The Call to Community

Perhaps my favorite word in the Bible, right after salvation, redemption, love and the like (OK, there’s a lot I like in the Bible), is community. Community means that I am part of something bigger than myself, that I am not alone and that my contribution counts.

There should be no division in the body, but its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. I Corinthians 12:25-27

Jesus lived community, and set examples for how we should live out our expression of community. He knew that our idea of community would consist of power over each other, of selfish desire and of self-promotion. He lived the exact opposite, and expects us to follow his example.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus; who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant… Philippians 2:5-7

Jesus lived community by becoming a servant. He reduced himself to fit into a human body, just so he could save us. He suffered death and rose again, and then he left, sending his Spirit to unite us and make use one body, his body. 

One of my favorite examples of how we are to live in community occurred just before Jesus’ arrest. Jesus knows his time is up. The meal is served, Judas has already left to betray him, and Jesus was getting ready to go home.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. John 13:1b

What follows is what John considers the full extent of Jesus’ love for his disciples, his earthly community.

He got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet, drying them with a towel that was wrapped around him. John 13:4-5

Jesus great power was expressed in servanthood. Whoever had booked the room for their feast that night had neglected to arrange for a servant to look after their needs. The roads were dirt and dust, and they wore sandals. It was the servant’s job to wash their feet. Not one of them lowered themselves to do the job of the servant. Jesus lived servanthood, and admonished them to do the same. He who would be great in Jesus’ kingdom must be servant of all. Jesus was the greatest in all regards.

Peter was aghast. He objected to allowing Jesus to wash his feet. Jesus was no servant! He was Messiah! Peter should have been washing Jesus’ feet. The thing is, if Peter had lowered himself to be a servant, had offered to wash feet, Jesus wouldn’t have been wrapping that towel around his own waist. Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for not serving, but offers him the choice; “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” Unless you accept my gift of servanthood, you can’t be part of my community.

I struggle with community. I don’t want to be your servant, but even more, I don’t want to allow you to serve me. I have just as difficult a time accepting your gifts as I do wanting to give you mine. Maybe harder. But that’s the nature of community. I use my gift to teach you and build you up. You use your gift to encourage me and make me stronger. We are better together than we are alone. Community means mutuality. Serve and be served. Wash and be washed.

Pick up the basin. Wrap that towel around your waist. Sit down and take off your sandals. Engage in community. Jesus is here. There is no better place to be.

A Life Without Regret

As you lay on your deathbed, what thoughts will go through your mind? Will it be filled with warm memories of a life well lived? Will it be filled with thoughts of people you loved, and who love you? Will it be filled with pleasure, or will it be filled with regret?

My guess is that most of us will have a combination of all of these. I don’t have a lot of regrets. Part of that is because I believe that our mistakes are part of our becoming the person that we are. I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes. I do have a few regrets. I regret that I didn’t stick up for myself more when I was younger. Mostly I regret that I didn’t take the time to be kinder.

Now, I am not by nature an unkind person. I am, however, a busy person. I am a fixer, a doer, someone who listens with action in mind. When I was younger, there were always a million things that needed to be done, a child who needed attending to, a church program that needed working, a meal that needed cooking or a room that needed cleaning. I was always in a hurry. I wish I had listened more. I wish I had taken time to sit in the park and listen to the lonely mother, or the grandmother. I wish that when I had taken a meal to a sick friend I had stopped for a moment to listen.

 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Galatians 6:9-10

I know that sometimes I got tired of being sensitive to every one else’s needs. Sometimes I had a misguided sense of what was important. There were clothes that needed washing and dinners to cook. Maybe I would have taught my kids better about what was really important if I had stopped for a minute, and done a kind thing. Mostly I regret the relationships I missed out on or slighted by not taking the time to be kind.One author says that true love equals listening. People want to be heard. People need to be heard.

God gives us to each other, to help each other, to lift each other up. We are also given to each other for our benefit, to remind us that while sometimes we are the giver, other times we are the receivers of relationship, of compassion and kindness, of help. Sometimes when we stop and take a minute to listen or to reach out in compassion, the one we really help is us. When we fail to do the kind thing, when we are too busy to stop and listen, the one who loses is us. And the other person.

Heaven is made up of the Body of Christ, you and me, living in eternal relationship. The laundry and the job and the errands and the programs are temporal. You and I are eternal. When we do good, when we are kinder and more sensitive, when we love, we are investing in the eternal. When we set aside ourselves and our excuses, we live into the perfect eternity that we are already a part of.

When I die, will my tombstone say, “This wasn’t on her to-do list,” or will it say, “She loved well.” I’m learning to live for the latter.

How big is your heart?

“I shall run the way of Thy commandments, for Thou wilt enlarge my heart.”  Psalm 119:32

God desires obedience.  “Be holy as I am holy” says God in Lev. 19:2 and again in I Peter 1:16.  Holiness demands sinlessness, an adherence to God’s commands. We need to “run in the way” of His commandments, understanding and obeying them.  Many of us work hard to be obedient, believing that the key to obedience is self-discipline and prayer. I am a fairly disciplined person, but when I think of being sinless, of being holy, I am overwhelmed. There is not enough discipline in the world to make me always obedient.   The Psalmist suggests that the key is to be found elsewhere.

           

Jesus said that the whole of the law could be summed up in two phrases: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  He also said that He didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  The key to obedience to God is to embrace and live by the committed and self-sacrificing love to which Jesus refers. 

           

Love goes beyond the rules and straight to the heart.  Love tells us not only to love our neighbor, but to love our enemy and to pray for him.  Love tells us to go beyond human response and to instead respond like Jesus would the same situation.  Love does what the law could only hint at; it changes us at the heart level.  Love remakes us in the image of God because God is love and the author and originator of love.  Love obeys the spirit of the law, and so obedience is achieved.  We can run in the way of His commands because we reflect the image of Jesus, and fulfill the commands.

           

The reason we struggle to live in obedience is because our hearts are too small.  To become more obedient, we need to become more loving.  To overcome temptation, we need to see things through the eyes of the other, to love enough to do the right thing, to live as Jesus would.  We need Him to enlarge our hearts.

Dear God, enlarge my heart.  Give me enough love, for You and others, to be obedient.  Make me holy.

The Saddness of Sin

You and I have been friends forever, my whole adult life. We’ve had times when we didn’t get in touch for years, and then all of a sudden we were back in contact, and while we rarely agree our conversations were sweet, and frequently challenging!

Today my heart is grieved. Not just sad; broken.  You hurt someone I love. But more than that, you hurt yourself, over and over, by refusing to see your sin and by justifying in your own head all of your actions. This time, you admit that you had an error in judgment (how could you not?) but you still keep deflecting.

The thing is, your sin isn’t just about you.

It’s about the other person. Your sin hurts the person you involved in it. Yes, their participation is their fault, but it is also your fault.

It’s about the Body of Christ. We are all interconnected. When you sin, we all hurt.

It’s about the heart of God. He grieves as well. You are hurting one of the people he loves most (YOU!). He wants the best for you. You’re not cooperating. He wants healing for you, complete healing. It won’t be without scars, and it will take obedience and submission. Sacrifice. We hate those words. I hate those words. Healing doesn’t happen without them.

We all sin. It doesn’t surprise God when we sin; he is mindful that we are dust. He knows us way better than we know ourselves. So why is it such a big deal? Because when we refuse to deal with the sin in our lives we are participating in death, and we weren’t created for death. Until we deal with the sin in our lives, the big and little sin, we aren’t free to be all that God created us to be. We aren’t free to fully participate in relationship with God and with each other. God is recreating us in the image of his Son. There is no room for sin there. There is only room for right relationships.

We are all in process. None of us has arrived, and we all have blind spots. Yep, me too. You, too. I am praying for you, my friend. I hope you are praying for me. We need each other in the Body to encourage and support each other, to help with those blind spots, to confront our sin and to push us closer to God. I love you enough to extend grace, and to confront when I have to. Nobody likes confrontation. I hate it. But I love you more. And there is no joy greater than true repentance.

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:1-2

God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Luke 18:13

Goofy love

At my school there is a one-lane road that goes past the library. There is a lot of foot traffic that crosses it, so there is a stop sign and a mirror, so that you can see if someone might be coming. A young man was walking along with a baby in a Snuggli on his chest. It was at a time when most classes were in session, so he was largely alone. He stopped at the mirror, and pointed to the baby in the mirror, talking to the baby in the Snuggli, smiling and sweet with a really goofy look on his face. He then kissed the baby on the top of the head, and continued on. I watched this exchange through the window of the class I was attending, and the thought occurred to me that men have no idea how attractive they are to women when they are sweet and tender, especially to their children. There is something incredibly appealing about the combination of masculine strength and fraternal tenderness.

           

I have to wonder that if we understood that this is a picture of how God loves us, how could any of us resist him? The Ultimate Strength loves us in the most tender of ways.

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.” I John 3:1

This is our reality. The great God, who created the universe, loves me. He loves me like the father I watched loves his baby. There is a tender, goofy sense to how much God delights in us. He loves watching us grow, playing with us, feeding us, communicating with us.

There is fierceness to his love, as well. He is guiding us, building us into his people, the bride for his Son. He protects us.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time, and now and forever. Jude 24-25

He is able. He is our Father. He is willing. We are his.

These are such simple truths, little bitty sentences that contain so much love and tenderness for us. I have written often about the relationship that God desires with us recently. I have to wonder how different our lives might be if we could grasp and believe how loved we are. I confess that I struggle in this area. I believe in God’s love for me in a big, overarching way, in the way that he loves all humanity. I struggle to understand that God loves me like a father loves his baby, like a King loves his princess. Intellectually I know it; my heart struggles to believe it in a way that makes it a part of the way I live.

If I really believed that God loves me in this way I would never struggle with what other people think of me. I would live in obedience, knowing that God really does have my best interests and my joy in mind. I would never feel insecure, wondering what anybody could find interesting about me. I may not be interesting, but I am his!

“Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God…” I John 4:7

“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

We were his enemies. He has adopted us as his children. We fight him. We disobey him. We ignore him. Still he loves us. I am so blown away by this truth, and yet sometimes I forget. You forget. And so he gives us to each other, to love each other and remind each other of how precious we are to him.

How different would your life look if you lived into this truth today? Could you assume the best intention from your husband when he does something you perceive as hurtful, because you know your worth? Could you reach out one more time to that angry, surly teenager, because she needs to be reminded of how precious she is? Would you take the time to reach out to that sister who is hurting, knowing that sometimes encouragement requires skin and arms? Would you be able to let go of the hurt that resides in your heart because of the callous way someone has treated you, knowing how much God has forgiven you in order to love you as his child?

Consider yourself reminded. You are loved. You are precious. God gets that goofy look when he thinks about you. Now, go remind someone else.