“Simple Spirituality: Community” Matthew 25: 42-43 1 Cor 12: 12-31

Every church I have ever visited, been a part of, or heard about has described itself as friendly, but rarely have I heard a church describe itself as a community. Community is the second spiritual practice in our simple, or not so simple, spirituality sermon series.

Perhaps many churches don’t describe themselves as a community because we don’t fully understand what it means. We understand friendly - that you are nice to other people, but community seems harder to grasp. A community is a group of people, of any size, that shares similar core values. Communities are connected by deep, long lasting relationships, and who believe that such relationships are important to them - its who they are and what they are about. The word community comes from a french word meaning things held in common.

Folks, if anyone should understand and embrace community, things held in common and deep relationships, its the local church. But sometimes this spiritual practice just scares us. I think it scared ancient Christians as well. The scripture found in the epistle of 1 Corinthians comes from the Apostle Paul writing to a group of believers who he founded and deeply loved, but who had greatly strayed from what it meant to be a follower of Christ. The church in Corinth was facing all sorts of problems - chiefly that they were ostracizing people based off of things like wealth and social class, instead of seeing fellow Christians as brothers and sisters in Christ. The church in Corinth was in crisis when Paul penned the famous words to them about being the body of Christ - trying to get them back on track by laying out before them the master plan for community: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need for you’. On the contrary, the members of the body seem that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members we treat with great respect, whereas the more respectable members don’t need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior members., that there may be no dissension amongst the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one members suffers, all suffer together, and if one member is honored, all rejoice with it.” We have been raised in a culture that tells us to be independent, self-sufficient, and non-emotional. And brothers and sisters, this is such a lie. And it’s why we have such a hard time getting our minds wrapped around this idea of community. 

We cannot fathom community because we refuse to think that we need others. We’ve been told that we need to achieve everything on our own and claw our way to the top, not acknowledging the costs. But here Paul is telling us that we have no right to say to anyone that we don’t need them. No! We need one another to support each other, to help each other out. Here’s the thing, God put this huge task in front of the Church, to go and make disciples of all of the nations baptizing them in the name of the Triune God. I’m sorry, but you can’t do that alone. You need others to accomplish this. We need to work off of the generations before us and trust the generations after us to work towards the great commission, while fully being the body of Christ now with our brothers and sisters, depending upon one another.

Here’s the truth - we cannot say that we don’t need each other, because we really do deeply need each other. For it is a community that allows us to be strong in our faith. It’s a community that helps us clarify our identity as Christians. It’s community that gives us accountability. In the words of author and missionary Chris Hertz: “In community sin cannot be isolated from others. When we are selfish or unresponsive to God, we have less to give our community.” It’s in community that sin is exposed through confession and we receive absolution. We need community. 

But we also need to know what community is not - community is not the place where we all look the same or agree with everyone all the time. In fact, I know no such place that exists. I confess that for a long time I actually didn’t like the word community because I had been in place that had corrupted the word to mean just that - a place where you have to think and be exactly like another person in order to be accepted. That is not the community of the church, which Paul stresses when he talks about having different people with different gifts. What is important in the community of the church is that we are all under the lordship of Jesus Christ. 

The gospel of Matthew picks up on another aspect of Christian community. In this particular passage, Jesus is speaking to his disciples about how they will be recognized vs. those who claim to be followers but do not live into the teachings of Christ. Those who do not live into the teachings do not provide food and water, clothing and shelter, or health and wholeness. Christ is stressing that those who follow him are people of compassion. In fact, Christian community and compassion should go hand in hand. 

Christian community also works with what it has. I rejoice in the fact that we are all different and have different gifts. I believe God provides within our local body every person and thing we need to reach this county for Jesus Christ. I believe that in the Church Universal we have all the people and things we need to transform the world for Jesus Christ. I have often churches bemoan and say “if only”. “If only” we had more people, more resources, more money. But brothers and sisters, if we neglect this body, the body we have been gifted with, by saying that we are not yet good enough or have enough for the mission of Jesus Christ then we are not living up to the call of the Kingdom. And more will not come.

When we embrace true Christian community we realize, however, that such community is a valuable and vulnerable gift, for it is in community that deep wounds can be created when we speak poorly of one other or do not trust each other. Or when we do not live into the ideal of what God created community to be when we start to become exclusive or not truly welcome those who God would welcome. We need community, but when community is absurd it can also harm us. 

Years ago I was part of an experiment in Christian community over in State College, where right out of college I was involved in a church plant. I want to close by sharing with you a prayer a dear friend prayed time and time again for that community, which is just as true in our community, here and now today: "Jesus, they may be few and they may be faithful, but if must be you who makes them into a family.  Make them into your body; the image and the vision and the actors (and actresses!) of your love in the world.  Holy Spirit, be the love flowing through them to all they meet, and be the love that binds them together and draws them to You.  And God, be the one to whom they give all that they do, the one to whom they aim and to whom they strive in everything, their hope and their joy.” May it be so of our community. Amen.