I would suspect that most people would not list the first part of the sixteenth chapter of Romans as their favorite passage of scripture. We much prefer selections such as John 3:16 - “For God so loved the world,” or Psalm 23:1 – “The Lord is my shepherd,” or similar pithy statements. I cannot recall any great piece of literature that quotes from Romans 16. To us, it sounds more or less like the “begat” sections you find in Genesis or Chronicles, or the long genealogies that begin the Gospel According to Matthew. Romans 16 seems to be just a list of strange names that no one likes to read aloud because no one can really pronounce them. But to me this strange passage is really a beautiful and deeply meaningful one that speaks of one of the great truths of the Christian faith. The great truth is that the living God creates a great family of people of faith and then this same living God accomplishes his work through the work of the family that he makes.

One of the dangers of religious faith is that we often try to reduce our faith to a set of rules or a list of principles or a selection of propositions that we call truth. And while those things are necessary, we must always remember that all faith and all religion are played out in the lives of very real people. Faith is first of all about God working in and through people before it is about rules or principles or propositions. And when we encounter a list of names of real people who lived in a particular moment of history we are reminded that God also is working in and through real people with real names living in our own particular moment of history. Take a moment and try to put a face on some of these names. What is the color of Phoebe’s hair? How tall is Epaenetus? How old was Urbanus when Paul wrote his letter? Was Tryphaena a stonemason or a farmer? Could Rufus sing? Was Olympas a good discus thrower or perhaps better at some other sport? Paul knew the faces and names and personal characteristics of each one of these people. And you and I know our own set of people who are part of the family of the church. We can call their names, hear their voices, and remember why we love them.

The Judeo-Christian tradition of faith holds that one of the most important things God does is to create for himself a people, a large and growing family of those who have felt the gentle stirrings of his Spirit in their own hearts and welcomed his presence in their lives. Our faith is not only about a private and solitary experience of God. It is also about a community, a web of relationships, a network of other people. Paul ends his great theological summary that is the bulk of his letter to the Romans by greeting some of the particular people who were important to him. Without those people, real flesh-and-blood people, all the great theology in the world was meaningless.

God creates a family of people who belong to him and who belong to each other. That is one of the first things God does with us, is to connect us to each other. But God is not the only one who has work to do in that regard. God then involves us in doing his work. Notice what Paul says about some of these folks. Phoebe is a deacon in the church and he wants the believers in Rome to welcome her and to help her in her work for the church. Prisca and Aquila “risked their necks” for Paul’s sake. Mary worked hard for the sake of the church. Paul refers to Urbanus as a “co-worker.” God works through the family of the church for the sake of the church family and also for the sake of the biological families in which people live. Paul mentions Rufus and then he speaks of Rufus’ mother. I wish he had written her name. Regardless of her name, what Paul says of her is important: she was a mother to Paul. Think about that for a moment. Here was Paul, who traveled constantly, who made his home in many different places during his lifetime, who was often persecuted and imprisoned and beaten. A man like that needs a mother, and here he speaks of someone in the church family who mothered him. We can only guess at the depth of feeling Paul had for her. Happy Mother’s Day, Rufus’ mom!

God creates a family and God works through his family. Jesus was the best example of that. Jesus’ ministry began when he asked twelve men to become a band of brothers in which they could personally experience what it means to be fully human and in which they then could personally carry on the work of ministry that Jesus began, which was all about welcoming others into the family. And so you find that word, “family,” sprinkled throughout the scriptures, and especially in the New Testament. Earlier in his letter to the Romans Paul said that Jesus was the firstborn in a large family, referring to Jesus’ resurrection and to the fact that the whole Christian family begins with faith in Jesus. Paul encouraged the Christians in Galatia to work for the good of all people, especially those who were in the family of faith. When Peter preached one of his first sermons, as recorded in Acts, he reminded his fellow Jews about God’s promise to Abraham, a promise to make a great family from Abraham’s line that would in turn become a blessing to all the families of the earth. And James, always the practical one who wanted to see faith put into action, reminded the early Christians that if their brother or sister needed clothing that prayer alone was not good enough, but that we should literally take care of each other’s needs in the family. God creates a family and God works through his family so that the family can grow and flourish and ultimately encompass the whole human family.

This concept of the church as a family of God is so profound and so powerful precisely because our biological families are so fundamentally important in human life. God creates and we celebrate our biological families as well as our theological families. The first great story of scripture that completes the story of creation is the story of the first family, of Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. And what we celebrate and enjoy in our biological families are the very things we celebrate and enjoy in our theological family, which is the church. Let’s think about our biological families. Our families are meant to be the source of our greatest joy. We do not agree with George Burns, who said, “Happiness is having a large, close-knit family in another city.” Families begin when a man and a woman fall in love and commit themselves to each other in marriage, which is all about two people deciding that they are better together than they are apart. Families grow when children are born and then are fed, watered, fertilized, and nurtured into becoming adults. We celebrate that today especially on Mother’s Day, and we note what someone called the Number One child-rearing myth, which is that labor ends when the baby is born. Being part of a family is hard work and not always easy, and so we often rely on expert advice from people like Erma Bombeck, who said, “When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out.” One of my former associate pastors used to refer to young adolescent children as “pre-people,” and in a sense every one of us is a “pre-person” because we are all learning at every age and stage of life to become who God created us to be. Family is the place where people of every age and every stage are loved, encouraged, protected, welcomed, enjoyed, and engaged in helping every other member of the family to have the benefits and blessings that God created into life from the very beginning. The family of our biological origin and of our faith expression is, to quote Dodie Smith, “that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.”

The capital stewardship campaign that we are currently conducting has helped us to think again about what is fundamental and right and good about the life of our church. We are building something together here. But what are we building? Last week we talked about the fact that we are building upon the foundation of faith in Jesus as the Christ of the living God. Without that we have nothing. Because of this faith we have in Jesus we are also building in the way that Jesus himself built and building the same thing that Jesus himself started: we are becoming a family of faith and we are continuing to build that family by welcoming others to join us as brothers and sisters in the church. The Village Church is all about building faith and building families, both kinds of families, including our biological families of moms and dads and kids and grandparents and cousins and all the rest, as well as what I have called our “theological” family, the family of the church. Both kinds of family are crucially important to God and to us. Both kinds of family are a necessary ingredient in the world that God made and in the experience that you and I have of living a fully blessed human life that in turn becomes a blessing to others.

Every family needs a home, a place within which they live and work and play. We are currently expanding and improving our church home. Several years ago our church family decided that we needed more and better space in which to worship, in which to meet for education and nurture, in which to meet for meals and fellowship and fun, in which to come together to celebrate the important moments of life in baptisms, in weddings, in funerals, and more and better space in which we can welcome other people to join our family and therefore find the richness of life that we experience here. The church campus is nothing more and nothing less than an extension of our own private homes, and like all homes, we found ourselves in a place where we needed to do some fixing up. I hope you feel at home here as much as you do in your own places of residence.

Most importantly, I hope that you feel at home in this particular branch of the family of God. Our Village Church is a tiny little twig on the great family tree, but it’s our twig. And we need it and it needs us. Fred Allen said, “I don’t have to look up my family tree because I know that I’m the sap.” We know what he means. We know what it is to feel unimportant, unappreciated, unloved in our own families and in the church family. But remember, without sap, a tree dies. And without you, a family is diminished. We so often take our families for granted. And we so often take our own responsibility to our families for granted. Our private families and our church family require more work, more love, more patience, more time, more energy, more forgiveness, more money, more endurance, more of everything than just about anything else in life. Family takes it all, but family also gives it all. And so today I want you to celebrate your family, both kinds. I want you to thank your family, to work hard for your family, to heal your family, to contribute to your family, to look back on the great history of your own family and to look forward to an even greater future for your family, and especially, to thank God for the great gift that our families are. As you leave this place that is your church home and as you go to your own homes commit yourselves again to those whom God has given you in your own household and in the household of faith.

Amen.