The Vision Statement of the New York Annual Conference echoes a key idea of Martin Luther King, ‘a Beloved Community of Hope’. Dr. King had a beautiful dream as to where this society could go and he was determined to help get it there.
Our group of United Methodist churches wants to be the Beloved Community of Hope. It is ambitious because our Beloved Communities
will be in struggle with the negative forces of this world. Our own church lives in challenging moments as we attempt to live 
together as three congregations in one church. We face a neighborhood where 30% of the people do not have a high school diploma and we built a school to give
everyone a chance at college. We send our children to school in an area where gang identification is on the rise. We live in a world where rumors of more war echo in the papers.
Is the beloved community worth building? It is worth everything. We are the lighthouse that says to the society that it is worth it to keep trying. Hope is here and the answers are on the way. We are the visible sign of the invisible power and grace of God. Our metaphor today is the flower, the forget me not. It means ‘undying hope’ because it is able to live anywhere.
Is the beloved community difficult to build? You will look back on this as the richest moment of life and one that you did not know you were strong enough to accomplish. If you commit yourself to this vision, you will use time, energy and money in ways that you have not planned. Building a beloved community demands much from each of us. Lets watch when a family discovered that.
The Beloved Community of Hope shines brightest when the need is the highest. Martin Luther King said in one of his first articles that the purpose of the Montgomery bus boycott "is reconciliation, . . . redemption, the creation of the beloved community." (Kenneth Smith, Ira Zepp)
Our vision has three components, beloved, Community, and hope. Beloved reminds us that our source is the love of God. We do not easily understand the passion of God’s love for us because our eyes are so captured by the current needs. If God loves you passionately and thinks of you more wildly than your lover, why don’t you have healing, money, and world peace? I can’t really answer that. There is something about God’s respect for us, created in the image of God as stewards of God’s authority, that prevents continuous miracles. But the same God who sees your struggles to be here this morning is the God who gave an only Son to come to earth to feel your trials and understand your mortality. The communion table erases my doubt that God loves me.
If you are drawn by the vision of a beloved community of hope, then it starts when you know in your soul that you are loved by God. You cannot take the next step until you actually sense in your spirit that God loves you. If you are struggling with this, then the communion time at the altar, or prayer in a Disciple group or prayer right now, asking God to come into your life and assure you of love. Its essential.
Fueled by God’s love, we need to be the beloved community. Friends, I think our church needs two gifts from people here, we need more passionate commitment and we need more entrepreneurial effort.
We need the entrepreneurial effort because we are a growing church. The old historic church structures are gone. The committees, the customs – all disappeared. What we need to grow is people who are natural leaders – who see a need and come to me and get a fishing license. That’s where you go off and try something. That is how effective new ministries begin. With the school and Cambodia and gang violence and the three in one church – I am never going to be the pastor here who starts things in a nice neat way. There are people sitting here with skills that are needed to start things. For some reason, you have not yet heard the call of God. I pray that you hear that call of God now. We can’t get to the next level without you.
And we need more passionate commitment. Some of you are working your hearts out. The choir meets for 4 hours every Sunday. And there are a number of others who are passionately committed. But we need more. The beloved community is a group of people who have sacrificed and because they were willing to give up something, someone else’s life was changed.
I got a call about 3 weeks ago from a man in another state. Someone close to me was in jail and this was the chaplain. The chaplain had access and could send a message. I had no immediate way to be involved. As I was calling back and forth to Bill Park, the chaplain, I discovered that he was a volunteer. He retired from industry and wanted to be involved in ministry. So he took some course and got involved with a large city jail.
I don’t suppose that Bill Park understood how grateful someone could feel that he decided to be a part of the beloved community. That is how we treat church jobs. They are a good opportunity and we should do a little. Except that Bill Park was able to ease the fears and give hope to someone I care about. He sent me an email yesterday to explain that he has set up a buddy system with another Christian and things are going to work out.
Our church is already a beloved community. Some child has heard about hope through Jesus Christ here in Sunday Kids Club and it got them through a lonely time in high school. Some senior has been given a friend through Fun and Fellowship and it got them through the death of a spouse. Some Spanish speaker passed a job interview with words they learned at English conversation.
O, I was just being a volunteer, you say. Yes, but to that person at that moment, what you did meant everything. I know, because it happened to me.
And what of everyone here? Someone needs an English word, where are you? Someone needs tutoring after school, where are you? Someone is cold this afternoon and needs a place to sleep, where are you? Can we count on you to help build the beloved community?
I think we are going to do this. I really do. And it brings hope, hope to our community and hope to your own life. The forget me nots stand for hope because they can grown anywhere. And they stand for hope because they quickly spread. I pray that you will each join the vision statement to be a beloved community of hope. For somebody, I know it means a lot. Where are you?
