With a Little Help From My Friends - September 5, 2021
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Deborah Laforet
With a Little Help From My Friends
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by the Spirit and be words of wisdom for this today. Amen.
Today is the last in our summer worship series of preaching on songs that have been suggested by our community. (Although I have made an exception and will be doing one more next Sunday.) Today’s song will be familiar to many. It’s called “With A Little Help From My Friends.” It was on a 1967 album by the Beatles and then, only a year later, became a hit single by Joe Cocker.
I looked this song up on wikipedia to see if there might be an interesting story to share, and the story I found fit the theme of this song. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote this song specifically for Ringo Starr. They wrote a tune with limited range - except for the last note, which McCartney worked closely with Starr to achieve. On the day they recorded the song, March 29, 1967, they recorded ten takes of the song, wrapping up at 5:45 in the morning. They had done the backing tracks which consisted of Starr on drums, McCartney playing piano, Harrison playing lead guitar and Lennon beating a cowbell. At dawn, Starr trudged up the stairs to head home – but the other Beatles cajoled him into doing his lead vocal then and there, standing around the microphone for moral support. Ringo literally did this song “with a little help from his friends.”
Greg Smith is one of our newest additions to the St. Paul’s community. He has joined during this pandemic time and this was the song he suggested for our summer series, specifically the Joe Cocker version as it was the version used in a popular late 80’s, early 90’s television show, “The Wonder Years,” a show about friendship. Greg’s daughter is actually named after one of the characters.
When I asked Greg what made this song meaningful to him, he wrote, “The idea of community has been key in my life and I think that this is the whole God model. Whether it is the trinity, Jesus's framework for the early church, Paul's reinforcement (and pain when he didn't have it).”
One of these days, when you get to meet Greg, you will get to talk to him about a book he has written, called, “In Search of Safe, Brave Spaces.” He wrote that in his book, “I describe the most difficult time in my life and my discovery that it was only when I finally 'let go' and 'opened up' to others that I saw the light forward. Sometimes I think that in our culture we try and figure everything out ourselves when we just 'need a little help from our friends’.
I really resonated with this. Letting go and depending on my community and friends has always been a challenge for me. I learned early on that I could only depend on me and it’s been very difficult to let that go. In my ministry studies, I learned the importance of community. My studies at the Centre for Christian Studies focused on the learning we do in community and the wisdom we share in community. I learned through practice and experience that community is a beautiful, nurturing place, a safe and a brave space, a place where I could be vulnerable and be myself.
Jesus was all about community. He had an inner circle of disciples and he travelled to communities and preached in communities. He did not do his ministry in isolation and he encouraged his followers to also be leaders and to share their ministry in community.
The letter Margaret read for us today is from the apostle Paul. Paul searched out communities where he shared the good news of Jesus. He was the first itinerant preacher, travelling to spread the good news of the Christ. Community was important to Paul. After Paul left a community, he would keep in touch by letter and we now have a few of these preserved in our bible. Many of those letters are teaching these new churches how to live in community. As we all know, it’s not easy. Communities, like families, can become dysfunctional. There is in-fighting, there are broken relationships, there are disagreements about the vision of the community, and sometimes there are cliques and gossiping and judgment. Paul would hear about some of this dysfunction and he would write and encourage communities to be one in Christ and he would explain what that looked like.
The passage we read today is one we often hear used at weddings, but in reality, this passage isn’t meant to describe a romantic commitment between two people. These words are meant for a community and Paul tells the community that it’s all about love. You can have prophets, people of strong faith, people who are generous with what they have, but without love, these mean nothing. Christ communities needed love to be strong in Christ. Prophecies come to an end, tongues will cease, and knowledge will come to an end, but love never ends.
The following words are what we hear at weddings. So when you hear them, you might imagine two people in their finery, gazing into each other’s eyes, committing to life together. I invite you to instead imagine a good friend, imagine your family member, imagine your church community, or any community that is meaningful for you. Now, listen to these words from Paul.
Love is patient;
love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
For Paul, this is the description of a loving community of Christ, a community of faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of all being love.
During this pandemic, what I miss most is my community. I miss getting together with friends, I miss my diaconal community, my local clergy gathering, and regional and national church gatherings, and, of course, I miss all of you. I miss in-person meetings, I miss PA Day camps and VBS, I miss youth group, I miss singing with the choir, and I miss gathering in person for worship, coffee hour, and potlucks. I also know that although all of these communities are struggling right now, they are also offering support in a variety of ways, and finding ways to connect. Without a little help from our friends, the pandemic would be a lot more difficult to get through.
We know we will gather again. Some are satisfied with Zoom meeting and recorded worship services, but humans need community, we need each other. We need to sing together, pray together, we need touch, hugs, shaking of hands, we need the love that I believe is an energy that is passed from one person to the next, like lighting a candle or a fire, and passing it on. It only grows and there is always enough.
Friends, I know you’re here because this community is important to you. With a little help from our community, with a little help from our friends, with the love that we share, may we support one another during difficult times, celebrate with each other during times of joy, love our similarities as well as differences, and be the community of Christ Paul wrote about, the community that loves like Christ and is one in Christ. May it be so. Amen.