Saturday, November 19, 2022
Community, Love & Jesus
The Rev. Rob Stevens
Whenever I am in a group of people and the weather is less than ideal, inevitably someone will look at me and say, “Rob, can’t you do something about this weather?” My response is always the same, “I’m in sales, not management.” Groan… It is perhaps one of the oldest jokes in the trade. But it is true. This summer I was in this situation again, but after the joke was launched my friend looked at me and said, “What do you sell?” What a GREAT question. I thought about it and said, “Community, Love and Jesus.”
I believe that is my tagline… at SJC we are about Community, Love and Jesus! Taglines are helpful, but only when they are fleshed out and lived into. First things first, what do I mean by sales? I do not mean a slick, coercive pitch that fools someone into believing this or buying that. When I say that I am in sales it is referring to a deep passion about a relationship with God and the world that I long to share with everyone. Sales, for me, is simply sharing our passion with others in the hope that they will share this passion as well. It is a simple concept perhaps, but it is not always an easy practice.
Community, Love and Jesus…how do we share these passions?
1. Community—One of the greatest benefits of SJC is that it is a collection of people that crosses many barriers that other groups of people struggle to overcome. Barriers such as age, education, socioeconomics, political affiliation, sexual orientation and race are all crossed at SJC. It is a rare thing and I believe a very important and deeply good thing. SJC is one of the few places that I encounter a cross section of our wider community. We are not segregated in the normal way our society tends to segregate. Yes, we are all looking for something in regards to faith, but I have learned that the breadth of that discussion is wide indeed. One of my favorite ideas about a community of faith and one that I state and hold is that, “You may belong to SJC before you believe.” Belief is not a pre-requisite to belonging…we are all welcome to the journey of believing and all our starting lines are different.
2. Love—a big word that I will fail to define in a paragraph. However, the definition that has the most meaning for me is, “Love is when the relationship matters more than being right!” How do we as a community that “sells” love move through the world? One thing that I see is that our connectedness matters more than our positions on issues. I have witnessed connectedness triumph over a heated argument of politics and both sides have learned and realized the importance of the seeing the other point of view. Love is always an act of giving…always. Sometimes the giving takes the form of giving an opportunity to someone else to give to you!
3. Jesus—no doctrine or dogma, simply a life well lived. How did Jesus live? How do we imitate that life daily? I suggest that if you read the stories of Jesus’ life you’ll find that community and love were primary to his life and ministry.
The question that this tagline asks of me and I share with you is, “How will SJC, this corner of the kingdom of God, be about sharing our passion of Community, Love and Jesus?” I look forward to seeing how this happens in our present and near future and please share with me your ideas of how we can more fully live into this mission!