Healing Rays of Righteousness

In her book, Bring Us Together, Marjorie Holmes writes this yearning prayer for community. “Oh, God, we go through life so lonely, needing what other people can give us, yet ashamed to show that need. And other people go through life so lonely, hungering for what it would be such a joy for us to give. Dear God, please bring us together, the people who need each other, who can help each other, and would so enjoy each other.”

If you are old enough to remember the TV series, THE WALTONS, you may remember one of the programs in which a small black boy, named Josh, is in conversation with Jim-Bob and says, “You were born belonging. That must be a great feeling – to belong.”

I fully believe that God created every human heart with the need to belong, to be accepted, included, and cared for in a community with other human beings. Indeed, he created us to live together in communities of love for one another.

One of the problems in our Western society is our emphasis on individualism, which has greatly diminished our sense of community, and even a felt need for it. I believe individualism is a characteristic of the human heart that leads away from God and his intention for every human being to be in community with others.

When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, he answered by saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” And then he added this, “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39).

To follow Jesus command, we must use the biblical language of community rather than the cultural language of individualism. To experience the abundant life he promised us, we must use the language of mutuality, of caring for one another, providing for one another, and being accountable to one another.

The early Christian community caught this vision and became a fellowship of sacrificial love, sharing life at all levels of spiritual, social, and economic relationships, such shelter, clothing, food, and wealth.

God’s design and purpose of community is what biblical scholars have named “the ministry of shared pilgrimage.” This is a priestly role for all people of God, and fits well into Anabaptist theology regarding the belief in the priesthood of all believers.

Anabaptist Christians regarded the need to live in community as an essential core value.
Myron Augsburger, a highly regarded theologian and pastor who is deeply rooted in the Anabaptist tradition, defines this biblical understanding of “love in community” in his book, “The Robe of God.”
“First, love personalizes relationships rather than institutionalizing them. We are to look at people as ends in themselves and never as a means to some other end.
Second, love energizes relationships rather than legalizing them. Jesus moves us beyond codes to compassion. As we care for people, we regard the law only as a means for treating others with justice and mercy.
Third, love immortalizes relationships rather than temporalizing them. We have been called to always look beyond the need of the immediate, to share the quality and the extension of the eternal. We are not to make our decisions solely on the basis of the needs of the moment. With eternity in view, we share to invest in a life.”

I think this is a compelling, directive word for all of us, countering the noisy, tempting, siren calls of individualism. But most importantly, it is a much needed directive word for church congregations and their related ministries.

It saddens me to witness how our culture’s focus on individualism is so rapidly diminishing God’s call for all mankind to be primarily focused on mutuality, a shared pilgrimage of caring for one another, providing for one another, and being accountable to one another.

Myron Augsburger’s definitions of love in community, help us to “walk our talk,” that is, to act out our Christian beliefs regarding community in the way we care and provide for others. It is about transforming our work and worship into Christian ministry.

The question for each of us to ask ourselves is, how am I today and every day nurturing a community spirit of concern for others in my home, work, and church relationships.

“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (1 Peter 3:8-9).

“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – February 19, 2020
http://www.geigler13.wordpress.com
Ray M. Geigley