What is REAL Community? Living Life Together is Messy
COMMUNITY IN VARIOUS PLACES
I have heard the word ‘community’ my entire life. And when I hear the word, it conjures up all sorts of images in my mind. I think of community in terms of the place that I live and the people that live alongside me – the people who my family interacts with at school and the grocery store and on the Little League field. I think of it in terms of the city I live in and the complexities of my Houston community with its 4+ million inhabitants from all over the world. I think of it in terms of geography and the place on the map that my family is a part of.
And then there’s the community that I belong to because of my ethnicity. I am an Asian American, married to an Asian American. Our ethnic identity has defined much of our community growing up. Our families were predominately Chinese and therefore our social circles were predominantly Asian. And of course, add to it the community we establish because we are related to one another and we have our family community.
But mostly when I think of community, I think of the places of faith we have been a part of. And, over the past twenty years, when I think of my faith community, I think of my church. Here is where some of our closest and best friends have been found. Here is where we baptized our one-year-old son in the presence of a congregation who promised to help raise him in the faith with us. Here is where he was confirmed just a few weeks ago, many of those same people who had been there 14 years ago, present to witness that we had kept our promises together. Here is where we have witnessed amazing grace and care when we traveled a difficult road with our son’s health and prayed and waited for healing for a month in the PICU. Here is where we gather and love, gather and grieve, gather and give, gather and hope. This community has sustained us, loved us and walked us through some of our most important and significant moments. And it is also the community where we have experienced some of the deepest pain there could be in the midst of conflict and disagreement; where some of the harshest words have been aimed at us, where we have scars as reminders of some of the wounding that has happened in the midst of this fellowship. It has been a wonderful, beautiful, painful and hard place. Because this is community. It’s messy. It’s beautifully messy. This is REAL community.
THE HOUR OF DISILLUSIONMENT
In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, explains that it is in our weaknesses, mine and my brother’s/sister’s that we find true community:
“…is not what has been given us enough: brothers who will go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of His grace? Is the divining gift of Christian fellowship anything less than this, any day, even the most difficult and distressing day? Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us live in the forgiving love of Jesus Christ? Thus the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and Deed which really binds us together – the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship.” (Chapter 1)
Yes. When we get past the ‘kumbayah’ images in our minds — past the ‘everyone is happy and smiling and there is no conflict’ — that is when and where we find real community, true Christian fellowship. Because the messiness of the Body is a reminder to us that we all are in need of the love and grace and forgiveness of Jesus. And in that remembering, we are able to extend it to one another. Amidst the messiness of sin and hurt and pain, we find true fellowship when we remember what Jesus did for ALL of us.
WHERE TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED
In April, author and speaker Ruth Haley Barton preached at my church. Knowing we had been wrestling with the discernment process and that she was speaking to a congregation with a mixture of emotions, she used the famous Matthew 18 passage as the text for the sermon. Of course, we know all about this particular scripture – a way, a process for how we as brothers and sisters are called to walk through conflict. She pointed something out at the end of the passage which is oft quoted and taken out of context in verses 19-20: “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
We oft read this part of the passage as a reason for claiming the Lord is in our midst when we get a few of us together to pray. Needless to say, we know that God is in our midst even if we are praying by ourselves. But taken as a part of the entire passage on conflict and forgiveness, it is a testimony to the messiness of community and a road map to resolving conflict. In conflict we are called to pray together, to be in agreement and ask God to come and be present in the middle of our disagreement. As Ruth Haley Barton put it, where there are two or three, there is conflict. And where there is conflict, God is in our midst. In the following verses we are called to forgive seventy seven times.
In REAL community, God asks us to call him into the mess and to help us work through it. In REAL community we see that ALL of us, each and every one of us, is not a part of the fellowship because of our own words or deeds, but because Jesus is the one who binds us together, because ALL of us need his forgiveness. REAL community is born right smack dab in the middle of conflict, difficulty, disagreement. Because if we can see the Jesus in one another, we can see into the good and beautiful community he has for us. We can be committed to one another because Jesus is committed to us.
HOW DO WE EXPERIENCE REAL COMMUNITY IN THE REAL WORLD?
Easier said than done. In fact, I would say that my experience has not been this. Disagreement rarely leads to community in much of the world I have been in – and most especially in the world of ministry and faith. Instead of experiencing the grace of Jesus, I have oft felt the pain of rejection in the Body of Christ when the harsh reality of conflict shatters our ‘perfect community’ mentality. Mostly I have experienced division and disillusionment. Often it is fear that drives wedges between us – fear of rejection, fear of what we don’t understand about one another, fear that perhaps God isn’t with us in the messy world of relationships. But in those instances where we stand our ground and commit to stay, to pray for agreement, to work through that which would tear us apart, to agree that it is not from our own doing that REAL community happens – well, that is when we have the authentic experience of the kind of love that we feel deep in our bones. And I am happy to say there have been rare moments where I have experienced this. I would do good to remember these places where I have been privileged enough to experience such beauty lived out in relationships.
And so I am asking myself – what does this mean practically? How is this truth lived out in real life? What does it look like? I’ve been pondering that a lot, looking for examples in my own life and world that help me see “…the morning mists of dreams vanish…” and the dawn of “…the bright day of Christian fellowship.”
I’d love to know what it looks like for you, in your own community. How is it on a day-to-day basis you are able to live out the ‘remembering that neither you nor your brothers and sisters live by your own words and deeds but only by that one Word and Deed that binds you together?’ Please share with us!
