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Making Room Week 3: Making Room for Connection
Luke 14:12-14
How many of you have flown Southwest? Southwest currently, it might change, but currently has a system called “open boarding” or what I like to refer to as “a high anxiety social experiment”.
First, there’s that moment when you get in line. I just want you to know that I am absolutely THAT person who checks the boarding numbers of the people around me to make sure I am in the correct spot. Does this really matter? Maybe not, but I can tell you it feels high stakes. I get kind of jumpy and antsy and that’s all before we even get on the plane.
Because once you get on the aircraft...that’s when the real fun begins. I want a window seat, but I have been known to need to go to the bathroom mid-flight. The aisle is better for that, but then you’ve got the hazards of the beverage cart and the randoms standing in the aisle. The middle is CLEARLY not an option. And so you watch all these people board, and 99% of them pick an aisle or window seat.
And then you get to the final boarding group. And all that are left at this point are the middles. And now we’ve moved to the next phase of this social experiment where we all 2
become incapable of making eye contact. And the whole thing is SO uncomfortable! We think, if I just look slightly to the left or down at my phone, if I don’t see YOU maybe you won’t see ME and then you won’t take this precious free space between me and this other stranger.
In this situation, making room is pretty low on all of our collective priority lists. But sometimes, that’s exactly what we need to do.
This is our final week in our Making Room sermon series and the big push week of our building campaign that is going with it. And as we wrap this thing up, today we’re looking at how sometimes we are called to make room even when we might not be naturally inclined to. Even when it doesn’t seem like it could directly serve us. EVEN WHEN we might not see clearly what we would even receive in return or what God could do with the room that we make.
We’re looking at a parable that Jesus tells in the book of Luke. He tells this story while he’s at someone’s house for dinner...and it’s not just any old someone. Interestingly enough, Jesus is sharing the Sabbath Meal, so an important moment of weekly gathering for Jewish people, he’s sharing this Sabbath Meal at one of the leaders of the Pharisee’s 3
home. That setting in and of itself should let you know there’s probably some sort of teachable moment incoming. Because Jesus and the Pharisees, while on paper they should have worked, in reality they had so much conflict. They were both religious Jews, both deeply knowledgeable about what the Torah said, but their way of interpreting the whole thing could be wildly different. And by the way, the last time Jesus and the Pharisees had shared a meal together, there had been some drama. So if this was reality TV, you know the mood would be a little tense. Like people are going to wondering what’s going to happen and if we’re going to have another moment between Jesus and these religious leaders.
And so there’s Jesus, he’s in a Pharisee’s home, enjoying the Sabbath meal, and then he notices something. He notices there are some competitive social dynamics at play. Earlier in the chapter, before the part we read, it says, (SLIDE) “Jesus noticed how the guests sought out the best seats at the table”. He noticed that this was becoming a see and be seen kind of moment. He noticed they are missing the point about what it means to be truly welcome in a place and to receive and give hospitality. 4
And really what is happening here is Jesus is trying to draw them in to understand the possibility of a change in a social norm. Because there were some things that were just accepted as this is how it is. It was NORMAL to give hospitality to people who could give it to you in return. It was NORMAL to give hospitality to someone who you were naturally socially connected with; so in Jesus’ day this would have been Jews to Jews, Gentiles to Gentiles, Wealthy to Wealthy, you get the point here. But what Jesus is talking about goes against all of those norms. It says that there’s actually a different way, a more expansive way. A way that might look more like God’s view of inclusion and community.
And what Jesus was saying here would have felt strange and possibly offensive to the people at that dinner table. In fact, even to us reading this story today, it sounds a little odd. The idea of going and gathering people we don’t know, or even people who it might cost us something to gather with...that is challenging to understand and to live out. It’s not how most of us have been conditioned to exist, even in the most diverse spaces, even in a church setting, there’s something about making this kind of room in our relationships and communities that feels hard. There are lot of barriers to 5
these kinds of connections and a lot of very practical reasons that we don’t often seek them out.
But (SLIDE) sometimes making room isn’t practical, but it is worth it.
When I lived in Southern California, I had some friends who went to a church called New City Church in Downtown LA. And this was a church that was so interesting because on paper, it was EXCEPTIONALLY diverse. From the staff to the congregants, everyone was represented in this faith community. They were reaching people of all ethnicities, of very different socioeconomic statuses, including people who were living in shelters or on the streets, I mean...it was really impressive what they were doing.
AND. It wasn’t quite hitting the mark. Because even though all these people were gathering in a room together for an hour on Sunday...there wasn’t a lot of cross-connection between the groups. They had physically made room for each other, but they hadn’t quite gotten there relationally. And it made sense. A lot of people didn’t know where to start. They wondered what they had in common or how they would connect. How does a Soccer mom from Pasadena create a meaningful relationship with someone who lives on 6
Skid Row? That sounds extreme, but that’s exactly what they were trying to figure out.
And so what they did, is they created a structured way to make room. One summer, they created a totally different way to meet in small groups. They were hyper intentional about creating groups that were truly diverse, that put people together who would not have signed up for any kind of affinity group together, and they met all summer, at the church, with a structured curriculum that helped build relationships where it would have been unlikely. It helped break down barriers and maybe the most important thing is that it helped teach the message that every single person was deserving of space in the community...and it was every single person’s role to make room for someone else.
It can be really easy to let some of our relationships live in transaction mode. I do something for you, I get something in return. I serve you and I feel good about myself. That’s not WRONG...I just don’t think it’s exactly complete. It’s not a complete picture of the kind of community Jesus calls us to create. That community is kind of messy. And complicated. And probably doesn’t make a ton of sense if we looked at the seating chart. 7
But what Jesus invites us to do through this parable is to (SLIDE) move from transactional to transformational relationships. To create the kinds of connections that are shaped by the heart of Jesus. And when we make this move, we can’t help but make room. We can’t help but expand our definition of community and of who is welcome at the table. Or honestly, as much as I love a good metaphor, we can take this conversation out of it and just name this clearly—when we do this, we expand our definition of who is welcome at the Church! Of who is welcome to be in our lives. Of who is welcome to share their story and show up as their whole self in our midst.
That’s a radical view of what welcome can look like.
And that is the type of welcome Jesus calls us to create as people who say we follow him.
Earlier this year, we handed out these keychains that say “Others”. And it was a tangible symbol of what we want to be about as a church. Like, we don’t do this thing in here on Sunday morning just so we can be happy and feel good for an hour. I mean, you know I want you be happy, I’m an Enneagram 2! But there’s a deeper purpose to why we do this thing called church. We gather and then we go, and we 8
let the things we learn, we let the words we sing, we let the prayers that are prayed shape us into living lives that are centered on God’s love for others in this world. We let ourselves be shaped into people who are committed to making room at the different tables that make up our lives.
And so as I think about this campaign that we’re in, that’s the whole point. We’re not raising money to have a fancy building. We’re raising money so that we can create as many onramps as possible to be a church that makes room for people. And as we start this on our sending campus, at our North Indy location, we get to learn and replicate here at Midtown and anywhere we might expand to in the future. That’s why we’re doing this, that’s why we’re having these conversations, that’s why we’re inviting you to give toward this big goal. Because we believe God is calling us to be people who expand the reach of God’s grace wider and wider and with as few barriers as possible.
So we currently have (SLIDE) 129 intention commitments which puts us at $5,013,976 and at 78% of our goal. In order to cover the last 22%, we need to secure commitments of $1,426,024. These are big numbers, but I believe they are possible to attain. And, maybe more importantly, I believe they are worth the effort it takes to get there. 9
Because again, we’re not just building space—we're making room for connection. Take a look at this video to get a glimpse into the heart behind the numbers, the heart behind the building:
Play Video (3:00)
Connection makes a difference. The thing about making room for all people, for changing social norms and being in community with people we might not expect to have relationship with is that we don’t know what that can do. We don’t know the impact that it can have. But when we draw people in, when we make that room, when we open up...God’s spirit moves. Doors get opened and new ways of knowing the love and grace of Jesus become possible.
You don’t know what impact making room for someone can have. The final example I’ll give you is this. There’s a church in Texas called Lovers Lane UMC and the founding pastor of that church, Tom Shipp, had a significant story of someone making room for him when he was very much an outsider. His mom died when he was young and he was sent to live with another family in town. On the first night at their house, when it came time for dinner, the dad told him, “There’s no 10
room for you at our table. You’ll eat on the porch and you can sleep on a cot in the barn.” They didn’t really want him there, they treated him like a burden and an outsider, and it was really traumatic and terrible.
Eventually, he was able to be moved to a different family’s care. And this family was amazing. They loved him, they treated him like he had always been part of their home. It was very clear that he was family.
The defining moment in his young life happened at church. It was communion Sunday, the first one he had ever experienced, and as they knelt down, he realized he was between the two men whose homes he had lived in. As Tom went to receive the bread, the father from the first home grabbed his arm and told him it was not for him.
And in that moment, his new caregiver reached out himself, and looked at the other man and said, “This is not your table.” He kept repeating it: “This is not your table.” And Tom received communion for the first time in that moment.
He heard that message of being welcome at the table. He heard and lived the transformation that can happen when all are included. And when he started his ministry, he did things 11
that pushed the boundaries of who was welcome. He hosted AA groups before it was common for churches to do so. The church had a sharp focus on who wasn’t there, who wasn’t included in most churches, and it made a point to make room for them. Because someone made room for him, he built his life around making room for others.
I hear stories like that, and I think, that’s the kind of church I hope we are, and keep growing into. That’s why we’re doing this series and this campaign. Because we are people who have been welcomed into community. We are people who have been shaped by God’s grace. And because we’ve experienced that...we commit ourselves to helping others experience it too.
So as you consider what your role will be in this next chapter of our church—whether you give over three years to fund the expansion of a building, whether you commit to pray over the people we will connect with because of this expansion, or whether you decide to serve in a new way—whatever that looks like, I want you to know that we ALL play a part in creating this community. We all play a part in making room.
Let’s pray together over the room we will make and the way the Spirit might move through us. 12