Who We Are- Taylor Barner
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 12: 12-27
It is a joy to be here in worship with you all and I do bring my greetings from Jacob’s Porch at The Ohio State University. Jacob’s Porch is a collaborative and multi-denominational campus ministry serving all OSU students, faculty, and staff, rooted in the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, and Mennonite traditions. The Porch strives to create a space that is open and affirming of all people, all beliefs, races, identities, and creeds, who wish to deepen their understanding of God and spirituality. We are a registered UKirk organization with the PCUSA and it is my joy to connect and network with our PCUSA students at OSU and our congregations and presbyteries in and around Columbus. Thank you for the opportunity to worship with you all today and thank you for your commitment to the spiritual health of our students as one of our partner churches.
A frequent question that we get from our new students (and maybe a question some of you are wondering yourselves!) is how did you get the name Jacob’s Porch? Our passages from Genesis and 1 Corinthians today are two passages that lie at the core of who we are at Jacob’s Porch and partially where the name comes from. They are familiar passages to many of us, but to a lot of our students, both those who grew up in the church and those who are encountering Christianity for the first time, these passages are often heard for the first time within the first few weeks of the Fall semester. The Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with the stranger in the night makes up the obvious half of the name. Like Jacob, those who walk through the doors of the Church are often wrestling with faith in all its forms, with questions and doubts in abundance. Genesis reminds us that Jacob’s wrestling, Israel’s wrestling, did not stop at Peniel, but transcended time and space. Jacob’s striving became a nation’s striving, and a nation’s striving became the world's striving, trying to figure out who exactly it was Jacob encountered on the mountain. And the beautiful thing we learn from this wrestling and striving is that God delights in it; that even though we may walk away limping, with questions and doubts and unanswered questions, we do so blessed to walk and grow and learn more about the God we have encountered.
It is usually around this time students interject and say, “Oh I get it, and it is a porch because you have a porch with a fire pit.” Which is not necessarily wrong but there is a little more nuance to it than that. In our culture a porch is a temporary place. You donʼt dwell on the porch but in the house. It hangs on the edge of the house, neither fully inside nor outside. It is a place where people stop, talk, share, and move on. It is a place that faces out, not in. We are a place for people to gather for a while and then travel back into the normal of life. It is temporary but comfortable. Itʼs inviting yet asks people to go when the time is up. It is a place for easy conversation but also a place for asking the deeper questions of life and faith beyond the usual. And that is what the Church is too. We are a place where life happens, in a temporary place, where life plays itself out in all its confusion and reality as well as beauty. And then we are called to go, into our varies journeys and paths, seeking God in the time between our meeting.
That is what it means to be the body of Christ that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians. The Corinthian church Paul plants and writes to was a place of intense intersection; a gathering of people that came from wildly different walks of life and then returned to those lives when they finished meeting. There were Jewish Christian converts mingling with Greek Gentiles, slaves and poor worshipping alongside the rich and free. So many stories and lives collided in that space that it was seemingly impossible to establish any sort of cohesive, binding connection. They were too different, too opposite, too diverse. Who was welcome and who was not? And so Paul urges them to think about things differently. You are a body, with eyes and ears, hands and feet, heart, lungs, nose, hair, nosehairs, etc. All are needed, all are welcome. It was a radical thought but one the early Church had to embrace.
If you’ve been in Presbyterian circles long enough, and especially in North Carolina, you may be familiar with musician, author, and speaker David LaMotte. David often frequents the youth and college conferences, among others, at Montreat Conference Center in Black Mountain, NC. He has a unique way of starting his small groups each time he leads. It goes like this, “If you are a Christian, welcome. If you are an atheist, welcome. If neither of those words captures who you are, welcome. If you are male, welcome. If you are female, welcome. If neither of those words captures who you are, welcome and bless you. If you are straight, welcome. If you are gay, welcome. If neither of those words captures who you are, welcome and thank you for being here. If you have any doubts and questions, welcome. If you think you have it all figured out, welcome.”
What a world we would have if we welcomed others without first trying to determine if they are worthy of being part of the body of Christ; if we paused for a moment and recognized our shared desire to draw closer to God. There would be no distinguishing between the different parts of the body; no room for hand or foot to say to the other, “I have no need of you.” And greater still there would be recognition of the intrinsic value that every single person holds as part of the body of Christ. Some might be tempted to look around and say, “This member does not worship like me, believe like me, think like me, let alone look like me,” but the claim and call of Christ remains.
One of our most relevant rules at the porch is called “Not welcome, but embrace.” I say most relevant because it is increasingly common for those who gather in our space to come from a variety of faith traditions, political ideologies, and denominational affiliations. We are called to not just welcome these students who are different, but to embrace them fully and without pause. And the Church is no different. When we gather together, we each bring our separate gifts. We each bring different experiences. We each bring different thoughts and expressions of who God is. The desire is to make sure all present act, think, and worship the same way so that we obtain a sense of comfort and ease in our community. But this diminishes voices in our midst into a bland common denominator. To invite people doesnʼt mean they are welcomed if they think, act, believe exactly as we believe. This is welcoming only if they hold the central thing in common. To embrace means to love fully the person that enters no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel, how “right or wrong” they may be. We embrace those who join us on the walk we have undertaken in Christ. They may be at different places, they may think different things, and may even seem “unChristian”. But this is to deny that they are not on the path. If the walk of faith is at present imperfect, then we must honor where they are in their journey with humility, even if we heartily disagree and desire for their correction.
In the final installment of his Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis includes a character by the name of Emeth. Emeth is a Calormen soldier, an enemy of the protagonists, with brown skin and different religious upbringing. Emeth is bold, however, in his pursuit of truth and defies his corrupt leaders and is welcomed in the end by Aslan the Lion. Emeth is shocked, “How can you welcome me when I did not know you or seek you?” And Aslan replies, “You did not realize it, but you did.” Blessed are those who do not have all of the answers, yet boldly look ahead to the coming of truth. Blessed are those who do not feel like they have a place to call home, for they will be welcomed in love. Blessed be the body of Christ, from hands outstretched to feet running to welcome the prodigal home, with all its different members, gifts, baggage, trauma, opinions, perspectives, and connections, for we have the opportunity to witness the kingdom of Heaven in our daily living. And blessed be the God who models this for us first. Friends may it be so in your lives and in mine. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
