Christian Community

The following was preached on July 16th 2015, at Asbury Camp and Retreat Center, Family Camp Evening service. 

Community is one of those words we hear often. Almost too often. We hear it at school, PTA meetings, church services, our towns, cities and villages. All these are different types of communities that have something to offer the greater good. We can often find ourselves being pulled into many different directions by them. There is one community that is radically different than all the others that weave into our daily lives. This community is often the hardest to want to be a part of. This crucial and life-giving community, is a Christian community.

Christian community can be alternatively thought of as being in one big family, where baptism marks us with Christ, our common denominator. In Ephesians (2:19) Paul says: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God”. God has a big house and there is space for all people who want in on his family. One of my favorite authors, Barbra Brown Taylor said “Jesus did not despise the family, but he did redefine it. For him, family was not a matter of whose chromosomes you carry around inside of you, but whose image you were created in”.

Now, we have a little better idea of what Jesus likes to think about community. Birthed in the creative love of God; his gathered community, his church, even this group of people here at Asbury on this retreat, have to find ways of maintaining   community. How on earth do we keep Christian community? Love. Not romantic love, that’s weird for a group of people. Not a simple tolerance of each other, that’s superficial and unauthentic. God calls us to an agape love. Agape in Greek, means unconditional love. It is used to describe the love that Christ has for us, and the acceptance and dignity we should give each other. This kind of love calls us not to a blind free for all, feel-good-vibes, love, but one that weaves concern, support and accountability to and with one another. This kind of love calls us into the new human community.

In the scripture we read together from Ephesians, we see Paul trying to appeal for unity among diversity. He tries to balance the divine calling of being one with each other, and the human responsibility for putting in the effort to maintain it. With the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”, we name God at the center, and go to work, reflecting our common denominator, Christ. This concern should not exclude those who are “not with us” but should serve as a reminder that we should be in concern for all those we encounter, even those we disagree with, have hurt us, or exclude themselves.

One regular reminder we have as Christians to be in and maintain community is the one God forms in Holy Communion. It is a mystery how God takes simple bread and wine (grape juice), uses them to carry his love and power to us, and bring us into his very heart. In this action, we as humans are forced to see one another as welcomed and wanted by God. The reality that God loves each one of us so much, and calls everyone to his table shows that even those we least expect, or want to think, are just as beloved and called as you are. This common bread and common cup teaches us that it isn’t us who is the host of this Holy Meal, but God, and that others are God’s beloved sons or daughters too. We begin to see each other as God sees us. Rowan Williams said “For that short time, when we gather at God’s table, the Church becomes what it is meant to be- a community of strangers who have become guests together and are listening together to the invitation of God”.

God invites us to be together in faith, hope and love. God consistently calls us to the way things will be, and points us to that with offensively simple things like bread, wine, water and words. God’s calls us to the way people should be, together as a family.