Holy Currencies: Relationship
John 15:9-17
October 2, 2022
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/l4oy7Kv18oA
I met a remarkable woman this summer. It was when I was at that training in Kansas City. Elizabeth is a Disciples of Christ pastor and a graduate of Central Seminary where we were meeting. She was also the person who coordinated a whole lot of logistics for the training. She organized rides to and from the airport for everyone who flew to Kansas City. She provided welcome packets that had essential snacks as well as detergent pods so we could do laundry. She set up daily transportation between the hotel where we stayed and the seminary where we met. She personally prepared every lunch and dinner for all twenty of us and kept the snack table full of choices. She had a treasure chest with special rewards just for the people who helped with set-up and clean-up each meal. If it sounds like she was crucial to the success of the week, she was.
One of Elizabeth’s many gifts is hospitality. In addition to anticipating our needs, she provided some fun that I didn’t even know I needed. Every day, she brought a dessert that was based on the national food day calendar. So we had ice cream sandwiches on National Ice Cream Sandwich Day and root beer floats on National Root Beer Float Day and watermelon and chocolate chip cookies on their assigned days. National Rice Pudding Day occurred during our time, but Elizabeth is apparently strongly opposed to rice pudding, so she informed us that we were disregarding that one.
A different volunteer led our morning devotional every day. On one of our last days, none of the participants had signed up, so Elizabeth stepped in. I have her permission to share the story that she told.
Elizabeth has a name for the years 2011-2017. She calls them her Six Year Season of Suck. Many, many bad events combined to give that season its name. Elizabeth spared us the full list. Here’s just the top five:
1. Her husband left her, making her a single mom to a son and a daughter.
2. The bank foreclosed on her house.
3. Her mother died.
4. She lost her job as a church secretary. The church leadership told her “We’re cutting your job because we want to pay the men more. They have families to support.”
5. Her father died.
Elizabeth was about in the middle of that Six-year Season of Suck when something happened that she later saw as the beginning of the upswing, the beginning of the climb out of despair. Her kids were with their father for several weeks at the beginning of the summer, leaving her more alone even than usual. At breakfast one day, she found herself reading an article that captured her imagination. The article was about rats.
You may have heard of these experiments. The rats were put in two different environments. In one environment, they were alone, separated from other rats. In the other environment, they could go out and interact with others. In both environments, there were two water bottles. One held plain water. The other had water to which heroin had been added. The finding was that the rats who could go out and socialize with other rats chose the plain water almost all the time. The rats which were isolated chose the drugged water almost all the time. And a large number of those rats just kept choosing the drugged water until they overdosed and died. That article moved Elizabeth to action.
She looked at her resources. After all her bills were paid and all her groceries purchased, she realized that she had a whopping $11 left for the month. $11 was enough. She started calling everyone she could think of. She invited her friends them to meet her in her driveway in a few hours. She went to the store and made her purchases.
That evening, she set up a lawn chair in her driveway and waited. Nearby she had set up her grocery store purchases – marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers and firewood.
She waited . . . and one friend showed up. That one friend who you can always count on. So, they each had a s’more and enjoyed each other’s company.
The next night, that friend came back and one more person came. So, two of them hung out. And the next night, the friend rounded up more friends who came to hang out and make s’mores and enjoy the evening. Pretty soon, the S’more Club was born. They started making gourmet S’mores on Tuesdays and added a potluck on Saturday nights. It rained one night and the three folks who came moved indoors and had ice cream instead.
Her daughter’s friend lived across the street. I’ll call her Kelly. Kelly was allowed to go exactly two places on her own. One was school. The other was Elizabeth’s house. Kelly’s parents are immigrants. They don’t speak much English. They didn’t come to S’more club, but Kelly did. Then one day, Kelly’s Dad met Elizabeth on the sidewalk. He was carrying a bundle of firewood that he had obviously put together and tied up with his own scrap of fabric. He handed it to Elizabeth and said just three words “For you. Appreciate”. Elizabeth said she wasn’t sure if he meant he appreciated that his daughter got to go to S’more Club or if he thought Elizabeth would appreciate the firewood, but it didn’t really matter.
Elizabeth hosted S’more club for 71 nights in a row that year. As many as 53 people showed up in her driveway and spilled into her yard. People she knew and people she didn’t. Nearby neighbors and people from all over her metro area. Friends of friends and family members of those friends. Adults talking. Children running around. Sparklers on the 4th of July. Other outdoor games at other times. There was no sermon, no hymn singing, no set liturgy of any kind, but one night, one of the adults sitting near Elizabeth, paused, looked around and said, “This feels like church.”
It was not the end of Elizabeth’s 6 years of dealing with hard stuff. But then the S’more Club friends were there to offer support when her father died. And she was there as a listening ear for someone else going through a divorce. And everyone celebrated when people enjoyed their first-ever s’more or you know, some other equally important life event. She called together a community because she realized its power for healing, for herself and others.
Elizabeth shared this story in the morning devotional time that day in Kansas City and then she announced that that very day was National S’more’s Day. So, of course, our afternoon snack was s’mores.
This month we are exploring what the Episcopal priest Eric Law calls Holy Currencies. The word currency comes from a Latin word related to current, like the movement within a river. It means to run or to flow. Currency in our time most often refers to money, but Law uses it to identify other things which circulate with power.
We begin with the currency of relationship. In this community, our first relationship is with Jesus. Jesus who re-named his followers, his students, as friends and commanded us, above all else, to love. Individuals come together in this community because we have a relationship with Jesus or because we are seeking one. Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. The relationships that we develop with others are all embedded in that primary relationship with Jesus who taught us to live, to dwell deeply within his love, so much so that it flows out and around us, even in the way we relate to our enemies.
Law refers to the theory of three degrees of influence which holds that how we act, and what we say ripples through our network.[1] It has an impact on our friends (that’s one degree) and on our friends’ friends (that’s two degrees) and even on our friends’ friends’ friends. (three degrees)
“We shape our network. But our network also shapes us as actions, words and attitudes flow back over us. Our friends affect us. Our friends’ friends’ friends affect us, and we them. The network has a life of its own. A network is formed and shaped in relationships. It matters who we choose to affiliate with. It matters how we reach out. It matters where we invest ourselves, our time, our money. It matters what kind of energy we bring. It matters where we focus. It matters who crosses our path and invites us into conversation or deeper relationship.”[2]
I’m wearing this beautiful and unusual jacket today in celebration of World Communion Sunday. It first belonged to a woman I’ve never met. It was given to me by her daughter. The original owner was married to a pastor. She purchased this jacket on a trip across the world. The trip was a gift from a church where her husband served as pastor.
The woman was Lois Klingbeil. Her daughter is of course Barb Lahut. I never got to know Lois, but many of you did. And the mention of her name has reminded you of her personality, her gifts, her influence on your life – the relationship that you shared. Some of you, like me, didn’t know Lois, but you know Barb. You know her personality, her gifts, her influence on your life and you know that some of who Barb is was undoubtedly shaped by her mother. Some of you are new here. You don’t know Barb yet, but you will if you stick around long enough.
Human beings are created for relationship, with God and with each other. We are called, even commanded, to be a network of love. We are called, even commanded, to follow Jesus on the path of vulnerability, to generous and joyful hospitality that notices and welcomes, that listens deeply, and shares boldly. Relationships are a currency which has power to sustain, to heal, to transform lives. And not just our own, but the lives of people in this neighborhood and the neighborhoods in which we live and in fact, people we haven’t met yet or may never meet. For our healing and for theirs. That our joy may be full. Amen.
[1] Eric H.F. Law, Holy Currencies: Six Blessings for Sustainable Missional Ministries (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2013) p.18.
[2] I am indebted to the Rev. Lynn Carman Bodden, who introduced me to the holy currencies concept. The language of this paragraph came from her sermon “Oikonomia” delivered at First Reformed Church in Schenectady on July 17 2022.