"Showing Up"--October 14, 2019

"Showing Up"--October 14, 2019

"Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one." [1 Thessalonians 4:9-12]

You probably know the adage that "85% of life is just showing up."  Well, the math may be a wild guess, but it's on the right track.

So much of the daily lived-out practice of our faith is just in showing up.   It's not that we need a new directive or commandment, or a new bestselling book with newly-revealed life-principles or discipleship strategies.  Like the apostle could say twenty centuries ago, "You do not need to have anyone write to you concerning love of the brothers and sisters."  In other words, Paul didn't think he was writing anything new to his friends back at First Church of Thessalonica.  He was simply reminding them to keep showing up for each other. Day by day, situation by situation, in life-crises and routine rhythms alike.  That doesn't require a lot of new information, or in-depth Bible study.  It requires simply the recurring reminder that we are called to show up for each other... and then we do it.  We learn to show up for each other in the practice of showing up for each other, and by having others show up for us when we are the ones who need someone to accompany us.  To the naked eye it looks entirely ordinary, but we know that it is a wonder of God to be joined to a community that is bound together in love.

So, maybe the real question we need for this new morning is simply, "If we are called to show up for each other today, what might that look like today?"  That is, "How are we called to show up for each other on this particular day?"  And of course, that will take a thousand different forms, as each of us shows up for the particular neighbors in our lives.  While we are all connected to each other in this community called the Body of Christ, the people immediately closest to you are going to be somewhat different than the people in my circles today.  There may well be overlap, and we are all connected to Christ himself, but you will have different people to whom you are sent to "love one another" compared to the people in my world today.  So we all aren't all commanded to show up at one person's house today--all the billion or so Christians in the world, all at once--to help accompany someone when they have to go to a doctor's appointment, but we are all each called to show up in our respective world, to the faces whom God sends across your path today.

And on that point, I think Paul's direction to his friends in Thessalonica has something truly radical to say to us.  While the words "Love one another" may not sound new, notice there at the end of this passage, that Paul makes a connection between loving one another and doing meaningful labor.  We often reduce love to an emotion (basically just the feeling of "liking" someone), but Paul doesn't see love primarily in emotional terms, but rather in action and practice of doing good for the beloved to meet actual needs, or just to be with them.  So from Paul's vantage point, the call to "love one another" isn't simply a matter of "feeling nicely toward one another" but to show up for them, regardless of how you feel about them at the time.  So we are called to show up for people we don't know, people we are angry at, people we are just getting to know, and people who have been on the fringes of our lives as relative strangers for a long time, too.  And for Paul it includes being available to use our resources for their needs.  That's why Paul makes the connection to doing labor with our own hands--I need to be able to help the neighbor in need, not just in the sense of handing them my money (becuase each of us is called to find meaningful labor), but even just in the sense of being able to spend the time or money it would take to go help the neighbor in need.  As Paul sees it, the reason to have a job is not simply to make myself rich--it is what allows me to have the means to "show up" for those I am called to love.  I can't drive my friend to the airport if I don't have enough money to buy gas, and I can't help donate food for the local food bank if I don't have the resources to buy or make food in the first place.  I can't take the time to spend the day with someone who needs me to accompany them to a difficult doctor appointment or court appearance or whatever if I'm scrambling to cover my own needs.  So as Paul sees it, my ability to do meaningful work and make a living isn't primarily me-centered, but love-centered!  And as Paul sees it, once my basic needs are met (housing, clothing, food, etc.), the over-abundance we make is there to enable us to be available for the love of others. 

Think of how radical that is.  We talk in our culture about having "disposable time" or "disposable income," which suggests that after our essential needs are covered, I am free just to throw the rest of my time and money away.  But Paul doesn't see it that way.  Instead, my extra resources are available to be saved up for whatever the future need is--maybe mine, but also just as likely someone else's.  And that means a radical re-orientation toward seeing that "my" time and "my" money are really resources that allow me to be present--to "show up"--for the people God has sent me to love.  That will mean some days I have saved up time in the off-chance that someone else could use my help--sometimes they will, and sometimes the emptiness on my calendar will come and go without having given it away to someone else.  But I will only be able to show up for someone if I hold the time and space open for them.  Same thing with my money--Paul doesn't advise us to be constantly broke, but to have the resources not only to cover our own needs, but also to be available when someone else whom I love needs me to be able to spend them.  

It turns out that the call to love one another isn't new at all--but it does involve a constant re-examining of how I can be living my life making myself available for others.  The Scriptures call us always beyond a merely emotional understanding of love to see love in action, in practice, and in the setting of priorities.  I don't need a need a new lecture to tell me to feel a certain way--but maybe each of us needs the reminder of just how far down to the core of our selves and how completely that includes our work as well as our free time.  All of it is about love.... because all of life in God is about love.

Today, go and show up for someone today.

Lord Jesus, let your love take root in us all the way down.