Barneyisfat

Tonight at Pilgrims, we are having a fun night.  We've had so many challenges and setbacks this year, and we hope to end on a lighter note.  We will do a scavenger hunt and end with pizza.  It should be delightful.

The one catch is that the groups will be tied together for the scavenger hunt.  It should be delightful.

"My best friend growing up was my next door neighbor.  We did everything together.  Alex was two years older than me, and our older siblings were the oldest kids in the neighborhood, so they were in charge.  We always played wonderful group games together and had a great time.

One day, Alex and I began a conversation about our religious understandings.  Specifically, we began arguing about which of our families was more religious.  I had never seen Alex in church before, and because at this point in my life I assumed that there was only one church in the universe, I assumed that meant that Alex didn't go to church.

He explained that he went to the other big Protestant church down the road from the one I went to.  I explained that my mother was the organist at my church.  He explained that his mother was also an organist and played the organ at his church.  We continued discussing the involvement of each of our family members to try and decide which of us was from the more religious family.

It was an odd game for children to play, but it is an even odder game for adults to play.

History has recorded many wars fought throughout the centuries between different groups and factions within the church.  There has been much division.  This is the reason that Pilgrims is proudly inter-confessional.  We believe in Unity of the body.  We believe that we are better together than we are apart.

Certainly we have disagreements, and arguments, and occasionally we raise our voices.  It doesn't happen often, but sometimes it does.  We choose to live together in community and to figure these things out.  It would be easier to just all stay separated, but we choose to take the much harder path of being together.

Alex and I were opposites in every way.  He runs ultra-marathons today, just as an example of how different we are!  But, our families lived side by side and we were together through good times and bad times.

God has brought us together as a community, and whether we always agree or not, we understand that God has brought us together for a reason.  The Bible talks about friendship, and says that a cord of three strands is not easily broken.

Can I have two volunteers?

God calls us together.  We are here for each other.  When times are tough, we hold each other up.  I can't tell you how many times a phone call, message, or prayer from someone in this community has lifted me up and made me stronger.  God binds us together as one people, and we leave this place to face the world bound together as one people.

Amen.