More Us
Yay, I love Caitlin being down here. Good morning, everybody. My name is Marta and I'm the Youth Pastor here at the table. Welcome, truly, everybody, whether it is your first time here or if this is your intentional last visit to church before you head out the door and leave it behind. And anybody in between, we're truly glad to have you here this morning.
I wanna give a special shout out to all the kids who are in the sanctuary. Can I get a whoop whoop? That's right. This week, we have everybody here, kind of like a big old family huddle meeting, because, like Sara said, it is our volunteer appreciation Sunday, and we can't very well appreciate half of our volunteers if they're upstairs volunteering. So, we've got an extra special day with everyone together, parents and caregivers. I want you to look me in the eyes right now, okay? It's okay if your kids are squirmy and loud today, okay? We know what we're dealing with. There are books, there are worksheets, there are fidgets, all kinds of things, not just for kids that anybody can grab and play with.
I also, kids, are you still listening? Can I get a whoop whoop? That's right. I've got a couple different parts of this sermon that I need your help with. So, I'm gonna call on you partway through to help me hold some things up. Also, at the very end, I have a fun story for all of us. So, I have you in mind, and I'm gonna need your help. And I need fresh batteries in your listening ears. That's what my nanny girl says, she's three, and she goes, "I'm not listening "'cause my listening ears run out of batteries." (Congregation Laughing) So, we're gonna put fresh batteries in.
Our scripture passage today comes from Galatians 6:1-10. This is at the tail end of what was originally a letter Paul wrote to, you guessed it, the Galatians. He wrote this letter originally because there were a lot of disagreements going on in the community, especially about who knew the actual truth about the gospel, if you wanna put a YouTube clickbait title on it. There were other teachers in the community that were telling people, at this point, the Christian community was about half Jewish and half not Jewish, Gentiles. And they were saying, if you wanna be part of Christ's church, you have to become fully Jewish. So, you gotta participate in the customs, you gotta eat the food, you gotta whoosh [makes a chopping motion below the belt]. You know what I mean? Whole shebang. And Paul was like, "Whoa, hold your horses here. "That is not what we're talking about."
So, that's what this letter is, and I'm gonna read it to you from the Common English Bible translation, which says:
"Brothers and sisters and siblings, "if a person is caught doing something wrong, "you who are spiritual should restore someone like this "with the spirit of gentleness. "Watch out for yourselves so that yourselves "won't be tempted to. "Carry each other's burdens "so that you will fulfill the law of Christ. "If anyone thinks that they are important when they aren't, "they're fooling themselves. "Each person should test their own work "and be happy with doing a good job "and not compare themselves with others. "Each person will carry their own load. "Those who are taught the word "should share all good things with their teacher. "Make no mistake, God is not mocked. "A person will harvest what they plant. "And those who plant only for their own benefit "will harvest devastation from their selfishness, "but those who plant for the benefit of the spirit "will harvest eternal life from the spirit. "Let's not then get tired of doing good "because in time we'll have a harvest if we don't give up. "So then let's work for the good of all "whenever we have an opportunity, "especially for those in the household of faith."
So this scripture was our Bible study passage for our final middle school Bible study of the year, a few weeks ago. Middle schoolers, raise your hands. There they are. Hi, Greyson, and I see you, you can't hide.
This year we broke down our benediction into nine lessons throughout the year and we went through our benediction line by line and found a scripture passage that connected to it. In every Bible study we would have our passage read out loud by two different readers and then we'd split into pairs. So in our pairs we talk about what we noticed, maybe something we liked and highlighted or something we had questions about. And then when we came back to the larger group, you had to share what your partner said rather than sharing your own ideas. And this practice was certainly unnatural, not only for junior high students, but probably for most of us in this room, I'm sure.
So here's some of the things that they called out in our passage today. They noticed, don't just focus on your own work, look to see how you can help others, push through difficult times and persevere. If you doubt yourself, keep going, but in the same way, don't let your pride try to trick you.
One thing that came up with everything that everybody said and the theme we followed that night was the last line of our benediction, which says, "And beloved you belong." We saw this theme that there is no limit to those who deserve goodness and gentleness. When it says, "Let us work for the good of all whenever we have opportunity," that line breaks down the us versus them and creates an even bigger table for all to belong as beloved children of God.
All right, kids, this is the first part that I need your help. So if you would like to, any kid in the sanctuary, I need help holding up all of these posters. So come on up. Miss Caitlin will help you. There's a lot of them too. So these, if you've seen me on a Sunday with my arms full, you've probably seen me hauling these posters up and down the stairs. We, the theme of our year, especially for the first through fifth graders, was God's big story.
We started in Genesis and worked all the way to Revelation and we went through as many Bible studies, or Bible stories as we could, in order to learn what God is up to in the stories of Scripture. We learned about creation, the Promised Land, we've got kings and prophets, the parables and miracles of Jesus. We learned about Paul and a lot more in between, all the while asking, what's the bigger story that God's telling? And over and over, with various bottom lines, we came to the answer saying that God is moving towards people. And every single week, whether we realized it or not, we were practicing what Galatians six says, of learning what it means to make people more us and less them. Because the Bible is not, how do we become better than other people? But rather it's how does God keep making a family out of people who thought that they were outcasts? It's radical expansion, welcome, and good for all people. Thanks friends, you can set them down. We're gonna give it up for our kids.
If the main theme in Scripture is make God making family out of outcasts, then the refrain that would show up over and over in that song is, let's not grow tired.
Because I don't know if you realize this, both in Scripture and in our own contemporary experience of the world, the admonition of not growing weary is realistic and not sentimental. All throughout this timeline, people found it easier to get caught up in their own harvest, resulting in what Scripture said today, devastation from their own selfishness. Choosing actions that exclude, harm, or ignore.
This specific conversation in Galatians, like we said, is an in-house conversation Paul is having with the early church. Christianity began with the Jewish tradition, but the church was struggling with whether or not God's welcome was for truly everybody, or only for people who were willing to follow every old boundary marker first. And Paul knows exactly where they're coming from because he used to be one of those people arguing for those boundaries himself. But his message to the community that was split at the seams, arguing about who was right and who was wrong, he emphasizes gentleness towards the other. To check yourself and your own actions and not get carried up in pride or judgment so that you have the space to gently restore someone else.
Remember, this was originally a letter, so it wasn't broken into chapters and verses.
And the paragraph before this passage that we read today is what we know as the fruits of the spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And I find it interesting that of all these fruits of the spirit, Paul turns and leans on gentleness when it comes to a practice of good for all people. This wildly split and hurt community could have been told to rigidly practice justice and focus on doing the correct thing, really do like a course correct action, but rather Paul ends this letter with gentleness and goodness. He writes that when someone is cast out, even if as a result of their own actions, we are to carry each other's burdens. He uses the Greek word, and I did not do very well in Greek class, so let me get my, katartizo (καταρτίζω), which means restore. But it can also mean repair, mend, complete, almost like when you break a bone and you repair it and you mend it and you restore it back into place.
Gentleness is not pretending that harm didn't matter. Gentleness is refusing to let division and exclusion have the final say. God's big story, both in our scripture passage today and all throughout is radical acts of loving restoration, even the one the world would tell you to give up. It's practicing the ways of Micah 6, verse eight, a verse that we lean on here often, to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in doing good to all people.
So it's, to this he encourages the church and then our church today to not get tired of doing the work of katartizo (καταρτίζω), both in house and in our communities. He says to work for the good of all whenever we have an opportunity, and then he follows it by, especially by those in the household of faith.
That's what we do here week in and week out. Our mission statement is the table is a community that practices the ways of Jesus, making space for all to belong and be loved. These aren't just cute words on our website, it's a call to keep going. Even when it'd be easier to close ourselves off, grow cynical, or give up.
Two weeks ago, the third through fifth graders, can I get a raise a hand to third through fifth graders in the class this past year?
We had our last class of the year together, the school year, and our lesson was on heaven. We threw a little mini party to celebrate and I gave everybody their own little pack of fun dip. Jae, I saw Jae earlier, Jae’s over there. We were trying to make an analogy of how I could justify giving fun dip, and we landed on heaven is like fun dip, we don't really know what's in it, but we know it's really good.
And so, it's with that in mind, I wanna share an analogy that a mentor shared with me in when I was in college about heaven, because I'm still imagining and re-imagining what I think, but I do hold on to this story.
He imagined heaven being like a giant stadium filled with people who had gone before us, eagerly waiting as new people arrived one by one. And as each person stepped on stage, a spotlight would shine on all the people that helped guide them there. Some spotlights were appearing constantly, the big biblical figures, saints, famous pastors and authors, the people that you'd expect. My mentor, John, imagined someone stepping on that stage who he'd never met before, and suddenly the spotlight shone on him.
And he said, "I don't know that person." And then he imagined being handed a transcript of this person's story, of how they arrived there. And it said things like, "You greeted them at the door kindly when they decided to try church again after years away." “You sat beside them on their first day in the pre-K and kindergarten classroom when they were nervous about being away from their family.” “You donated to a GoFundMe campaign that helped encourage their family and survive a season of sickness and distress.” All of those things deepened that person's faith and knowledge that they were a beloved child of God, even if you didn't realize it at the time.
So I don't know a lot about heaven what's in the fundip of all of it. And I don't know how much that story actually holds up to theology and doctrine and scripture. But I keep this story in my toolbox of faith because it reminds me that doing little things with great love will make a difference in ways I may never know. Because these acts of gentle restoration don't have to be big. Paul used the metaphor of a harvest.
Now despite coming from a long line of farmers in my history, I have the worst green thumb. I've gotten rid of all the house plants in my house. I have killed them all. But I know that I'm terrible at it because I am not good at the daily work of tending to plants. I've tried growing a backyard garden. I've let it, I've given up. Because I know it just takes a little bit of water every day. It just takes a couple minutes. I did start, I'm going off script. I did plant a little flower garden for myself with wildflower seeds. And I took a break from finishing this last night to go water it. And there were weeds all over. And I'm like, ah, it's the little work of gardening to it. So you had to get on your knees and pull the little weeds out just a little bit every day. And it's these small actions that are gonna make your backyard garden bed produce a harvest.
Whatever these things are in your life, small actions of doing good are all ways of not growing weary or giving up. And seeing a harvest come to fruition in ways of flourishing and nourishment, perhaps unimaginable, if only we put in the perseverance of gently tending to it.
All right, kids, you still with me? You've been patient and excellent listeners. And I want to finish with a story just for you. A few of you grownups may have seen this book pop up on your social media feed this week. It's by the author Mo Willems. He read it out loud at a commencement speech at Colby College. The book is called "Me and Other Bunnies," it's published in 2025 by Union Square Kids. We're too big of a congregation for me to have you all huddle up in circle story time. So I'm gonna need your help in telling it. I'll read you a page and then I want all of you, as the Christmas story says, or like the song says, kids from one to 92, I want all of you big kids and small kids to repeat it back to me and we'll tell the story together.
So this is Me and Other Bunnies.
I am me. I am me.You are you. You are you. We are us. We are us. They are them. They are them.
Now we are us. Now we are us. Look more them. Look more them.
Whoa, more us. Whoa, more us. Haba what? Haba what? Even more of them. Even more of them. Waba ha. Waba ha. Even more us. Even more us.
Oh me. Oh me. Oh my. Oh my. We are a lot of bunnies. We are a lot of bunnies.
And I am still me. And I am still me.
Friends, we are a lot of bunnies. And the mission of The Table is to keep expanding and pulling up chairs for all to belong and be loved. And the work of making and expanding us only happens when you are still you. When you lean into your gifts and callings big and small.
I'm gonna do something now that might make a few of you dear Minnesota nice people feel uncomfortable. But I want to show you something. I wanna show you all the ways you and your neighbors work to make more us and less them. Whether these are things that were no big deal to you or things that took wild faith and intentionality for you to step up and say yes to. I want you to hear it from me that it is seen.
That it is appreciated and all of these gentle yeses is already blooming, incredibly delightful fruit. And it's nurturing deep roots in deep soil that we may never see all of us that'll have effects for years to come. So if I call something out that you helped and volunteered with, will you please stand and remain standing? And many of you are gonna fall into different categories here and so if you're already standing, I'd love it if you'd raise your hand.
If you helped care for kids this year, if you helped in the nursery in pre-K kindergarten, first and second, third through fifth, middle school classrooms, will you please stand?
If you were part of all the things big and small on a Sunday morning service, if you helped lead worship, if you ran sound or tech, if you greeted people at the door, if you served communion, you made coffee or you brought donuts, will you please stand?
If you helped make this space look like what it is today, if you came early to set up, if you stayed late to clean up and take out the trash, if you decorated for Christmas and Easter, helped with the community cleanup or cared for this building and ways seen and unseen, will you please stand up or raise your hand?
If you helped with our community events, if you brought food to a community meal, if you made a meal or sent a gift card when people needed a meal train, you hosted an event in your home, helped plan men at the table, women at the table, QTs, were on a team like the Stewardship Committee, the prayer team, the safety team, the board, will you please stand?
If you helped us serve our neighborhood community by buying and bagging and delivering groceries during Metro Surge, if you brought a backpack at back to school or Christmas gifts to Park Place, if you brought non-perishable goods for the food shelf, marched in the Palm Sunday action, volunteered at the Pride booth, will you please stand or raise your hand? And finally, if you were brave enough to wake up on Sunday morning today and say, you know what, I wanna try being part of an intentional community today, will you please stand?
Friends, this right here is the household of faith. This is doing good for all people. This is the Cattartizo restoration tending little by little to the harvest. You may have a seat.
I'm gonna close in prayer, and then we're gonna show you a slideshow with pictures of all the kind and gentle acts of restoration and welcome that you participated in this year, because this is a celebration Sunday. You continue to practice good even when temptation to grow weary weighs heavy. And behalf of everyone on the table team, we are so grateful to do this work with you.
Let us pray: Creating, redeeming, and sustaining God, planting us the kind of love that keeps growing. Give us gentleness when the world teaches harshness. Give us courage when doing good feels difficult. Give us eyes to notice who needs more carrying. Give us bravery to ask when we need to be held. In a world that shows us more of them, help us to keep expanding the table to make even more us. Amen.