Listen now to this sermon by Pastor Brooks on how community and relationships can keep us grounded in love.
Scripture Reading—Ephesians 3: 13-19
I was a college student who had a rough time adjusting. I missed my family, and I lacked for friends. On certain nights, I would lay on my dorm bed in the dark desperately trying to meditate my way to happiness. I read book after book by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn in the hope that I would achieve inner peace. Eventually, as a student, I came across a word in an article that apparently offered a diagnosis of what I was experiencing. It was an article that described college educated people as being deracinated. At first, I actually didn’t know what the word meant. It sounded rather unpleasant like something closely related to rancid meat. Since the word evidently applied to me as a college student, I thought I should look it up in a dictionary. I then learned that “deracinated” was a fancy and sophisticated way of describing someone who had been socially and culturally uprooted and unmoored. I soon caught the author’s meaning. The college years can often be a time when people leave their families and home communities as they become exposed to a whole new world of ideas and culture. After college, many then enter into the migratory world of job hunting. They go wherever they can find work, and they become even further removed from their roots.
I thought of all this as I read Rod Dreher’s book The Little Way of Ruthie Leming this past week. Dreher recounts how he gladly left the small town life of St. Francisville, Louisiana to attend a public boarding school at the age of 16 before going on to college and an eventual career as a professional journalist. Dreher had once been a popular kid in his community, but all of that changed shortly after he turned fourteen. He had gone on a trip to the beach with other local kids. In a hotel room one afternoon, Dreher found himself with some of the kids and two of the adult chaperones. The older boys in the group pinned him down on the floor and threatened to pull off his pants in front of a group of giggling girls. Dreher pleaded and thrashed about. He called to the chaperones for help. They were both mothers of his classmates. Instead of coming to his rescue, however, they simply stepped over him on their way out of the room. The kids eventually let Dreher go without pulling down his pants, but Dreher’s status among his peers was never the same. For his part, Dreher wanted to leave his hometown as soon as possible.
Small communities can be oppressive and suffocating sometimes, and it made sense that Dreher would want to uproot himself, to deracinate himself. Once this act is taken, however, the question then becomes whether you will continue to live a rootless life or whether you will eventually lay down roots elsewhere. You can backpack across Europe, you can go on a road trip with your band, you can live for the weekend party, but eventually, the drive for adventure can wear off. Or, maybe you encounter hard times and heartaches. You find yourself suddenly wanting security and comfort rather than thrills and kicks. You want to lay down roots, but where and how?
As he got older, Dreher came to appreciate the small town of his childhood more and more. It had something that his life lacked: that sense of close-knit connectedness, that sense of being held up and nurtured by a web of caring relationships, that sense of community belonging and support. One of the stories that Dreher tells about the power of community occurred during the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav. The little town of St. Francisville was particularly affected. Trees had fallen down all over town. The power went out for days. People had to travel to Mississippi to get food, ice, and gas. Yet, the community came together. People pitched in to help each other. They cleared away trees and shared what they had.
At night, the neighborhood would gather in the house in which Dreher grew up. Dreher’s parents had long made their home a meeting place for the community. For dinner, they lived by the ethic that there was always room for one more at the table. After the hurricane struck, people naturally congregated there. On hot nights, two generators ran and the fans blew. One neighbor recalls how all of them would sit in the dark without any TV. Yet, they still managed to have a good time. They told stories. They shared food and drink, and they simply enjoyed each other’s company. With all the distractions gone, the neighbor recalls coming to the recognition of what is truly important in life: the people. When it comes to what truly matters, he said, “It’s not what you have in life, it’s who you have.” Dreher’s sister Ruthie was almost sorry when the lights came back on. Everyone went back into their own homes and watched TV.
We might ask ourselves who would be in our dark room? Who is there for us when the storms of life hit? Who is there for us when we need to get back on our feet or simply need a good story and a laugh? When all the distractions are gone, these are the people who matter. These are the people who keep us grounded and rooted. These are the people who can help us to survive even a hot Louisiana night.
Dreher’s book is mainly about Ruthie who sadly dies at the age of 42. She was a central, beloved member of the St. Francisville community. One person observed that the attendance at her funeral rivaled that of a famous Marine general who served in World War II. Dreher records the memories that Ruthie’s family and friends have of her. Her best friend Abby recalls how Ruthie helped her through one of the storms in her life. Abby had just gone through a divorce, and she was angry with God. Why did others get to find love? Why did others get to have children? Why not her? Why wouldn’t God want her to be happy too? Abby and Ruthie talked about God a lot during those days. As Dreher recounts it, theology was not Ruthie’s “strong suit.” She was not one to read spiritual books. She never attended adult Sunday school classes. She had no interest in scholarly “inquiry into the ways” of God. Still, what she was able to provide her friend “was a sympathetic ear and simple faith: Ruthie believed God existed, and loved us, and wanted the best life for us, though not necessarily the easiest life.”
Without intellectual sophistication, Ruthie directed her friend back to what I think is the theological core of our faith: that God is love. Just as important, Ruthie embodied that love through the act of listening to her friend and caring for her friend. Ultimately, I believe this glimpse into the intimate life of two friends gives us a clue as to what helps us weather the storms of life. Our scripture speaks of being grounded and rooted in love. As one scholar notes, this ancient idea of love isn’t about personal attainment or a lonely spiritual quest. This love happens in community. It is through the body of Christ that we come to know the love of Christ.
I believe we become grounded and rooted in love through the relationships that comprise a community. We might not know the importance of those relationships until the power goes out and we find ourselves lighting candles in the dark, but then in that moment, even though the light is dim, our clarity is great. It is not that we need the darkness to be rooted. The darkness simply forces us to see what is hopefully already there. Our relationships have already been formed. For Dreher’s family, they formed when his parents made room at the table for whoever stopped by. They formed over the breaking of bread. They formed through simple acts of hospitality. Sounds a lot like church, doesn’t it?
If we at times feel rootless, the key might simply be to turn off the TV, put away the distractions, and spend time with others. Don’t wait for the storm to hit. Think about how you spend the real currency of life: the time that God has given to us. Think about who sits at your table or who might be invited to sit at your table. Think about those around you at this church. I like to not only think about the moments that we have shared. I also like to think about the moments we are about to share. In particular, I am thinking about the chili cook off and how we will all be gathered around the tables of Bradford Hall. We will be sharing food, stories, laughter. We will be forming and sustaining the bonds, the relationships, that make us a community, a place where we can be rooted in love. Amen.