Call to Worship (based on Isaiah 41:18-19)
Leader: God promised to make rivers flow on
barren heights, and springs within the valleys.
People: God promised to turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched
ground into springs.
Leader: God is with us as we start gathering in our
sanctuaries once again.
People: God is with us as we go forth to help those in need around us.
Leader: Come, let us worship God!
Scripture Reading:
You see the trouble
we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire.
Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in
disgrace. I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what
the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they
began this good work. Nehemiah 2: 17-18
After the wall
had been rebuilt and I had set the doors in place, the gatekeepers, the
musicians and the Levites were appointed.
Nehemiah 7:1
Back-to-Church Sermon: We
Need Each Other
by Rev. Frank Schaefer
You've
heard me say it many times this morning: Welcome back to church everyone!
It's just such a joy to see all of you after the lock-down. It's been a year,
it's been too long. I'm just to happy you're here this morning and that we're
here together to worship and fellowship once again.
I want to start my message by talking about
the famous flick “Castaway,” in which the Tom Hanks character survived a shipwreck and
ended up on an island in the middle of nowhere. After some time, he became so
lonely, he started talking to a basketball that he found washed up on the beach.
It’s a little bizarre but he even gave the ball a name. The thing is, we all are
created to be in fellowship. We are relational people and we need each other to
survive; we need to talk to others, interact with them, we need human touch,
love, companionship.
I think we all felt the pinch of social withdrawal and isolation during the
pandemic. You would think that now that life is opening up once again, people
would celebrate. So, why is it that people seem to go berserk right now? What
about all the shootings, stories of road rage, acts of racism, and political
unrest? Shouldn’t things get better now that the pandemic is getting under
control? Isn’t that what we were all waiting for? What’s going on?
I believe the answer to this question lies in one word: CHANGE
Change is what causes us to experience a tremendous sense of loss and sadness,
and it can cause people to feel that things are chaotic and out of control
sometimes. After this pandemic, we want our lives to go back to normal but we
realize that’s not possible. Our pre-pandemic world is lost, our world is no
longer our familiar place, even our home is no longer our familiar home and that
is causing us enormous stress. That’s a big part of the reason I believe the
world is unhinged right now: Change and the losses that people feel because of
it.
I seriously doubt that those people that went crazy and started hurting and
killing people had anyone in their life that really cared for them, supported
them. If you have people that care for you and that you care about, it’s hard to
imagine that you would engage in such inhumane acts of violence.
At this time in our country, in our world, we all feel the losses the pandemic
has caused. The loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, a home, a business, the
loss of relationships, to mention a few. Yes, the world has changed, people have
changed, we have changed. But the thing that remains true is that we need each
other.
In fact, as we are re-emerging out of the pandemic, we need each other more than
ever. We need to count our losses, but then move on—together. We may never go
back to normal again, but we have an opportunity to be part of building a new
normal, perhaps a better normal in some ways. We can do it, together, we can
build back better as the slogan goes.
In our Scripture reading today we learn about a time when Jerusalem lay in
ruins. The prophet Nehemiah coming back from the Diaspora saw the dire situation
and scrambled the people of God together saying: “come on folks, let’s rebuild
these walls. We can do this together.” I’m sure many of the people had already
thought of this, but sometimes it takes one person to say it and everybody else
just falls in line.
But, it sure wasn’t easy to rebuild. They actually experienced quite some
push-back from among their own ranks and from their enemies. But they continued
to rebuild even though at one point only half of the people could work while the
other half took up arms to defend those who were working.
And when they finally got done, things did go back to a more normal. They
appointed gatekeepers, musicians and priests. And as we read on in chapter 7,
many of those who had been in exile, once they heard about the rebuilt
Jerusalem, they came back in droves.
They were able to do all this, because of the new vision God gave them and
because they united and worked together to make it happen.
And that’s what we need to do, folks! We need to rebuild, build back
stronger—our society, our community, our church. What is our specific vision?
Let’s rebuild our church community and let’s make it so that all feel accepted,
safe, loved and cared for. Let’s reach out to one another with love and
compassion. Let’s help those among us who a struggling—emotionally, physically,
financially or spiritually.
Let’s rethink what it means to be in relationship with one another in church.
Let us take this opportunity to never take our relationships for granted ever
again. Let us express our gratitude for one another, let us hug and support one
another like we never have before. We are all siblings and beloved children of
God and together we can achieve incredible things. This is only the beginning,
let’s talk about what we can all do in these coming weeks and months to rebuild.
Amen
Closing Song:
We Need
Each Other, by Sanctus Real
