Last Sunday was the second of four Sunday morning service sermons given by an interim pastor, Dr. Stratos. This is come about, you might find it big news to learn, because our pastor of seven years was called to shepherd another congregation in Phoenix, Arizona and left us mid-August.
Dr. Stratos made a comment on how the rise of fundamentalist Christianity, and its culture of pointing to the Word of God for conduct in life, while good, has unfortunately created arbitrary lines in the sand between us and everyone else who doesn't live like we do. It's a discomfort which he said needed to be abolished in our hearts before God could use us to love on others not only within our church but especially outside of it, and win people to Christ. And I firmly agree.
Bonhoeffer describes in the previous post's excerpts that Christian fellowship is fashioned by God and held together by the authority of the Word. But I also think there is equal value to apply his writings to community of any kind where we evangelicals are bound with those that (may or) may not be saved.
As I can hear at this moment in my mind Stratos reminding us in his sermon, were not the homeless and criminals and more, created in the image of God? Just like anyone, they are waiting for someone to come and be Jesus to them. To love on them, and show them Jesus, in us. That is how they will come to know and believe in Him.
Here is what Bonhoeffer said:
A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattererd, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
And the same is true for communities in the general manner. If we cannot bear the people who are markedly different than us, then how believable is it that Jesus does?
I've spent four and a half years being in community with a group of LDS people. Unfortunately, I have to report that when I began I was the kind of Christian who could not tolerate differences, as Bonhoeffer says I was one who brought "with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it." I had a specific way of reading and believing upon the scriptures and history which they would be best to adhere no matter how inconsequential the matter. I experienced great disillusionment as well, when despite all my careful efforts and explanations, no one ever chose to believe as I had taught was necessary. I was proud and one would think that I could not have made any friends.
But the exact opposite took place. They were patient, forgiving, caring, and always listening even if rarely budging. This really amazed me, and revolutionized my approach as I was convicted of how judgmental of them, of God, and therefore of myself I had been. I learned what community should be, what it is as God intended, what it is under grace, what it is as one of God's fellow children, from them. I experienced the very grace I preached, from those I imposed upon.
I do not know how it came that I was blessed to be caught up with them. I do know, though, that it is all to someone else's credit and not mine.
I am all the more strengthened in gladness of our gospel of grace. If they and I cannot bear the weaknesses in one another, how are we to believe that Jesus does??
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity."
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. (1 cor 1:26,28)
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Community
On Community with Christians
"
In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning, first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.
Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.
By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattererd, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. ... He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. ... So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.
Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. ... 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 may live in the forgiving love of God in 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 the one Word and Deed which really binds us together -- the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.
...
The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.
...
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity" -- this is the Scripture's praise of life together under the Word.
"
-- pp. 26-28, 38, 39
"
In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning, first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.
Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.
By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattererd, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. ... He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. ... So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.
Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. ... 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 may live in the forgiving love of God in 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 the one Word and Deed which really binds us together -- the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.
...
The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door.
...
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity" -- this is the Scripture's praise of life together under the Word.
"
-- pp. 26-28, 38, 39
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
