Koinonia Community & Us

Koinonia is a Christian farm community founded in 1942 by Clarence & Florence Jordan and Martin & Mabel England. Home of the Cotton Patch Gospel, birthplace of Habitat for Humanity and other ministries. Still growing pecans and peanuts, welcoming visitors, and living the "demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God." (from their website)

I preached using Clarence Jordan and his life a few weeks ago and was very impressed with his understanding that we need to work on racial reconciliation and to help those in need. You can read more about him here.

Every day the Koinonia bell rings at 10:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m

At 10:30, 3:30 and 8:30 each day you will hear the sound of a bell ringing at Koinonia. You will see each of us stop what we are doing to pray, meditate, reflect. We go into the silence to rest for a moment. We come out renewed. This time reminds us why we are here, helps us to think about the meaning of Koinonia and to reflect on the meaning of being a demonstration plot for the kingdom of God.

Whether here at Koinonia, around the corner, or on the other side of the earth, we ask that you join us in these important moments each day. They not only allow us to focus and seek blessing, but they can be a means of bringing us together. They remind us that we are all God's children and though we may have different responsibilities, it is together that we can bring about the Kingdom of God. (from their website)

On Twitter, I tweet a portion of prayers from the BCP on the Human Family & Social Justice that I think fit nicely with what Clarence Jordan and Koinonia have to teach us today:

(8:30) - Grant O God, that your holy & life-giving Spirit may move every human heart that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice & peace

(3:30) - O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us in Jesus: break down the walls that separate us, unite us in bonds of love

(10:30) - O God you made us in your image & redeemed us in Jesus. Look with compassion on us take away the arrogance & hatred which infect our hearts

Join us on Twitter or wherever you may be for prayer at 10:30 AM & 3:30 & 8:30 PM!
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Sermon: September 16

Gracious Lord, bless us this morning with a gift, a word, an insight. Don't allow us to be bored or to go through the motions! Take us deeper into the substance of your love and glory! In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.

Well it seems after last Sunday, I get 1 more year…(The weather last Sunday was spectacular!) Last week, I asked you in the sermon, “What's in a name?” The Book of Proverbs tells us: “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.”

This week in the Gospel, Jesus asked the disciples "Who do people say that I am?" or put it another way, what is the name they are giving me? (Elijah, John the Baptist, one of the prophets) And then he asks them but “who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." No longer is he just Jesus, but Peter names him the Messiah, the one they follow is the promised one of God. But Jesus tells them to stay quiet, not to tell anyone, for following the Messiah is much more difficult than you think…

A British World War II veteran remembers his internment in a Japanese prison camp:

During the war, a group of His Majesty's soldiers were captured by the Japanese at the notorious River Kwai. During their imprisonment, the British captives were, at first, very observant of their religion, praying together, singing hymns, reading daily from the Bible. They were hoping and expecting that God would reward their faithfulness or at least mitigate their captivity. God didn't deliver, however, and the men became both disillusioned and angry. They gave up any outward display of their faith.

But after a while, as they began to tend to the needs of one another - caring for the sick and injured, protecting the weaker ones and, in some cases, dying for one another - they began to discern something of the Spirit of God in their midst. They discovered that religion was not just what one believed but what that belief led one to do for others, especially when it seemed that there was nothing that could be done. Compassion gave them their inner strength - and their inner strength gave them compassion. [Ernest Gordon, longtime dean of the chapel at Princeton University, cited in "Storm Center" by Peter J. Gomes, The Christian Century, May 31, 2003.]

Jesus reminds all of his disciples that faith is not just a matter of creed and ritual, but in "denying ourselves" and taking up his life and his service, by bearing our cross, do we experience the true depth of our faith.

The British prisoners came to understand the faith not as outward displays of what they understood as faith but how they acted out of love toward others.

For Jesus asks Peter at the end of John’s gospel, after all that had happened: Do you Love me? This question coupled with today’s question help us understand what taking up his cross means, for it is more than simply wearing a cross, more than just our prayers, it is how our lives respond to Jesus looking at you and asking Who do you say I am? Do you Love me? For only in embracing these questions and answering for ourselves, living the Messiah’s love, compassion and humility in our lives do we enable the Spirit of God to renew and transform our world through us…

Who do you say I am? Do you Love me? Amen.

Sermon notes: Apple Festival (Sept. 9)

These are my sermon notes from my Apple Festival sermon:

What's in a name?

Jean Valjean - protagonist in Victor Hugo "Les Miserables" – (musical) Who am I?

• Another caught in his name by Javert
• “If I speak, I am condemned, if I stay silent, I am damned.”

John Proctor - film version of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

• refuses to sign his name to a confession
• even if he will die because "its my name" (and the name of his sons!)

What's in a name? The Book of Proverbs tells us:

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and favor is better than silver or gold.
The rich and the poor have this in common:
the LORD is the maker of them all.

Names are so important, God changes it - Abram & Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, Simon Peter becomes just Peter, Saul becomes Paul...

Names help define us… (Jesus comes from the Latin and from Greek is Hebrew name Yeshua would mean “God is saving”)

So in today's Gospel, an unnamed woman approaches Jesus. We know he is in a gentile city, Tyre on the coast of the Mediterranean. We know that the Jews of Jesus time were among the lower classes in that region. The Syrophonecian woman entreats Jesus to heal her daughter. What parent wouldn’t seek healing for their own child? And yet there is a tension in her asking Jesus…

Jesus said, “"Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

Is this the Jesus we follow? He calls the woman and her daughter “dogs!”

But it is this unnamed woman, this gentile, someone outside of salvation, who dares to entreat Jesus to help her daughter, who offers the retort… “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.”

She takes the name of the outsider, she takes the name dog and owns it in a way that helps Jesus see the faithful stranger. “ Good answer! ” he said. “ Go on home. The demon has already left your daughter. ” (using the CEB translation) Her answer & her faith define her!

What's in a name? Everything but it is up to us to own it and be faithful in the best and worst of times.

“Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of…[for] the way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear.” ~ Socrates

Amen.

A Prayer on this 9/11 anniversary

O Almighty God, who brings good out of evil and turns even the wrath of your children towards your promised peace: Hear our prayers this day as we remember those of many nations and differing faiths whose lives were cut short by the fierce flames of anger and hatred. Hasten the time when the menace of war shall be removed. Cleanse both us and those perceived to be our enemies of all hatred and distrust. Pour out the spirit of peace on all the rulers of our world that we may be brought through strife to the lasting peace of the kingdom of your Son; Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (found on the Diocese of Southern Ohio's Facebook page)

Song of Songs - Three Readings

From the sermon...

Song of Solomon 2:8-13
King James Version (KJV)

Voice 1

8 The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

9 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

10 My beloved spake, and said unto me,

Voice 2

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

13 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Common English Bible (CEB)

Voice 1

8 Listen! It’s my lover: here he comes now, leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

9 My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands now,
outside our wall,
peering through the windows,
peeking through the lattices.

10 My lover spoke and said to me,

Voice 2

“Rise up, my dearest,
my fairest, and go.

11 Here, the winter is past;
the rains have come and gone.

12 Blossoms have appeared in the land;
the season of singing has arrived,
and the sound of the turtledove is heard in our land.

13 The green fruit is on the fig tree,
and the grapevines in bloom are fragrant.
Rise up, my dearest,
my fairest, and go.

Poem 9 (Song of Songs 2:8-13)
Marcia Falk

Voice 1

The sound of my lover
coming from the hills
quickly, like a deer
upon the mountains

Now at my windows,
walking by the walls,
here at the lattices
he calls—

Voice 2

Come with me,
my love,
come away

For the long wet months are past,
the rains have fed the earth
and left it bright with blossoms

Birds wing in the low sky,
dove and songbird singing
in the open air above

Earth nourishing tree and vine,
green fig and tender grape,
green and tender fragrance

Come with me,
my love,
come away

Sermon September 5 - Song of Songs

Jesus said, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come…” It’s what comes from our hearts… That is what Jesus is interested in and what he hopes he hears from our hearts (and our lives) that is love, compassion, thankfulness, joy.

But the greatest of these is love…

Our first reading today was from The Song of Songs (or the Song of Solomon). When was the last time you heard scripture from this book of the Bible? A wedding maybe? It is a book of the bible that is filled with love poetry. It is found in the Bible after the books of Psalms and Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, a short book of 8 chapters, filled with love. Poetry that the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda would have loved to have written…

“To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.” ― Pablo Neruda

That is true of the poetry of the Song of Songs. Let’s listen again to the words: [First Reading - KJV]

What do you hear? (Beloved, love) The Hebrew makes it clear (which is sometimes obscured in English) that the text is between a man and a woman. In their most basic form they are poems between two lovers: a man and a woman, unnamed and in a few places in the text a chorus of voices joins in.

But as we consider this one poem, we begin to see a mutuality between the lovers. There is no dominance, there is no one sidedness, it is two people who long for the other, with their own voices. Spring has come, winter has ended, what has held them a part is no longer there and they can reunite.

Many have looked at all these poems and have gotten a sense that these poems are also directed at us, that it is God who is pursuing us and we are the other lover (for Christians this spiritual allegory was understood between the bridegroom and his bride, between Christ and his Church)…

Listen again: [Second Reading – CEB]

From Genesis to the Song of Songs, we have love played out in mutual affection, not as an arranged marriage or love, nor focused solely on the procreation of children. Here love is presented in its most natural between two of God’s creatures. Just as Jesus does in the Gospels, love is presented as part of the beauty of God’s creation, intended for God’s creation not for one greater than another, but a mutuality & covenanted relationship between man and woman. Such love is not for sale like we see around us today where everything seems to be a commodity we need to buy. No this is rooted in each of us from creation.

Love is a gift from God intended to bring creation together.

I think of this prayer often said at marriages: Make their life together a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.

Love is a sign from God. For love unties, forgives and is full of joy, even in the midst of estrangement, guilt and despair. Love is present because God is. And that is what the Song of Songs gives to us today.

Listen again for what God is saying to us: [Final Reading – Falk]

And that is our song too. Amen.


(The 3 different readings int he sermon are also posted on the blog...)

Labor Day Prayer

Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (from the BCP)

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