Sermons

“Invest in Futures: Learning Partnership”

Acts 6:1-7; I Corinthians 3:1-9 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – February 16, 2020

 Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that our hearts might be opened to the partners in compassion that you have sent us all around the world.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

I’m curious what you would do if someone told you that you are now responsible for protecting and nurturing girls from a hill tribe in Thailand who are at risk for sexual abuse and human trafficking.  You need to ensure their safety, provide them with education, and generally help prepare them to make a living and a life free from the dangers of exploitation and poverty.  What would you do first?  Freak out perhaps?

What if it wasn’t just you, but our whole congregation together who were given this job?  Could we do it?  We’re pretty loving and generous.  But we also don’t speak the language, don’t know anything about the local culture or the economic realities of rural Thailand, and perhaps most importantly, we’re in San Diego County, which is pretty far away from the hill country of Southeast Asia.  I’m guessing some of you might vote No on this proposal, both because we’re entirely ill-equipped for the task and because we have plenty of challenges of our own to deal with.  But what if, as in the story we heard from Acts, someone came complaining to our leadership that the girls of the hill tribes of Thailand were being neglected?  Would we make excuses for why that’s not our responsibility?  Given that the issue in Acts 6 was between the Hebrews and the Hellenists – that is, the cradle Jews and the Greek converts – this problem could have resulted in the first division of the church, had the Twelve decided that those Hellenist widows weren’t their problem, and those Greeks should take care of their own already.  But that isn’t what happened, is it?  So what is an “Acts 6” approach to this request that we take care of these girls in Thailand?  The solution our church has lifted up increasingly over the years is partnership.

The ministry that Vista La Mesa Christian Church does with girls at risk in Thailand is only possible because we have partners there who know what to do and how to do it.  The ministry that Week of Compassion carries out all around the world, all around the year – the ministry we are celebrating today – is only possible because of the countless partners we work with in every corner of the world.  And before we get all warm and fuzzy about that, let’s slow down and give ourselves the time to recognize how challenging partnership is and how badly we’ve done it sometimes.

This is personal for me, so let me give you some background.  While we were in Germany this month, I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with my friends Daniel Müller and Cordula Stehmann.  Daniel and Coco, as we call her, were fellow participants with me in Project Oikos back in 1996 & ‘97.  We traveled together for nine months, as a group of 16 young people ages 18-26 from the U.S., Canada, the Philippines, and Germany, through our four different countries, being hosted by congregations and church-affiliated host families all along the way.  It was an amazing opportunity, but we learned a lot about the challenges of partnership!

Did you know that people do things differently in other parts of the world?  No, really, they do.  And I don’t just mean the fun things, like food or folk dancing.  I mean real, fundamental things like how to organize a line, or explain the day’s agenda, or go to the bathroom.  You don’t really realize how many assumptions you’re carrying around about how things work until you’re some place where most everyone else is making different assumptions about those things.  Some places feel more foreign than others, but any place that’s a little different can prod us to wonder why we do things one way and others do it differently.

I’d like to do a little experiment now, as we watch another video from Week of Compassion. The images in this video will move rather quickly, but I wonder if you will notice something that makes you wonder why someone is doing what they’re doing the way they’re doing it.  This isn’t the point of the video, so you may not.  But I had at least two moments of wondering.  See what you notice.  [watch second video here]  Was there anything in there that made you wonder?  For me, it was that little kid with white stuff all over its face.  What was it, and why was it there?  Isn’t there some better way to do whatever it is that white stuff is supposed to be doing?  Why wasn’t it more evenly spread over the skin?  I was also concerned about that older woman who was sitting on the floor, or at least very close to the floor, spinning.  And here’s where it gets tricky, because I feel like my concerns are based in benevolence: Doesn’t she deserve to sit on a chair?  Isn’t that making her back hurt?  Why couldn’t her spinning wheel be taller so she could sit up more?

But do you know what I know about spinning?  Diddly squat, that’s what.  Do you know what I know about her back?  Nothing.  I don’t even know what she’s really sitting on or the history of her posture that might make it feel very different to her than it would to me.  My first impulse is to intervene, thinking I could make things better.  But the truth is that if I’m interested in true partnership, I need to learn a lot more before I start offering suggestions for improvement.

Maybe it’s just me – though given the history of culturally insensitive mission work on the part of Western churches, I doubt it – but it’s really hard not to feel like the way I do things is the right way and therefore the way these other folks are doing it must be wrong.  What I forget when I’m looking at the world this way is that other people’s circumstances are different from mine, and they understand them much better than I do.  What I also forget is that just because this is the way I’ve always done it that doesn’t mean it’s the only way it can be done.  It’s weird how hard this can be to overcome.  But overcoming it is what Jesus calls us to do.

What is dramatically true at a global level is also true on a more local level in less obvious ways: true partnership requires noticing and setting aside our assumptions and our tendency to assume our ways are best.  It requires humility and trust at levels we’re not generally accustomed to.  Humility and trust.  Obviously, that means humility about everything we don’t know about the world and trust in our potential partners’ wisdom and experience.  But even more importantly, it means humility before and trust in God.

The story from Acts 6 and the Moment for Mission video about ministry with at-risk girls in Thailand remind us that there is plenty of work to be done in the world.  God has a place for all of us.  And the admonishments Paul sent to the Corinthians reminds us of the importance of recognizing with humility our place in all of that.  We are mere co-workers.  One may plant, another may water, but it is God who gives the growth.  We must recognize that in order to do God’s work, we must humbly seek out partners who can do the parts we cannot do, while remembering that the most important partner is God.  Getting caught up in the “how” – insisting on doing it our way – is for babies, Paul says.  God is the one who gives the growth – the growth of love, of hope, of strength, of healing.  There are a thousand ways to plant and a thousand ways to water.  What matters is finding how our gifts match up with what God is doing.  When we can pull that off, Vista La Mesa Christian Church can discover ourselves in ministry to girls living in the hills of Thailand and growing in ministry here at the corner of Massachusetts and Boulevard.

Perhaps the point here, the gift that celebrating Week of Compassion gives us, is the realization that spiritual maturity and effective ministry go hand in hand.  Without learning how to be true partners, we cannot serve God’s people.  If we want to serve in Jesus’ name, with the fruitfulness that comes from channeling God’s love, we must learn humility and trust.  We must learn partnership.  Let us give thanks that Week of Compassion gives us the opportunity to do just that.  Alleluia and Amen.