Creating a Community this New Year
The
scene begins with a man, a homeless man, with his dog making their way through
an affluent neighborhood. This is winter and people need a place to get out of
the cold. McKeever has a system for living. He knows that this rich family
heads south for the winter so he takes up residence in an empty house while
they are in their other home. Normally,
McGeever leads a solitary life – just his dog and him. But this year he meets a
veteran who has just been kicked out of his apartment. McKeever invites him home.
This invitation leads to more veterans and their families coming to stay in the
mansion. Soon the house is full of people from old to young. There is life in
this house that usually only has the divorced second richest man in the nation.
His wife is gone, his daughter has run away and he has a house that even when
occupied by its owner is very empty and lonely.
But now the house is
full of life. The daughter who has run away actually is invited to stay. The
rich man who finds the squatters and his daughters is invited. Eventually even
his divorced wife comes to stay. In what had been an empty house there is
fullness and life. Laundry is done together, meals are shared, laughter and
singing becomes part of the routine. There is someone to watch the young while
the parents work. McKeever is worried that all of the noise and life will mean
an end to his winter squat. Being a movie, it all turns out happily ever after.
The veterans find jobs that allow them to provide for their families. The
daughter falls in love with the single veteran, and the divorced get back
together.
What struck me this
year as I watched “It Happened on 5th Avenue,” was the way in which
we create communities, families, even in the hardest of times. When we come
together, we can all bring enough of what is needed to the table that everyone
can have what they need not just to survive but to thrive. As we enter the new
year, I hope that we can begin to experience how Jesus invites us into a new
community where traits that alone can lead us to despair when part of a
community can be healed and provide the place where God works in and through
you. As we walk through the Beatitudes this new year, the Blessings we see mourning,
meekness, poverty, hunger, mercy, peacemaking, persecution become a vehicle to
a new community as followers of Jesus that show the world a new way to live
fully, completely, in the love of God.
“Let
me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out
the God-flavors of this earth. … “Here’s another way to put
it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. …Now
that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house;
be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to
open up with God” Matthew 5: 13-16
Jesus
invites us to bring out the God flavors, to bring out the God colors, to so
shine before all people that they want to join in this new community. “Love and
joy come to you,…”And God bless you, and send you A Happy New Year, And God
send you a Happy New Year.”
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