caregiver maid Aibileen.  She feels buoyed and encouraged by that phrase, "you is kind, you is smart, you is important."  She understands that valuing her own self as important is not self-congratulatory but a way of understanding that she is important to others and they are important to her.

This Sunday as we come forward to receive the holy sacrament, we too are reminded of how very important we are to God, to the Living Christ, and to one another.  The body of Christ does not exist here without each of us breathing it into life.  One wonderful way we do that here at NUMC is by sharing our gifts with those in need.  So, as always,  please bring your non-perishable food items for the OUR Center as you come forward to receive Holy Communion.

An Uprising in the Works

John 21:1-15

 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.  Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.  This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Resurrection meals occur on more than once instance and in more than one gospel in the days after the empty tomb story.  In Luke, the road to Emmaus story ends with Jesus being recognized in the breaking of bread around a supper table.  Then, in the gospel of John, we have this story of a man standing on the seashore, calling to the disciples after an unsuccessful night of fishing.  He calls to them and tells them to cast their nets on the other side... and an abundance of fish suddenly fill their nets.  After this, the disciples come ashore and share a breakfast of grilled fish with the man, whom John and Peter have already recognized as the Risen Christ, but whom now all those gathered finally recognize... again in the sharing of a meal.

What these stories say to us is that in the post-resurrection journey we are on with Jesus, we find him in the ordinary events of life.  That he has a way of infusing himself into the routine and regular meals of our lives and nourishing us for our own walk of faith. As Eugene Peterson puts it, "We're formed in the routines." (Living the Resurrection, Navpress, 2006, p. 70)

During that breakfast on the seashore, Jesus encourages Peter to "feed my lambs," an initiation into this new world of being disciples who embody a Christ within, rather than following a man among them.  We are also called to that same level of discipleship.  A recognition that being a disciple doesn't mean admiring a man, but embodying his example in the world today. A recognition that being a disciple is more about bringing Christ's love into the ordinary and routine aspects of our lives... cleaning, shopping, walking the dogs, caring for our families and friends... than it is about being some sort of inaccessible and perfect "Christian."

Feed my lambs.  All of us are called to do just that.  In the most ordinary of ways.  How can you be a true disciple of the Risen Christ in your own daily life? In your context?  Do you have ideas about how NUMC can embody the Risen Christ in this community and in the world? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment below.

He is risen, therefore We are risen. Indeed.