How do I find meaningful connection and belonging in a world of individualism? - Nic Harding

Hi, folks. My name is Nic Harding, founding pastor of Frontline now working with churches around the country. And it's my pleasure to speak today on Mark chapter 14, verses 12 to 25. Now my title for today's talk, is how do I find meaningful connection and belonging in a world of individualism? How do I find meaningful connection and belonging in a world of individualism? Now, it may not be immediately obvious how we're going to get there. But that's where we are landing. Just so you know, that's the destination. But let's first of all, read this passage I'm reading from the New Living Translation,

So let's just give a bit of background to this situation. This is one of those annual festivals and feast days that Jews from all over Israel, at this time would gather in Jerusalem for. So it was a chaotic scene with people from all different places, and even different countries coming to celebrate this most important of all the festivals,. The Passover festival, and particularly the meal of unleavened bread. And it sounds almost a little bit sort of secretive and secret agent MI5, you know, go and find a man with a pitcher of water, follow him, he'll take you upstairs to an upper room, that's where we're going to eat the meal.

We don't quite know what was behind that it may well have been friends of Jesus who are lending him that room for the meal that's quite likely, in fact, but this meal of Unleavened Bread and Unleavened Bread literally means bread with no yeast in so it would have been bread that was made. It was like a flatbread. Basically, it was kind of quite hard and dense. This meal of Unleavened Bread traces its roots back 1500 years to when Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt where they had become slaves. And if you've seen any of the Disney movies about Moses and Egypt, you'll be familiar with the story probably of Moses who's raised up and is finally agrees with God to help liberate his people from slavery, and he has this showdown with the Pharaoh. And after 10 plagues, you know, that has devastated the nation, Pharaoh finally agrees.

The final plague is the death of all first born animals and humans. And what God says to the Jews who are in Egypt, he says, look, this is what I want you to do. Kill a one year old lamb, take the blood from the lamb, put it on the doorposts and lintels of the house where you're staying. It'll be like a protection for you. And the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts and lintels of the house will mean when the Angel of Death passes across this city of Egypt, this nation of Egypt, then it will pass over your homes because it will see the blood and hence the word festival or feast of Passover. It's the passing over of the angel of death. And the following morning, because everything was to happen quickly verify and he says yes, get out of my land, then the Jews will move quickly. So unleavened bread meant they could just bake it quickly and move off and have it with them ready to eat on their journey. And this meal was that that have eaten it That was the last meal that that have taken before leaving Egypt. And it was forever then a celebration an annual celebration of this great deliverance that the Jewish nation had from slavery in Egypt. It was the Passover meal, and particularly the meal of unleavened bread. This was probably the most important of all the Jewish festivals. And it was a time of reminder, a time of remembering God's covenant. That word we've heard in that passage, God's covenant with his people. Now a covenant is simply a binding agreement, one that cannot be broken. Today, you'll generally find it in sort of dusty legal documents on particular land or buildings that you know where you can't do certain things because there's a covenant on it.

But the covenant here is this binding agreement between God and His people, that he will protect them, he will provide for them, he will love on them, He will guide them, he will direct them, and he'll bring them into a promised land.

Which of course, Moses and then Joshua finally leads them into. So this was a very special meal of remembering God's commitment, his binding agreement, his covenant with his people. So fast forward 1500 years we're now back in Jerusalem. It's AD 30. Roughly. And you know, it's chaos. There's noise, there's smells, there's Roman soldiers patrolling the streets. There's the smell of cooking. As you know, everybody is trying to look for a room or somewhere to stay because this is the festival season. Bit like in Liverpool when there's a home game on the hotels are all full, the pubs are full. It's like it's chaos, but it's very exciting. as well. And so the disciples are anxious. Notice they're anxious about where they're going to find a room, not knowing that Jesus has it all in hand. There's a little aside here. They're anxious. Jesus has it all in hand. And they made the right move. They asked Jesus what to do. Now we would call that praying, talking to God and asking him what to do. And if you've never tried praying before, if you've just carried anxieties and worries with you, oh, my goodness, there's plenty of those in this season aren't there? Then why not try praying, bringing your concerns your anxieties to God saying, Heavenly Father, I don't know what to do about this situation, my job, my health and my family. I'm just lonely, I'm a bit depressed, would you take my cares and help me be with me in them?

If you've never tried praying a simple prayer like that, you'd be amazed how God wants to answer your prayers. And he loves it when we come to him. When we talk to him with his children, he made us and He wants us to come to him and share our concerns with him even if you've never prayed before. In fact, if you want a simple seven day guide to learning how to pray, then let me encourage you to go to a lovely website called trypraying.co.uk. There's a wonderful seven day learning how to pray guide in there, and I recommend it to you.

But Jesus had it all in hand. They are at the end up in this upper room, as I say it probably belongs to friends of Jesus. And they're seated at this low table, it was a little low, low sort of U shaped table like three sort of benches in a U shape. And it probably was about a foot off the ground. And they would eat from these low tables, they would, they will lie on the left hand side, they'd be cushions underneath them, and then they'd be chatting and they'd be using their right hand to feed themselves from the table. And it was a lot of excitement. This was a very special meal for Jesus and his disciples. And it typically had, at the very least a lamb was slaughtered, and they'd be eating roast lamb barbecued lamb, they'd be having this these flat breads, these unleavened breads and bitter Herbs, and often other ingredients as well. And they'd be loved to be chat around the table. What they didn't realise, the disciples didn't realise was that this was going to be the beginning of a whole new understanding of this festival. And this meal together. There have been four special glasses of wine that that have drunk through the meal. And the bread would have been distributed, it would be quite normal to break a piece of bread and pass it around to the people at the table. Now we could easily get sidetracked here and talk about the one who was going to betray him, that is talked about in this passage, who turned out to be Judas who we know, betrayed, Jesus pointed him out to the Roman guards who then got him arrested. But suffice it to say that if you have ever felt betrayed, Jesus understands that.

If you've ever felt rejected and abandoned, Jesus understands that.

Not only was he betrayed by Judas, his closest disciples ran away from him when he was arrested, there was virtually none of them at the foot of the cross, when he was crucified. This was an intensely lonely time for Jesus, he would have felt very much on his own rejected, abandoned and betrayed and if you've ever experienced those feelings, maybe even today, you feel some of those things deeply.

Be assured, Jesus also experienced them. He understands how you feel, and he is wanting to draw close to you right now, to comfort you and encourage you and to remind you that when you come near to him, he comes near to you. And if you invite him in, he will come in and take up residence in your life. And he will make this covenant agreement with you this binding agreement never to leave you never to leave you alone, you're on your own ever again.

But this meal is the centre part of this passage. And I'm we're just focusing on this meal today. And it was pointing towards what was about to happen over the next 48 hours. Because from this point on, in natural terms, from human point of view, everything goes downhill. Jesus spends a night alone when his disciples can't even stay awake with him. He's praying. He is agonising, because he knows what's to come. He's arrested by the Roman guards he's taken, he's given a mock trial, he's falsely accused. And finally, he is crucified alongside two common criminals.

This was a very difficult time for Jesus. But this meal, in a sense symbolised what was about to happen, because Jesus says, when he shares the bread around, he says, This is my body given for you. And when he shares the cup around, and he says, This is my blood poured out for you, a reminder of the covenant that I'm making with you. It points towards Jesus death on the cross, his body being broken, his blood being poured out for each one of us. And this is the amazing thing about this symbolic meal. It reminds us as we even celebrate it today in a slightly different way, we celebrate this same meal today, when we break bread together. You know, in some churches, it's called communion, I tend to like it calling it breaking bread. When we share bread and wine together, around a meal table, just as Jesus did with his disciples. It's a reminder of what Jesus did for us. On the cross, where he began, he inaugurated he started a new covenant, a new agreement, not based on the old keeping of the laws, that was true for Moses' generation, and for 1500 years have been the case. But now it was a new covenant, based on God's absolutely unconditional love. For each of us, demonstrated through the death of his son, on the cross, through which, in him taking our punishment, for all the wrong things in our lives. We could ask for forgiveness, and thank God, that Jesus took the pain and the punishment that we deserve. So we, the guilty could go free.

And on that cross, he took our guilt, and our shame. And through the cross, we can ask for and receive forgiveness, and be made completely right with God, not on the basis of keeping any laws, but just on the basis of asking for forgiveness, and welcoming him into our lives.

As the boss, that scriptures called him, the Lord say, You are now the Lord of my life, and I welcome you and your forgiveness into my life. That new covenant, we now celebrate through the breaking of bread around the meal table. And it's a precious moment. But here's the thing.

When we do that, we are celebrating two kinds of covenants. And this is where I'm coming into land. Two kinds of Covenant. One is the covenant between God and man that he makes through the death of Jesus on the cross celebrated by the breaking of bread and the pouring of wine. But it's also there's another covenant going on here. This is so important, because we are sharing in that one piece of bread. It's saying we are part of one body. And scriptures talk about God's family as being his body. Those who represent Christ on the earth, we are together, we are one, we are called to be this family that represents Jesus. And we are called the body of Christ. So we are one body, and we share.

And when we share in that wine together, we're celebrating that we are all rescued by the blood of Jesus, in sharing in this one cup, reminding that we are one together. We share in his forgiveness. And also we share in the sense of mission, and calling which each of us are privileged to enjoy as part of his family. You see, we are invited not only into relationship with the Father, but into relationships with his family. The two go together, you can't separate them. There is no individualism.

In the family of God, we are family, as the song so brilliantly says and celebrates. We are family. And it's in this family that we find both meaningful connection and belonging. You see where I've come from now and how we're now landing on the main topic of today's talk. It's in this family, that we find meaningful connection and belonging. It's not a perfect family. The father is perfect. And you know, you may not have had a good experience of an earthly father, but just imagine what a perfect father would be like. Well, God, our Heavenly Father exceeds that by a long, long way. So even if the people in God's family aren't perfect, and my goodness, you know, if you've been around a while, you'll know that they're not.

Nevertheless, the forgiveness that he offers us, we learn to offer each other, we learn to live in these relationships of forgiveness, these relationships of love, where we commit to the very best for one another. It's God's heavenly community on earth. And as family, we share meals together, we share belongings, we share this amazing sense of mission, we're called together as his family to make a difference in the world. And it's in discovering something of that mission, something of the things that he's called us to be and do together, that we find meaning and purpose in our lives, that we're not just here for random reasons of atoms colliding. And, you know, we're not just the product of some fertilisation of an egg, and a sperm, we are here with purpose, we are here with meaning. God calls us into his family and into a sense of shared mission. Together, sometimes we describe ourselves as an extended family on mission. And it's the most wonderfully inclusive family, women and men, people from all ethnicities and social backgrounds. People are welcomed. It's a non judgmental, accepting and inclusive family. Everybody is welcome. And everybody has a part to play. When we have this meal together, it's a way of acting out that family reminder. You see, the individualism that we've been sold through our culture is a pale, it pales into insignificance to the sense of belonging and meaningful connection we find in his family. individualism always sells itself short thinking we can be the best best person that we can be on our own. Thinking that we can find our true selves. It's just not true. It's a lie.

It seems attractive, it just doesn't work we need to be in God's family. That's where we find our true selves. As we share our lives with one another. That's where we find our sense of significance in the part that we play. In God's purpose. That's what the meal is about.

That's what it means to be part of God's family. So let's not buy the lie anymore. We've been sold short, let's come to God and say, God, I want you to be my Heavenly Father, I want to be part of your family. And through most of history, this meal has been celebrated in the church, particularly the early church as a love feast. It was called an agape word for God's sacrificial love and Agape meal, where Christians would come together, they would celebrate, they would laugh, they would eat, they would, at the very centre of this joy filled time of eating and being family, they would break bread, and they would share wine together as a reminder that they are his, and that they belong to each other as a family and extended family on a mission together. So imagine this mealtime scenario that we've read about today. The smells of cooking and roasting lamb and, and wine, soldiers parading the streets and people rushing here and they're trying to find rooms trying to find places to eat their meals, barbecues going all over the place. Imagine the hubbub imagine in the upper room there, the low tables and the chatter around the tables, a sense of excitement. And yet Jesus trying to explain to them that something of incredible significance was about to happen.

Imagine where would you put yourself in that upper room? Would you be kind of at the meal, you know, hanging on to Jesus every word would you be maybe in the doorway, just listening from a distance? Not quite sure. Or maybe you'd put yourself out in the street? Just really? Not even interested? Maybe after thinking about this today, where would you like to be? Where would you like to be? So here's a couple of questions to think about. Where do you currently get your sense of meaningful connection and belonging from? Where do you currently get your sense of meaningful connection and belonging from question number two? Could the invitation to the father and his family provide something more that you might actually enjoy exploring from this point on? God bless you.

DISCUSSION

Nic Harding

Hi, Sal. Hi, Matt. Great to see you. Great to be on CROWD Church.

Matt Edmundson

You're here. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant talk, Nic. Well done. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.

Sally Burch

Yeah, really, really enjoyed everything that you had to say, Nick, there's so much to unpack from that. I feel like we won't have enough time to discuss everything that you kind of brought up that we will have a look at the comments in a minute. But before we do that, I just I was thinking about those people who are listening to what you're saying and thinking, yeah, I really want that. I want that connection. I want that family. I want to live like that. But I don't know how to even start, what would you say to those people?

Nic Harding

Well, I guess Sal, it depends on whether they would already think of themselves as someone who's following Jesus. If they're not, that's the first step. Because you only get to be part of God's family, when you start to connect with him as father. And so the first step would be just to come before God and say, Father, I thank you that you love me. Thank you that Jesus, you died for me. And I want to be connected to you. Because you see. Sal that's where we get our first meaningful connection problem when we connect with the person who made us who knows everything about us, who has designed us for a purpose. That's the first thing. If we've already got that connection, then we need to find the family that he's called us to be part of. And we're so blessed in this country, there are groups and churches all over this country who are would welcome anybody to join them. But I would say find a small group of Christians that you find you have something in common with you identify with, if they live nearby. That's ideal because you can pop in and out of each other's houses. I'm so blessed because I'm part of a small community of about 20 people who just live in a couple of streets all around us. And you know, I can just walk down the road in my slippers and, you know, say hi to somebody pick one of my sourdough loaves that just baked in, drop it off at their house, you know, get a cup of coffee on the doorstep with somebody, you know, it's that kind of closeness helps a lot. geographical closeness, but whats important are the relationships of trust. And that takes time to develop. Yeah, trust takes time to develop and but as we make ourselves vulnerable in the family of God, where he's placed us, then we start to get that sense of belonging. And then together, we discover purpose and meaning. Because when we find the right group of people, we find we share a sense of purpose and mission, and how we as together as a, as a part of God's family can make a difference in the world today.

Matt Edmundson

That's a great, great point. Do you think then, Nic, that you talked about when you're in that community, that small community, then you find you're, you know, that that purpose together? And so is it a case of the right people around you draw that purpose out of you, they, and they encourage you to walk in that purpose with God? and maybe that's perhaps one of the things that individualism misses out on a massive scale?

Nic Harding

That's definitely part of it, Matt, I think that when we find the right group of people, we do find a sense of shared mission or shared purpose together. And we discover it by interacting with each other. You know, because of the cult, I was using the word advisedly, the culture was a cult of individualism, you know, we tend to think we've got to find all this stuff out on our own. Actually, that's not how God wired us. Even when Jesus was training his disciples, He never sent them out on their own. You never said, okay, you know, Thomas is your is your assignment. You know, Matthew is your assignment, that at the very least, they went out in twos. And so we're called to be part of community, and to be on mission as a community together. I was just reading in the Sunday Times Magazine today. And it's an article all about the importance of social connection. And this is a great quote, it says this loneliness is turning out to be the modern killer disease, replacing the usual candidates, like smoking and obesity, and all those sort of things, replacing the usual candidates as the commonest underlying factor behind death.

Matt Edmundson

Wow.

Nic Harding

That's, that's an amazing quote in the whole article, you know, unpacks, all of that. And so yeah, we are, we are meant to belong, we're meant to be part of, you know, a group and because we're made in God's image, he wants us to be part of his family. That's when we find our ultimate purpose. You know, we often sometimes we come to a group with a sense of what we think we're called to do, and then you know, we start to interact. And that becomes shaped by all the things that together we bring to the table, and how we together want to make an impact in the world.

Sally Burch

Absolutely. I think that that that whole thing that you're saying about loneliness there, that's one of the reasons that kind of CROWD church came to beat us in this time, where even even more so now it's harder to connect with people, it's harder, even more people are kind of on their own, aren't they and lonely and we wanted to be a church for people who could connect digitally. But we also that was a kind of a good thing to mention, maybe Matt, our Wednesday night groups that we've got going where if you want a bit more connection, and you can become part of a smaller group, where we actually discuss discipleship, and things like that. And we'll be looking at maybe starting some more of those in the future as well, so that you can get connected digitally if you're not able to actually connect physically, at the moment.

Matt Edmundson

Yeah, it's very good. So yeah, on Wednesday nights, 8pm UK time, we have a zoom call where we connect with people, you are more than welcome to come join us. And in fact, I will put on the screen, the WhatsApp number again. So it's there. If you would like to know more, just reach out via the website, or you can connect with us via that WhatsApp number. And we'll let you know more details. It is a zoom meeting that we have on Wednesday nights. And the first one is getting quite quite a good size. So we'll be starting more soon. So do feel like Come and join us if you would like So Nic, I guess you know, in your talk, there was a lot of stuff. There's always a lot of meat when you talk Nic, you've got lots of notes going on. And at the end, I wrote it down. It's not an easy word to say, individualism always sell sells itself short, it's attractive, but it just doesn't work. Do you think that individualism is something that we need to guard against as Christians? Not just those that maybe aren't inside church, but those actually that are inside church? Do we need to guard against this?

Nic Harding

Absolutely, Matt, because we live in a culture that is soaked in individualism and it seeps into our own conscious and subconscious ways of thinking, behaving acting, and relating, you know, even our nuclear family structures for those who are blessed enough to have a nuclear family. That's an aberration. You know, most of the world's Most of history experiences life in extended family. And if you like, you know, these small groups of church life we call them communities are intended to somehow replicate that extended family and individualism means we always want to choose to do our thing, our own personal individual thing over above our together thing and you know whether that's how we order our time use our money, you know, share our home or don't share our home even that. Yeah, even this thing about how our homes you know, the an Englishman's houses his castle. No, let's blow the front doors off, let's, let's welcome people in let's have people around the table. You know, that's how we build community and individualism, It drives us away into our own personalised little world, you know, particularly where we, you know, we just resort to our screens, and, you know, the one or two people that we relate to maybe at work or in the neighbourhood, you know, that kind of individualism says, my privacy, My home is more important than actually sharing what I've got with others. But it's in the sharing that the joy comes, it's in the sharing that the sense of belonging comes and it's out of the sharing that the sense of meaningful purpose and connection comes.