We are…Community
The First Sunday of Advent
December 2, 2018
And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, justas we abound in love for you.
I Thessalonians 3.12a
Colonel Dede Halfhill stood before her troops at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana at an air force awards ceremony.[1] At the end of the presentation she asked if anyone had any questions. One young airmen raised his hand and asked “Ma’am, when is the ops tempo (the pace of current operations) going to slow down, because we are really tired?” She responded by saying “Yeah, it has been very busy, and we ask a lot of you. It’s not just been here though. I just came from a different command, where I heard the same thing. Across our Air Force, leaders know we’re asking a lot of you, and they know you are tired.” The Colonel then asked the question “How you are tired?” and about half the people there raised their hands. And then Colonel Halfhill paused and remembered something she had read in the Harvard Business Review that made her stop and think. She shared with the airmen what she had learned in the article – the article talked about organizations that were noticing high levels of exhaustion in their workforce – but what they found when they did further research is that their exhaustion was not from the Ops Tempo – rather they found that workers were exhausted because they were lonely.
So Dede Halfhill then said to the airmen,“Because that’s what happens, right? When we’re lonely, we feel lethargic. We don’t really want to do anything; we think we’re tired, and we just want to sleep.’ She paused and then asked “If I were to ask you, instead of who’s tired, who’s lonely? How many of you would raise your hand?” And just about a little less than half of the airmen raised their hands.
She then responded honestly, she said “This breaks my heart. Loneliness isn’t something I have talked about with you before. But seeing so many of you raise your hands scares me because I am not sure what to do with this information.”And she went on to say, that had she known they were tired from the ops tempo she could just give the airmen more time off, but she realized that this would be the worst solution if in fact the airmen were lonely, because time off would only add to their loneliness and increase their sense of isolation.
And so because of this new found information she started doing some research into leadership and helping airmen overcome loneliness. She wanted to find out howto build relationships in the unit, how to have people reach out to each other when feeling alone, and how to create a community of inclusion.
So she looked into Air Force leadership manuals to find answers. She finally found what she was looking for in a document dating back to 1948, one year after our US Air Force was founded. It was in Air Force Manual 35-15. She found that that document was filled with phrases like “to belong, a sense of belonging, feeling, fear, compassion,confident, kindness, friendliness, and mercy.” Feelings were referred to 147times. Sense of belonging was mention 21times. Fear was mention 35 times. And what it meant to love your men was mentioned 13 times. And this is so interesting – that so soon after World War II the leaders of the Air Force knew the importance of taking care of the human soul.
She then compared this finding to a contemporary leadership manual – none of the terms of humanity were mentioned,not once. In their place were words like tactical leadership, operation leadership and strategic leadership. What was most needed was lost.
So what does this have to do with us? What does this have to do with the church? Last week I mentioned that during the season of Advent I would be exploring with you who “We are” as a Christians – and as a church. And what it reminded me of is that the vision of the church, particularly for Jesus, and who passed the baton to St. Paul, is that the church is a place of radical inclusion. We are community. It is a place for all to gather – and to feel welcome. When Paul wrote letters, one of his aims was to help early Christian communities to become fully inclusive – regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or background.
So why is this sort of radically community of inclusion and connection important? Well, beyond the fact that it was Christ’s vision for his followers – it is exactly what our world needs. Last Saturday (November 23, 2018,Arthur C. Brooks) the New York Times published an opinion piece called “How loneliness is Tearing America Apart.”[2] In this article, Arthur C. Brooks, writes about people’s increased sense of loneliness. It quotes a recent Cigna Health Survey (May 2018)[3] where roughly half the respondents reported that they sometimes, or always, feel alone or left out. Thirteen percent of Americans say that zero, (let me say that again) zero, people know them well. And what’s more, the sense of loneliness has become more profound in each generation with the Greatest Generation reporting the lowest levels of loneliness, Generation Z, that’s 18-22 year olds, reporting the highest levels of loneliness. And why this interests Cigna is that loneliness has a profoundly deleterious effect on health – researchers have found that loneliness is just as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Lonely people are 50% more likely to die prematurely than those with healthy social relationships because loneliness negatively impacts our immune systems. (Amy Morin, Inc., June 18, 2018)
What the article says is that much of our loneliness stems from an abiding sense of “Homelessness” – that too many people don’t think of a place as home – which he calls a “thick community,”the place where people know and look out for one another and invest in relationships that are not transient. His solution? He concludes that the way that we begin to fight this epidemic of loneliness for ourselves, and to help others, is to become the kind of neighbors and generous friends we wished we had.
When I read that I thought,that sounds like church and it also sounds a lot like Jesus’ great command to love our neighbor as ourselves.
So what does a Christian Community of Inclusion look like? As I was thinking about this question – I kept coming back to Anke and Frits Geurtsen who have been members of this congregation since 1967. They represent what the church is like at its best. During one vestry meeting we talked about how we each came to be and stayed at St. Michael’s. And so many people said, “Well, when I arrived at St. Michael’s Frits greeted me on my way in to church and made me feel so welcome, and Anke talked to me during coffee hour.” But it does not stop there. People went on to speak of the thoughtful cards that Anke had sent to them in the mail on a special occasion or when they were not well, or receiving a phone call from her.
This afternoon as we give thanks for the life of Frits, many of us will remember that the reason that we came and stayed at St. Michael’s is that people like Frits, and Anke, and many,many others – made the church in the image of what Christ so wanted, and St.Paul instructed – a place of love, a place of companionship, and that so called“thick community” that is good for our hearts, our souls, our minds and our bodies.
So I invite you to think about Paul’s wish for the Thessalonians in our second reading this morning “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” And I invite you to consider this first week in Advent how you are being called to increase and abound in love for one another and for all – not just emotionally, but also in thought, word, and deed, so that we may be a radical community of inclusion where we help chip away the feelings of isolation, alienation and loneliness.
Sometimes we, as Episcopalians can be a little shy about inviting people to church. We feel reluctant to ask, we don’t want to impose – but what I think can be assured of is that the church is completely relevant in this day and age for so many reasons, but particularly because for some it is not just a nice add on, but a real life saver.
[1] Both paraphrased and quoted from Dare to Lead, 2018, Brene Brown, pp. 58-66
[2] NYT, November 23, 2018, Arthur C. Brooks
Colonel Dede Halfhill stood before her troops at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana at an airforce awards ceremony.[1] At the end of the presentation she asked if anyone had any questions. One young airmen raised his hand and asked “Ma’am, when is the ops tempo (the pace of current operations) going to slow down, because we are really tired?” She responded by saying “Yeah, it has been very busy, and we ask a lot of you. It’s not just been here though. I just came from a different command, where I heard the same thing. Across our Air Force, leaders know we’re asking a lot of you, and they know you are tired.” The Colonel then asked the question “How many of you are tired?” and about half the people there raised their hands. And then Colonel Halfhill paused and remembered something she had read in the Harvard Business Review that made her stop and think. She shared with the airmen what she had learned in the article – the article talked about organizations that were noticing high levels of exhaustion in their workforce – but what they found when they did further research is that their exhaustion was not from the Ops Tempo – rather they found that workers were exhausted because they were lonely.
So Dede Halfhill then said to the airmen, “Because that’s what happens, right? When we’re lonely, we feel lethargic. We don’t really want to do anything; we think we’re tired, and we just want to sleep.’ She paused and then asked “If I were to ask you, instead of who’s tired, who’s lonely? How many of you would raise your hand?” And just about a little less than half of the airmen raised their hands.
She then responded honestly, she said “This breaks my heart. Loneliness isn’t something I have talked about with you before. But seeing so many of you raise your hands scares me because I am not sure what to do with this information.” And she went on to say, that had she known they were tired from the ops tempo she could just give the airmen more time off, but she realized that this would be the worst solution if in fact the airmen were lonely, because time off would only add to their loneliness and increase their sense of isolation.
And so because of this new found information she started doing some research into leadership and helping airmen overcome loneliness. She wanted to find out how to build relationships in the unit, how to have people reach out to each other when feeling alone, and how to create a community of inclusion.
So she looked into Air Force leadership manuals to find answers. She finally found what she was looking for in a document dating back to 1948, one year after our US Air Force was founded. It was in Air Force Manual 35-15. She found that that document was filled with phrases like “to belong, a sense of belonging, feeling, fear, compassion, confident, kindness, friendliness, and mercy.” Feelings were referred to 147 times. Sense of belonging was mention 21 times. Fear was mention 35 times. And what it meant to love your men was mentioned 13 times. And this is so interesting – that so soon after World War II the leaders of the Air Force knew the importance of taking care of the human soul.
She then compared this finding to a contemporary leadership manual – none of the terms of humanity were mentioned, not once. In their place were words like tactical leadership, operation leadership and strategic leadership. What was most needed was lost.
So what does this have to do with us? What does this have to do with the church? Last week I mentioned that during the season of Advent I would be exploring with you who “We are” as a Christians – and as a church. And what it reminded me of is that the vision of the church, particularly for Jesus, and who passed the baton to St. Paul, is that the church is a place of radical inclusion. We are community. It is a place for all to gather – and to feel welcome. When Paul wrote letters, one of his aims was to help early Christian communities to become fully inclusive – regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or background.
So why is this sort of radically community of inclusion and connection important? Well, beyond the fact that it was Christ’s vision for his followers – it is exactly what our world needs. Last Saturday (November 23, 2018, Arthur C. Brooks) the New York Times published an opinion piece called “How loneliness is Tearing America Apart.”[2] In this article, Arthur C. Brooks, writes about people’s increased sense of loneliness. It quotes a recent Cigna Health Survey (May 2018)[3] where roughly half the respondents reported that they sometimes, or always, feel alone or left out. Thirteen percent of Americans say that zero, (let me say that again) zero, people know them well. And what’s more, the sense of loneliness has become more profound in each generation with the Greatest Generation reporting the lowest levels of loneliness, Generation Z, that’s 18-22 year olds, reporting the highest levels of loneliness. And why this interests Cigna is that loneliness has a profoundly deleterious effect on health – researchers have found that loneliness is just as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Lonely people are 50% more likely to die prematurely than those with healthy social relationships because loneliness negatively impacts our immune systems. (Amy Morin, Inc., June 18, 2018)
What the article says is that much of our loneliness stems from an abiding sense of “Homelessness” – that too many people don’t think of a place as home – which he calls a “thick community,” the place where people know and look out for one another and invest in relationships that are not transient. His solution? He concludes that the way that we begin to fight this epidemic of loneliness for ourselves, and to help others, is to become the kind of neighbors and generous friends we wished we had.
When I read that I thought, that sounds like church and it also sounds a lot like Jesus’ great command to love our neighbor as ourselves.
So what does a Christian Community of Inclusion look like? As I was thinking about this question – I kept coming back to Anke and Frits Geurtsen who have been members of this congregation since 1967. They represent what the church is like at its best. During one vestry meeting we talked about how we each came to be and stayed at St. Michael’s. And so many people said, “Well, when I arrived at St. Michael’s Frits greeted me on my way in to church and made me feel so welcome, and Anke talked to me during coffee hour.” But it does not stop there. People went on to speak of the thoughtful cards that Anke had sent to them in the mail on a special occasion or when they were not well, or receiving a phone call from her.
This afternoon as we give thanks for the life of Frits, many of us will remember that the reason that we came and stayed at St. Michael’s is that people like Frits, and Anke, and many, many others – made the church in the image of what Christ so wanted, and St. Paul instructed – a place of love, a place of companionship, and that so called “thick community” that is good for our hearts, our souls, our minds and our bodies.
So I invite you to think about Paul’s wish for the Thessalonians in our second reading this morning “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all.” And I invite you to consider this first week in Advent how you are being called to increase and abound in love for one another and for all – not just emotionally, but also in thought, word, and deed, so that we may be a radical community of inclusion where we help chip away the feelings of isolation, alienation and loneliness.
Sometimes
we, as Episcopalians can be a little shy about inviting people to church. We feel reluctant to ask, we don’t want to
impose – but what I think can be assured of is that the church is completely
relevant in this day and age for so many reasons, but particularly because for
some it is not just a nice add on, but a real life saver.
[1] Both paraphrased and quoted from Dare to Lead, 2018, Brene Brown, pp. 58-66
[2] NYT, November 23, 2018, Arthur C. Brooks
[3] Cigna health Survey, May 2018 https://www.cigna.com/newsroom/news-releases/2018/new-cigna-study-reveals-loneliness-at-epidemic-levels-in-america
[3]Cigna health Survey, May 2018 https://www.cigna.com/newsroom/news-releases/2018/new-cigna-study-reveals-loneliness-at-epidemic-levels-in-america
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