Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. And last week listening to Scott talk about a day on the river was wonderful.
Speaker 1:First of all, at staff, we all joke about Scott as our in house old soul poet, and that sermon really nailed it. Very on brand for him. Just a beautiful meditation on life, and change, and fly fishing. And if you missed it, you should honestly go and listen to it. If nothing else, it almost convinced me to give fishing another try.
Speaker 1:At the risk of offending everyone here who was captivated by Scott's words last week, I I don't get fishing. The river? Yeah. All about that. The sun and the outdoors, of course.
Speaker 1:The company and the quiet sign me up. But here's the thing. I I don't want to touch a fish. Like, I don't eat fish, so I don't want to rip a fish out of its home. That's where he lives.
Speaker 1:I'm coming to his river sticking my feet in his soup. The least I can do is leave him alone while I'm there. Jokes aside though, my son loves fishing. And I love my son. Therefore, I have asked Scott to take him fishing every summer from now on.
Speaker 1:Everyone's going to be happy. I'm kidding. My wife takes him fishing. That's fine. All right.
Speaker 1:For real though, check out last week's sermon. It was great. Today, it's about what makes me happy. 1st, let's pray. God of peace and of grace and of laughter and joy, God who has brought good things into existence for us to taste and to see and to experience, As we think about the summer that has been and the fall that is coming, the seasons and cycles that give shape and structure to our lives, Might we recognize the need to be present to all of it?
Speaker 1:To the hard times, of course. And to the pain, yes, to the waiting and the lamenting and the anticipating, all of it, but also to our joy, to know that you are present to the moments where we smile and celebrate and rest and come to know new good things about ourselves. Right? We trust that we see you equally in our struggle as in our smile. And that you are with us, near us, experiencing the world through us even now today.
Speaker 1:Right? We learn to savor even the smallest moments of happiness as gift from you. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Today, we are gonna talk about 10 year olds and taking things apart and reconstruction and faithfulness along the way.
Speaker 1:Because today is all about what makes me happy. And to be honest here, saying that just kind of sounds like an odd way to start a sermon. Right? I mean, why should you care about what makes me happy? But I think this is part of why we need a good theology of celebration, to remind ourselves that joy itself is worth meditating on.
Speaker 1:By the way, we have a series called The Theology of Celebration on the schedule in season 10. So put that in your back pocket for 2024. But joy is important. Is it all there is to life? No.
Speaker 1:And anyone selling you that should be avoided, But that doesn't mean we can't learn by leaning in wherever someone else is happy. I've told you this before, but one of the things that I'm working on in my life is to be more curious. There's this phrase, tell me more about that, that I'm working to incorporate into my vocabulary with more regularity. And that phrase can actually be really helpful in a lot of different situations, but one of the ways I use it is anytime I can see someone is excited about something. Just this week, there was a church men's event over at Scott's house, just a chance to get together and sit around a fire in the backyard and chat.
Speaker 1:And I had a 20 minute conversation about pizza dough. See, I have a pizza oven, and there was another guy there who has a pizza oven. And if you've ever tried to make a Neapolitan pizza in your backyard, then you know getting your dough right is a big part of the experience. And so we talked about getting the right double 0 flour and making a poolish and letting it ferment and building the gluten structure and then stretching it out properly and getting the perfect launch off your peel into your oven on your stone, because all of that takes a lot of practice. And in this conversation, I learned some new tips that I'm very committed to trying out this week.
Speaker 1:But I honestly think that what made me so happy was sharing this bizarre fascination with someone who was just as weirdly happy about it as I was. So here's my advice. Talk about what makes you happy, ask people about what makes them happy, and lean in when they tell you. It's my pitch for why you should pay attention to the sermon. What makes someone happy is important.
Speaker 1:Today though is not about pizza dough. Although, honestly, probably, we could stay here for another 20 minutes. But today is all about Lego. Here's the thing. I have a 10 year old son.
Speaker 1:And like all 10 year olds, he is into Lego. Now parenting is, in a lot of ways, about being excited for a lot of things that you're not particularly excited about. Fishing, for example, kids' soccer games for another, Minecraft is one of those things that I have spent more time talking about in my life than I ever would have dreamed for myself. But Lego, let's be honest here. No matter how old you get, Lego kind of just always rocks.
Speaker 1:I mean, I played Lego as a kid for hours on the daily. And Yes, of course building those sets, but mainly just like creating stuff. Probably one of my favorite ad series ever by any company is that one that Lego put out a few years ago. It was just some really simple blocks casting these really imaginative shadows. You ever seen this?
Speaker 1:You remember this one? I mean that kind of perfectly captures the magic of Lego for me. These unassuming blocks that can be fit together in an almost infinite series of arrangements. And I think that's why I love actually playing Lego with my kids. For sure, we can get the set, and we can build the plan, but for me, the real fun comes once the set gets stripped down to its parts and turned into something new.
Speaker 1:So my son likes to do these challenges. And he will decide, okay. Today, we are building robots, dad. And we've got 30 minutes to work side by side. You can't look at each other's creation until we show our work, and we vote on whose is the best.
Speaker 1:Now mom always always has to step in to cast the tiebreaker vote when this happens, but this was our last competition. That's mine on the left. That's my son's on the right. I lost this particular challenge. But to be fair, I'm pretty sure the judge was biased against me because, I mean, just look at that delicate joint articulation and the color coordination.
Speaker 1:I was onto something here. So this idea of being handed a bag of parts and a map that you get to construct, and then deconstruct, and then reconstruct. This is what will make Lego the toy that will outlast any of us here in this room. And by the way, we are relaunching the 7 PM service this fall. We talked about that.
Speaker 1:But on September 10th, we'll kick off the new season with a block party out on the street after 9 AM and 10:30 AM. It will be a blast, but then that evening, we are back at 7 PM. And this year, we're going to try something a little old, but also a little different. We'll sing as always. We'll take a break for coffee as normal.
Speaker 1:But then for the sermon, because it's a slightly smaller crowd on Sunday night, we're gonna go set up tables in the gym. We're gonna move over there, sit together so that we can chat and even have question a few weeks here. But as a team, we're trying to think through the experience of being invited to sit at a table with people that you don't know for the first time, and that can be intimidating. Fun, hopefully, yes, but intimidating as well. And so we thought to ourselves, we're going to need to give people something to do to make them feel a little more comfortable in that situation.
Speaker 1:And our solution was Lego. So we have bought a ton of Lego for every table, so you can sit and build and break apart as you talk. Maybe even show off your creation at the end of the night for a vote, as long as I get to be the tiebreaker this time. Thing is, I legitimately think that Lego can help build community because this ongoing creativity is the appeal of this toy. The chance to work out how things hold together.
Speaker 1:And that is community. See, I was that kid that wanted to know how things worked. I was that kid that took apart the VCR to understand the mechanism. I was also that kid that almost got the VCR back together again. Sorry mom and dad.
Speaker 1:By the way, if you're under 30 and you don't know what a VCR is, it's fine. You can Google it after the sermon here. But this is the point. There is an enduring quality to Lego that makes it to this day a competitor to video games and VR in our household. A quality that means my son, and soon my daughter, and my wife, and myself, we can all find ourselves equally engaged at 44.
Speaker 1:She's 44. I'm 45, technically. But the appeal is that what makes Lego, Lego is that Lego is whatever you make it to be. And look, this is a sermon. And so we all know we're gonna have to shift focus soon here, and it's not hard to see where I'm going.
Speaker 1:I think that's what makes faith faith as well. At some point, you and I were handed a bag of blocks and a map for how we put them together, and that was great. It was a lot of fun. But then at some point, for all kinds of different reasons, the next step was to take it all apart. And for the last couple years, one of the big talking points in Christianity, at least online, has been deconstruction.
Speaker 1:Is it good to deconstruct? Is it bad to deconstruct? What on earth does it even mean to deconstruct? No one seems to have a solid answer for that one. But as far as I'm concerned, deconstruction is table stakes for faith.
Speaker 1:The only thing you can't do with Lego is crazy glue it altogether. And the only thing you can't do with faith is keep it from evolving. It doesn't work. It undermines the very premise. And it's funny because in that last series, we got these little glimpses into each of us as a teaching team, what it is or maybe who it is that makes us tick.
Speaker 1:For example, I shared part of my story, the questions that I was asking that led me to search out a more nonviolent Christianity. And then Bobby and Scott and Yelena did the same. And it's been really interesting to hear some of the feedback I've received in emails over the last couple weeks, the ways that you have identified with 1 or 2 or maybe even all 4 of those sermons. Because the fact is, most of you here in this room are asking questions, too. And in that, searching out voices to aid in your journey, you are here because your faith continues to evolve and change.
Speaker 1:And I may venture to say, in that, at least based on the conversations that I have, your faith continues to become more real as it does. Look, I've been at this job for over 20 years now, and almost a decade here at common since starting this church. And in that time, I have changed a lot. Things have changed a lot. I'm a father and a girl dad now.
Speaker 1:I'm someone who has survived and even loved being married for more than 20 years now. I finished new degrees in that time. I've written books. There's no way that I could be the same person or believe the same way that I did as a fresh faced Bible college graduate getting hired into a Pentecostal church in Toronto at 23 years old. Now those were good times, and I value them deeply as part of my journey, but I can't live there anymore.
Speaker 1:That's not real life, and therefore, it can't be real faith to stay back there either. You have to keep growing. You have to keep changing. You have to keep building and then tearing down so that you can build something new again. And honestly, I think it's actually that last part that scares people, at least the people in power the most when about this idea of deconstruction.
Speaker 1:Because let's be honest here, to interrogate your beliefs or change how you see the world, to question and then maybe even abandon your faith or walk away from church. I don't think that's really what gets people all hot and bothered. People come and go all the time. That's life. I think what really scares people about deconstruction is the reconstruction on the other side.
Speaker 1:See, very rarely do people take their Lego apart and leave it like that forever. At some point, we always seem to come back and build something new. And that means new systems, new structures. It means new communities rise up. It means we create new challenges to the things that have kept certain people in power for a very long time.
Speaker 1:And I'm convinced that's actually honestly what really scares people about the idea of deconstruction. Rohadi Nagasar is a local author here in the city. And he writes this in his book, When We Belong, naming division, questioning old ways, embarking on new paths. It all has a name. It's deconstruction, a pathway unto liberation from all that isn't right in the world.
Speaker 1:Deconstruction is the process of finding a more beautiful way to belong and to live in the fullness of who we were made to be. And what I think he nails here is that this somewhat nebulous term deconstruction that gets thrown around a lot isn't just about questioning and tearing down and pulling part although of course that's where the name comes from. Ultimately though, it's about creating something new and better. Something that serves you better, something that serves your neighbor more fully, a faith that learns from the past and acknowledges our mistakes, that understands the harm that was done, unintended or otherwise, and then works to heal it. See, there was a period about 10 years ago in my life that I was deeply stuck in that first deconstruction phase, asking lots of questions about my faith and what I believed and how I was gonna believe it, how I would give language to the heart of what I saw in Jesus, and whether my life was aligned with His way in the world.
Speaker 1:And I was questioning whether my lines, or at least the ones that I had been given, were where I thought Jesus would actually draw them. And some of the conclusions that I was coming to didn't fit where I was at the time. But at some point, and for me it was about a decade ago, I got to the place where I felt like I had it all taken apart. Spoiler, I didn't. But I felt like all the pieces were on the ground, just a massive possibility like when my son dumps his Lego on the floor in front of me to play.
Speaker 1:And at that point, I had to decide what I was gonna do with it. And so I quit my job, and we started Common's Church, and it's been honestly a similar mess of mistakes and celebration ever since. But the thing is, that process of rebuilding isn't new. It's far older than me, it's far older than us, in fact, it's older even than Christianity itself. Back in his first address, his very first public teaching, Jesus sits on the side of a hill surrounded by this motley crew of the, quote, poor in spirit.
Speaker 1:Or in other words, those who can't make heads or tail of the divine. And he says this. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen.
Speaker 1:In the King James here, it famously says, not one jot or tittle will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. But that's a good start to a sermon. Right? Every block that you're familiar with, everything that came in the bag you were handed when you showed up, from the biggest down to the smallest, none of it's going away. We're gonna use it all.
Speaker 1:Except then almost immediately, Jesus goes on to say, now you've heard it said, you shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who's angry will also be subject. That's just 3 verses later in verse 27. He's not done, though, because next he says, you've heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you, anyone looking at a person as an object, that's already committing adultery in their heart.
Speaker 1:That's verse 27. You've heard it said, don't break your oath. I tell you, don't swear oaths at all. Say what you mean and then follow through without the need for flowery words. That's verse 33.
Speaker 1:You've heard it said, an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don't fight with an evil person. That's verse 38. You've heard it said, love your enemy. Hate or love your neighbor, hate your enemy.
Speaker 1:But I tell you, hate has not served any of us well. We should learn to love instead. That's verse 43. And you see just how incredibly, strangely disorienting this all must have been? Nothing is being lost.
Speaker 1:All the parts are here. Nothing is going to look the way that you remember it, though. The last are first, and the poor in spirit are blessed. To the meek will be given what was stolen. And here, the peacemakers, not the warlords, will be celebrated and revered.
Speaker 1:See, it's not the deconstruction or the tearing apart that makes Jesus a threat. That's human. It's what He begins to build from the pieces that makes Him a divine problem for all of us. That constant sacred work of building up and then tearing down so that we can build all over again. And I mentioned that phrase, not one jot or tittle.
Speaker 1:I love that phrase, by the way. But the NIV translates that not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen. And that's actually a little more literal. The reference here is to a yud. That's the smallest letter in Hebrew.
Speaker 1:It looks like a little apostrophe. And the least stroke of a pen is a reference to what we might call a serif in typography today, those little strokes on the ends of the lines of letters. The thing is, in the Hebrew alphabet, entire letters can be separated from each other just by the dash of a serif. So it's a typographical reference. But there's more than that.
Speaker 1:There's a story here as well. See, back in Jewish Midrash, which is sort of like a running commentary on the scripture, although not so much explanation. Think maybe more like fan fiction to help flesh things out a little bit. There's one particular story about King Solomon. Now Solomon is a very interesting figure in Hebrew history.
Speaker 1:In the books of 1st and second Chronicles, he's the hero, upheld as the image of a righteous king. In the books of 1st and second kings, though, things are a little less rose colored. And Solomon is a more complex figure, we might say, one who uses slave labor to build God's temple, One who becomes an arms merchant to fund all of his projects. And even the fact that we have these 2 very different depictions of Solomon in scripture remind us that deconstruction was happening long before Jesus came on the scene. But back in 1st Kings, Solomon also does something else.
Speaker 1:He pushes the boundaries of polygamy beyond what they should have been by taking hundreds of women as wives and concubines. And so in the midrash on Solomon, there is this obscure story about talking typography. See, in Deuteronomy, there's a passage that says, a man shall not multiply his wives. And the word there is yarba. And the story says that Solomon had the yud removed from the start of yarba.
Speaker 1:And that yud there indicated the 3rd masculine pronoun, and thus allowing him to elide any responsibility for the multiplying of his wives. And so I'm reading from Midrash here. It says that the little yud from the word yarbeh ascended on high and prostrated itself before the holy one, and said, master of the universe, did you not say that no letter should ever be abolished from the law, but now Solomon has arisen and abolished me? Who knows? Today, he's abolished one letter.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow, another. Perhaps until the whole law is gone. And the holy one said, Solomon and a 1000 kings like him will pass away, but not the smallest stroke. See, what this very Jewish story tells us is that these terms, abolish and fulfill, that Jesus is using here in the Sermon on the Mount had a rich history, but they are really about interpretation and intent. The building blocks, they're there for all of us to use.
Speaker 1:But if you put them together into something that's monstrous, something that commodifies women because of your power, or something that weighs people down with a heavy burden. That's the line that Jesus will use. It's like you've destroyed the whole law. You've abolished the intent of it. But if on the other hand, you challenge assumptions and you say things like, I know you've heard this, perhaps for a very long time, but it doesn't seem to be bearing good fruit.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's time for a change. If you listen and you learn and you question and you transform and if you untie that weight that bears people down to set them free, then you can actually accomplish, you can complete, you can fulfill the law, all of it. See, what Jesus is doing here in his first major address, no less, is very directly, very publicly pulling the pieces apart in order to build something new and then proclaiming all of it faithful. Now does that mean that anything goes? We can build whatever we want.
Speaker 1:Does it matter? Of course not. The very fact that we need to deconstruct is proof that we build less than perfect attempts. But the process itself of honestly listening and then learning to yourself, to your body, to your neighbor, to the spirit of life that animates the world and slowly helps us understand that what is is not all that there could be. That is how we are actually faithful to the story.
Speaker 1:See, you and I and even Jesus, we were given a bag of blocks and a map for how to put them together, but that was the start, not the end of our faith. And so every time you pull off a block and you examine it critically and you ask yourself honestly, is this block in this place making you more or less like Jesus? Then you are being faithful to the word of God who came into the world to help us understand all of the words about God that have been handed down to us. So my advice is this, build and then pull it all apart. And when you are ready, begin that process of reconstructing something that is more faithful to the Jesus you are learning to trust.
Speaker 1:In that way, together we fulfill the story. Let's pray. God, who has created and given us all of these blocks to use, this wisdom and insight that has been handed down to us in a bag with a map, Thank you for all the ways that those have gone before have constructed something for us to come into to be safe in, but then to challenge and to question and to pull down so we can build something for ourselves. And, god, we pray that by your spirit, in all of that process, the building and the tearing and the building again, that you would be there guiding us, iterating something that looks more like your sun. And that every time we pull off a block and examine the ways that it is moving us away from your kingdom, your graciousness, your peace, and we find a new place to put it, every time we look at a block and realize that this is foundational and rooting us in the way forward, keeping us steady in your imagination of what things could be.
Speaker 1:We thank you for all of it, and we ask you to continue to guide us forward so that our lives might look more like yours, and our steps more like the path of your son. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray Amen