A sermon on face-to-face engagement

Joel Clark Mason
“The Sixth Sunday in Eastertide”
17th May 2009
Transcribed from Podcast

...but something in that document caught my eye. It’s from Being Human: Human Computer Interaction in the Year 2020, which Microsoft Corporation pulled together, a research team to look into this, and this is from Chapter 2.4 [laughter from congregation], “The Growth of Hyper-Connectivity,” and it said,

We now connect at greater distances and over longer timeframes with our friends and family than ever before. We reach each other more of the time wherever we are, and are available for contact any place, any time. We are also making new friends and building new forms of relationships, many of whom we may only ever meet through digital channels. This is changing the way we build and maintain our relationships at work, home and play. The boundaries between the office and home, and between work and play are dissolving. It is perfectly normal now for people to be emailing their work colleagues in the early hours while playing a game of online poker with people they have never met. Traditional, socially accepted conventions and etiquette governing how we communicate, when we communicate, whom we communicate with and what else we are doing are rapidly disappearing. New ones are replacing them but it seems that anything goes now.

Well I read that and I thought, Why are we here? I mean, why don’t we just put the service up on Facebook? [laughter from congregation]. Or I could Twitter it to ya. I don’t do Twitter, that’s what? – 120 characters, it’s short and to the point. So why are you – and today, with the 10K race, plopped right down in the middle of the church? It would’ve been a lot easier to Facebook the sermons. So why are we here? Why do we come?

I think the answer is over here in this letter… [indecipherable]… Let’s see… “And this is the victory that conquers the world: our faith.” We’re here to celebrate. We come here every Sunday to celebrate. We celebrate victory. I don’t know about you, but a digital high five isn’t quite as pleasing as the smack of a hand on hand in celebration. We celebrate the victory of the world by our faith.

Faith in what? What do you have faith in? Is it faith in Jesus, the son of God, that calls you here? Is that why we struggled through the 10KS to get here this morning? To be faithful to Jesus? Well some of you may. But at the Last Journey Continues meeting there was a person there who shared with us that she, when she comes here, looks around, and sees other people sitting here, and knows… and knows confidence for the week ahead, and that confidence comes from her faith that if she needs you, all she needs to do is call. She has your support. And isn’t that true of Saint Mary’s? [member says “Yep”]. If you are – Yep! – someone says “Oh yep.” If you’re sick, the Good Saint Maryans are there with food; if you need somebody to sit with you during the day, we’ll arrange for that; if you need transportation, there are people in this congregation who can do that. And you can’t Facebook that kind of connection. That kind of faith.

Well, what else is there? I – I’m teaching a course this Fall at [indecipherable] called – now I’ve got to remember the name of this course [indecipherable]… I think it’s called Narrative Theo - …Narrative and Sacramental Theology. So I’ve been… [indecipherable]… figure out what “narrative theology” is if I’m going to teach it, so I’ve looked up some stuff on “narrative theology,” and it’s about stories. And what calls us here is the story. We come here to share the story. We hear it in the scripture, we hear it repeated in the ritual, and it’s the story of the sacrifice of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and the ascension of Christ. And, we participate in that story.

See, here’s the thing: [holds up the cup holding the blood of Christ] how are we going to get this through the Internet? [laughter from the congregation]. How are we going to get this through? It just won’t fit! I’m sure John may know of some people at IBM who are working on that, right? [laughter from the congregation]. [John shakes his head, ‘No.’]. No? Alright, good, we’re still safe. There’s that.

Here’s another thing: when I say “The peace of the Lord be always with you,” or “The peace of Christ be with you,” there’s the touch of hand on hand, there’s the embrace. That’s an important part of the story. We make that story or get it when we come together in tactile touch and faith in each other, then we are empowered as a community.

How’s that true? How many young people from this congregation have graduated and gone into Americares, and spent not one but maybe multiple years in Americares teaching? That’s victory! Where did they learn that kind of sacrifice, that kind of [indecipherable] to a short-sighted focus on the profit and material gain – “that’s what I want” – how many people graduate from our colleges with that thought only on their mind? But several people that have graduated from this congregation have given of themselves. And then there’s people who’ve themselves to the Peace Corps, and of course Morgan Kay to the outer reaches of Mongolia and the [indecipherable] people. They do that because victory has been achieved through our faith. Victory over the world that is so narrowly focused on ‘What can I get, what can I have, what can I hold?’

What else is there? See there’s a powerful step we’re making in that narrative theology – especially among us, we Anglicans who are [indecipherable]…. Where do we end up every Sunday? [Puts his hand on the table holding the Communion wafers and wine]. We do end up right here. And we take into our hands the body we call Christ, and we put to our lips the blood that we call Christ, and we consume the story. And we do that so that we can take our place and play our role in the continuing story. And thank God! – I can see that through the youth; I can see that through people at [indecipherable] who are not out on the street but can find housing because we’ve supported [indecipherable]; or people who wouldn’t be getting healthcare receiving healthcare at Open Door because we support them; or women who need to find relief and safety from battered – from spouses that batter them finding that in the women’s shelter that we support. We have victory through our faith: faith in Christ, faith in one another, and faith that we do in coming to this sacred place consume the body, consume the blood, and become Christ, and go out that door and continue the story.