Title: Impermanence and Permanence

Scripture: Luke 21:1-19 (lectionary passage from week before)

11/21/04 25th Sunday after Pentecost, Yr. C

Rev. Joy R. Haertig

What are the most permanent things in your life? What are those things that you count on to be there?

No matter what we name – family, friends, home, trees, lakes, mountains – we know, whether or not we will admit it, that all of these can be gone in a minute.

Today’s Gospel reading is about that part of human experience. It is not about predicting the end times or the words of a Bible-thumping pastor trying to put the fear of God into our hearts. Today’s Gospel reading is about the impermanence of our lives, our human kingdoms – and the permanence of God’s kingdom.

The poor widow catches our attention as one that was well aware of impermanence and her need for God’s permanence. She has lost her husband and she is financially strapped – she needs the benevolent love of God to help sustain her.

Disciples had their eyes on the temple and all of its beauty - it appeared permanent, solid, and secure. Seeing this, Jesus told them: My friends, this wonderful temple will not last forever. Someday these stones will come tumbling down.

Permanence, strength, security is not found in the temple.

The temple is an impermanent gathering place in which we seek that which is permanent, God’s love.

This last week I spent two solid days in class at Seattle University in the Pastoral Leadership Program I am participating in. These two classes were on “Envisioning Leadership” and our teacher was Sharon Parks, a writer and past professor at Harvard University in the Kennedy School of government.

She began our class by talking about the image of “The Commons”. The Commons is a gathering place, like the temple in today’s story, a place where many things were talked about from faith to politics.

Some of you from small towns might have grown up with a Commons. Dr. Parks described some of them for us:

“One form was the classic New England green ringed by the town hall, grange, courthouse, general store, post office, church, and a flock of households. Other forms of the commons were the square at the county seat in the South, the bodega in the Latino community, Main Street in Middle America, a ballpark, school, temple or cathedral in the city, or the fishing wharf on the coast.” (Common Fire, Parks, Deen and Kaloz) One of my colleagues said that “Dick’s Drive-in” had been his commons!

The commons was a place where people had a sense of belonging to something bigger than they were. “It marked the center of a shared world that anchored the American vision of democracy. Despite sometimes sharp differences, the good of the commons – the good of all – could be worked at, figured out and figured out again.” (Parks)

The common good did indeed have to be worked out time and again; it was always a work in process for the Commons could also be a place of deep misunderstanding and acts of severe injustice. Dr. Parks reminded us that the Commons was where people gathered to sell and buy slaves. It was where young girls and women were declared to be witches and hung for all to see. The Commons was not a perfect place but it was a place where humans have gathered through the ages to find sustenance, meaning and wisdom for the journey. It has been a place where the common good, though not always upheld, was its primary vision.

As we reflected on the Commons it struck me that it was not so much the particular place that was important, but what happened there. Like today’s reading from Luke, it was not the temple itself in all of its grandeur and beauty that was important or even long lasting.

It was in the gathering of the people; it was in the common seeking for God that went on there that would offer security in the midst of an ever-changing world.

The widow that Jesus watched come to the temple, knew that the real gift was in having a place for her to come to, to be with others.

Dr. Parks invited us in our class time to consider what is happening in our American society today in regards to “The Commons”. “Our common gathering places are increasingly restaurants – yet we rarely even make eye contact with others eating nearby. The video arcade is popular for our young people, yet there is little conversation taking place. Or there is the mall of course, but no matter how comfortable and lovely they make it the ultimate goal is to consume, not exploring the common good or supporting one another.” (Parks) In all of our busyness many of us hardly make time for a common meal with our own families, much less find time to gather somewhere with others to find sustenance, to explore possibilities, to find meaning and direction.

The Commons is changing, but the deep human need for having one, is not.

The church has often been a Commons in many neighborhoods and cities and still is. I believe that those of us that are involved in a church community are here because we want, need and believe in “The Commons”. We want to make time in our busy lives to pause and receive sustenance from something bigger than just our own hurried lives, in company with others that can call us by name. We recognize the impermanence of the human kingdom and so we come here together, searching for ways to understand it, live with it, and even rejoice in it.

This particular “Commons”, Richmond Beach Congregational Church, UCC, has weathered through over 113 years and three different locations of being a gathering place for people to come together. To keep a commons like this it takes committed people that do more than just drop in on the run from one place to another. It takes people that come in and put roots down and give of themselves for the sake of the common good.

There are many churches across our country that served as “The Commons” yet are dwindling in numbers and in spirit.

I believe that part of why this church community has been able to remain so alive is because each generation has been committed to two things – faith and welcome. We are a community whose faith has been and still is, grounded in the permanence of a loving God in the midst of an impermanent world and we are a community that has been and still is, welcoming.

Dr. Parks named the reality that the Commons is changing or sometimes dying out partially because our neighborhoods, communities, society and world are more global than they have ever been. So many boundaries are shifting. “Old distinctions between work and home, business and government, male and female, those we call “we” and those we call “they” no longer work as they once did.” (Parks)

One way we can respond to this change is by tightening the world around us. We can be more dogmatic about our beliefs and create more stringent rules for membership. We can try and instill fear of the other or we can seek understanding. We could build a wall around us so we know for sure whose territory is whose, or we can find new ways of sharing the planet! We can do church just like we did church in the 1950’s when the membership was homogeneous and turn our backs on our changing neighborhoods or we can choose to welcome it, supporting the common good from a yet wider perspective than we had before.

The commons that is this community of faith has survived because it has been welcoming as opposed to fearful. Welcoming to the movement of the Spirit that has called you time and again to different forms of ministry in response to different needs and to a growing diversity of individuals, families and cultures. Welcoming to the questions and doubts that come to people of faith as we face the struggles of impermanence – death, illness, war, hunger, divorce, terror, unemployment, earthquakes, floods…If we can not talk about these things in the church in the company of others, where will we talk about them?

This commons that is RBCC UCC has also been welcoming of all kinds of groups coming and going through the doors of this building – witnessing to our belief that the building itself is created for the strengthening of the common good.

A Commons such as this community of faith is not something we should take for granted. It is a gift for us to nurture as we invest our time and financial commitments in its future just as the generations before us. We can each find ways to contribute to the faith and the welcome of this community of faith. Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke reminds us that this Commons of RBCC UCC is not a gift because of its permanence, it is a gift in how it aids us in facing the impermanence of our human kingdoms. It aids us in giving us a place to gather; a place to question and explore; it gives us a place to pray and to care about the greater good; to serve on its behalf and to grow good citizens for God’s planet.

This church gives us a place to see what is permanent, the Love of God – as we love each other through all that is impermanent yet so wonderfully precious.

Amen.