NO MAN IS AN ISLAND JMB
World Communion Meditation BSPC
Philippians 4:4-9 Cols., OH

October 1, 1978
Souther, We pet, Yale Gra: Graduates ,
The late Will Campbell, Seuthe»s—Baptis+preacke rwho
-wee Director of the Committee of Southern Churchmen sré<ea
enpleyescf—_theNattions. _Councdtn ote Rees during the lseewt
2 Frente inecteentasiaatsie C Civil Rights Movement, wrote a very poignant
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account of his family's beginnings in rural Mississippi, and

his relationship with his older prother. \ "Brother to a

4d and ++ Nore)
Dragonfly" is the title of the book - a touching and teagée

and thoroughly Christian story.

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Early in the book Campbell recalls vignettes from his

childhood which contributed later to his theological maturity.

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In 1933, one of his uncle's tenant farmers was shot .\ He and

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his brother ran immediately to the small shack where we lived
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and took their place@ in the crowd which had gathered. \He cencir herve!

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remembers viviaty (somes we had never heard before": J-someone

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said, \'that's his mamma."') Listen to Campbell's description.

"The mother was surrounded by an entourage of a dozen women

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or so. \ .They were supporting her from falling. \ The dominant

sound we heard was the wails, the moans, the shrieks, the
whimpering of the mother...The sounds were backed up by the

more subdued ones of her supporters...

"The mother shouted.

‘Lord! '

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"Those ac ch her picked up with the refrain as ina

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litany.
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'‘Jeesus!'
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"Now the echo. Softly, 'Jesus.'

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'\@Eei Lord Jesus!'
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"Lord Jesus'

'O Jesus, Bring my baby home'

"Bring im home.'

The entourage stopped and stood in a semi-circle around

the body of her dead son. | "Now it was unmistakable crying...

the broken heart of a mother and her sisters, calling their
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hurt to the rots) She knelt by her son and daubed his face

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with her apron. ("somehow she knew when it was time to go." )

And off they went with the incantations beginning again.

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Campbell wrote, "We watched them until they were out
of sight. | And listened until they were out of hearing.| And

we listened for a long time after that...Whether West African

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or European, Nigerian or Mississippian in origin, the sounds
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were the pleading of a peasant woman to the son of a Jewish

peasant woman to be with her in her travail...

They were Jesus sounds...And they were sounds which would
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not soon depart from us." (p. 59-62, Brother to a Dragonfly )

I read that book while I was in Scotland this summer.
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And I read that particular passage about the time I was privileged
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to preside at the funeral of Mrs. Harkness, who was born, reared
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and lived in Moffat for 87 years ;\ who had a husband, and

children and grandchildren and friends; \who liked to sew and
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bake and go to church and who was buried amidst the same love

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grief that is the lot of the entire human tamiiy. | How related

we are in this: \ In birth and in death, we are more human,

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more related, more of a family than at any other time .\ It is

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the same for all of us. \ tn a way more profound than scholas-

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tic language can describe, human beings sense something of
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their oneness with the whole human family in the miracle of
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birth and the finality of death.

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John Donne, English poet, later churchman and Dean of

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St. Paul's, was obsessed by the thought the older and sicker
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and closer to death he became.\ He wrote — out of his own

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illness:

"No man is an island, entire of itself;

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every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...

any man's death dimishes me because I am involved in

mankind; |and therefore never send to know for whom the

bell tolls: it tolls for thee." (Devotions XVIT)

There it is again: {the oneness of humanity, most apparent,

most immediate, most meaningful, in death. ("wo man is an

istand.” [lrt"s not surprising that the thought doesn't occur

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to us until we're ready to die ;\because there is so much

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about us built on the opposite premise., [Every man and woman
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is, or ought to be,’an island: \ strong, independent, autonomous,

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free, not dependent on any other island, \able to sustain itself,

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to stand alone \ self reliant,\self aware , \self directed."

That's the litany of the cultural religion that informs us today.

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The new and accepted model of personhood is the individual

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who needs no one, who has made it on his own or her own, who

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does his or her own thing with strength, confidence .2é= rere.
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Pop culture has incarnated the image in the western hero who

rides into town alone, sleeps and eats alone, speaks to no one,
kills a lot of people and rides off, . Rien} Politicians droop Cppe-k « of
wits the idea of a splendidly isolated america, able to ge steud

co alone , \dependent on no one. \ ana in terms of intimate

relationships pastors' studies and psychiatrists' offices
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are the places where the self-inflicted pain is articulated.

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"He doesn't need me") 'She doesn't think she needs anyone."

"He wants to be free: \ she wants to find herself."

Somewhere along the line we have believed a great lie,

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namely that we will find ourselves only in ourselves;| that

our salvation lies somewhere in the depths of our own private
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being. \ and somewhere we have surrounded that untruth with
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religious words: |"My religion is my own private affair: | I

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can worship God by myself, thank you: \ I really don't have

any need for the church."

Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk who spent much of his

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life in solitude wrote: | "What every man looks for is his
own salvation. \.By salvation I mean the full discovery of
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who he himself really is.\.I mean also the discovery that he
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cannot find himself in himself alone, but that he must find
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himself in and through others."" (No Man Is An Island, p. 11)

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Now, there is a lot about the current celebration of the

individual that is healthy . \ And there is a lot about the

Gospel of Jesus Christ that gives the individual dignity and

power and confidence. \ But at its very heart the Gospel,

and the Judeo/Christian tradition, begins with the assertion

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that we, all of us, are a tamity.\ We are related — as brothers

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and sisters, children of one father. \ The Gospel sees the

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human dilemma as a family failure: \ the children cut them-

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selves off from the father, the very first result of which
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is an internal family teud.\ In the Genesis story Adam and

severs
Eve et the tie with God, and one of their son's murders the
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other. \ta its simplest form, that is our diagnosis.

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nbeve ove ee Over it is the divine intent, the will_of God for his
ee creation, the eternal hope. The prophet Isaiah, centuries
cea um before Christ, saw a Se os it: \"On this mountain the Lord
ite of hosts will make for all_peoples a feast of fat things, a

feast of wine on the lees. \.and he will destroy on this

mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples."| (Isaiah 25)

St. Paul, writing to the early Christians in the Greek city

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of Philippi, urged them to make common cause with goodness
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wherever they encountered it in their pagan worla:\(what-
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ever is true, honorable, pure, lovely, gracious - think_about

these things:"JAnd Jesus, in a memorable image we remember in
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our own liturgy,\ "Men will come from East and_West, and from
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north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God."

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(Luke 13:29)

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That is the word of the Lord: \ ene will of God for his
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creation. \\God sent his son for that: \not simply to guarantee
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individual salvation, safety and security for a collection of

otherwise unrelated individuals, but to reunite the family

again. \\He is God's host at the family rene on the anniver-

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sary dinner party, [the time wk when we get together again and
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laugh and cry and rejoice that we are who we are j\enat_ we
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are related,\that we have one father.

That is what we are about today, World Communion Sunday.

In the face of the isolation that separates individuals, | the
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provincialism that divides communities, \the bigotry that
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separates races,\ the chauvinism that is a barrier between
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nations and cultures, we are daring to celebrate, for a

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brief moment in time, the word of the Lord, the simple idea

1 NE SATE ATSINE T \tnat we are one family, aed Vert for our
owe Se peal ates) se Ovr Wirrleuwwes, Ab vere. OW Quint .

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Several hours age they observed it, with fine white linen,
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and a common silver goblet, and with great solemnity and
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dignity. | It is the "repeatable sign of hope" German theolo-
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gian Juergen Moltmann says.\ And today, also, in Belfast,

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N. Ireland brothers and sisters, Roman Catholic and Protestant
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will drink from one cup and eat from one loaf, aleeme=guech in the wide of

bagel the suffering and tragedy and violence and hatred:

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sign of hope: \ a banquet, the host of which is the Lord of

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the whole church and the whole world. \ It is a special co ——

occasion for us, for we will be gathered at table, with a
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new brother, and as we receive the elements from his hands

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we will be trying to say that we*share_ the pain of that , part ial C

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of our family: | that we participate in the agony of Northern

Brolentis'\ Ghat we share the hope — the hope of World Communion
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the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the hope of a new
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humanity in Christ, a family, reunited, in joy and love and
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peace, rejoifing in one another. (cp)
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Men and women will come from East and West and from

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North and South and sit at table in the Kingdom of God.

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Amen.

God, our father, forgive our divisions, Forgive our
pride through which we isolate ourselves from others. Bless
your whole church this day. Come among us with healing and

power and peace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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