A long time ago, I attended a church that had one genuine celebrity in it.  

She was an English actress, based mostly in New York, who had a weekend home in the area—a home that became a real refuge for her during what became an extremely salacious, painful, and public divorce.  

Our small town was far from perfect, and like many small places, it ran on gossip the way an airplane runs on jet fuel. 

But when it came down to it, even we were no match for the relentless gaze of the New York Post, and the actress slowly found a lot of healing by being among us.  

And church was very much a part of this.  

She was a faithful person for sure.  

But in her case, church (specifically) and our town (generally) allowed her to be something she didn’t get to be very often, anymore—it was a place where she just got to be a person.  

One among many.  Unremarkable.  

If you were a kid, she was just another mom-aged person who was blocking the cookie table at Coffee Hour.  

And she could not have been more grateful for or in need of just that very thing.  

What a gift it was to be able to be just a person. 

It’s funny because in that same church at that same time was another woman, the unofficial soloist of the church choir.  

If you’re not familiar with small churches in small places, you may not quite have a picture in mind.  

If you know that kind of church, then you probably just had a picture, maybe even from your distant past, snap into your mental Viewmaster.  

Small choirs in small places can be like karaoke at the office Christmas party—there are a few people who are very enthusiastic, but only one or two who can really carry a tune.  

And carry it, they do, indeed. 

This woman was that person for this choir.  

It was incredibly important to her.  

The rest of her week was fairly quiet, even by local standards. 

This meant that, for her, the gift of church was that it was a place to shine.  Theplace.  

I don’t mean it in any selfish way.  

I know this because the church brought out, not her inner diva, but the better angel of her nature.  

For one hour a week, anyway, she radiated joy. 

Now, if this was a Hallmark movie, the next story would be about the duet on Christmas Eve with the famous actress and the small-town soloist. 

Maybe you’ve seen that clip from a few years ago with Kristen Chenoweth and that voice teacher who gets called out of the audience, doing a duet at the Hollywood Bowl?  

I’m sorry to report that, as far as I know, a duet with the actress and the church soloist never happened.

The real point, of course, is that it didn’t need to. 

The point is that they needed different gifts. 

And the point is that somehow, in the endless creativity of God’s abounding love, the church was where each of them received what they needed most. 

Actually, that’s the thing that’s worth remembering.   

Truth be told, I wish more people knew how often that happens, not only in that church, but in any church – and certainly, also in this one.

While we’re at it, I wish more churches remembered how often that actually happens…(and if I may say it with love) including this one.  

It seems to me that it’s so important to remember, especially now, when time and space to gather can be so hard to come by. 

Our world seems so intent on putting us and keeping us in silos that only let us live into one small part of who we are—silos that let us learn only some small portion of what we’d like to know.  

There is so much that seems to be conspiring to keep us strangers, unwilling and unable to see one another’s point of view, eager to have us faithful in rejecting what one another have to say, if we even get together long enough to hear it.  

This is more costly than we know.  

It forgets that some of God’s blessings can only come into being through the work we can only accomplish when we do it together.

It’s a conspiracy that denies the power of God to give us exactly what we need through the miracle of one another, and maybe even work through our very differences.  

We see a moment of that in this morning’s gospel, which comes from Luke. 

It’s the story of a Roman centurion, clearly long-stationed in Capernaum, with some remarkable consequences. 

Because while he’s a centurion, he’s no longer exactly Rome’s man.  

Rome was all about keeping people divided and afraid of one another. 

Rome was all about silos and whatever it took to enforce them.  

Ironically, this man, the centurion would have been one of their enforcers – two of their boots on the ground, as it were. 

But in the endless creativity of God’s abounding love, something has happened to this man. 

Do you think he just showed up at the old synagogue one day? 

They’re all there, at prayer, and suddenly at the door, there’s this 7 foot tall Roman officer, with his bronze helmet and armor and his cape and cudgel…and the room goes completely silent, waiting for him to step forward to arrest someone. 

But he doesn’t.  

Instead, he takes off the helmet and sits in one of the pews in the way back, and he listens as the service picks up again, uncertain at first but slowly getting back into its rhythm.  

And the next sabbath, he’s back.  And the sabbath after that.  

It’s all very careful—and they give him space, and he never pulls rank.

And over time, it becomes clear that it’s here, in the synagogue of all places, that this man just gets to be another person. 

In fact, the gift of this is so precious, that he decides that he’s going to be a blessing to these people – even to the point of building them a new synagogue out of his own pocket, and even though he’s still just sitting in the back, all by himself, a fish out of water, evolving in front of their eyes.   

And so, sometime after that, when his servant is sick, and he asks for Jesus’ help—Jesus’ healing—these are the people who vouch for him. 

Because to them, he’s not just a person.  

He’s a shining light.  

The better angel of his nature has inspired their better angels into trying to bless him back. 

But the real blessing comes from each one of them doing what only each could do, refusing the world’s silos, making space for God’s abundance through the miracle of one another, and building something they can only create together.  

It seems to me that we find ourselves in a similar moment, and that once again, God is calling us to a similar project. 

 Our neighbors need many things.  

If we’re honest, we come with plenty of needs, ourselves. 

Yet in the miracle of God’s abounding love, we all gather to receive and to be transformed in receiving.  

May our eyes be opened, and may we recognize him, especially as strangers become partners, enemies become friends, light shines forth in darkness, and each of us finally gets to be who it is we really are. 

Amen.