We are all sinners. We have all fallen short of God’s standards.
His standard are perfection. We are not perfect. No single person fully
practices the love of God. The only person who ever did was Jesus, because He
is the living embodiment of the love of God. Jesus is God; God is love. We don’t
deserve to be loved by God; we haven’t somehow earned God’s love, but God has
chosen to love us. All of us. The acceptance of His love is called confession. The
practice of His love is called forgiveness. The completeness of His love is
called salvation. Living out God’s love is called sanctification. It is through
the acceptance, practice and completeness of God’s love that we are transformed
when we live in community.
What is this community? It is a group of forgiven sinners
learning to love God, each other, and the world. Yes, it means there is a
difference between the forgiven and the unforgiven. No, it doesn’t mean
Christians can justify separating themselves from the world. Christians must
live in the world. Christians must show God’s love. Living in the world and
loving the world must be a deep part of who a Christian is. That strong sense
of identity in Christ’s love, coupled with the urge and desire to love others, must
take hold in such a way that we don’t have to demand love from each other. For
demanding and commanding love are to miss out on love entirely. Love is free.
Love is a gift. Once we start demanding, people’s responses are no longer free.
Demanding removes the ability for spontaneous response and expression. We lose
our ability to give when we are told what and how to give. Love is about
freedom. Demands are about control. We cannot demand love, for doing so comes
from fear. We cannot live in community where fear is the driving force, where
people are not free to give and love as God has given us the ability to do so.
This is what scares me about living in community. That we move from a place of
freely giving and loving into a place of obligation. For when we act out of
obligation we tread the path of acting without love. My personal fear is that
we don’t take the love of God seriously enough to submit to His love and let it
transform us, impacting us wherever we
go.
How does the practice of Jesus work itself out this way? It
can be methodical, but it be also has to be unorthodox. There’s a freshness to
our actions, even if we’ve done them a thousand times before. God’s love made
manifest is an event, an event that is more than the sum of its parts. When
Christians gather to spend time with each other, practicing the love of God
through everyday and ordinary means, God’s presence transforms these gatherings
into something more. These events become more than a group of people gathered
together, there’s a unity made manifest through God’s love that binds people
together, even though they may have little in common. Part of practicing community
is when we stop watching the clock in each other’s presence. When we ignore the
clock, and our desire to be efficient, we start focusing on each other and how
God is working within us. We start listening, conversing, engaging, learning,
sharing, and grow as a result. Trying to measure a community by the make-up of
its parts is to miss out on community. Community is more than we can measure;
its greater than the sum of its parts. It’s greater than it’s parts because
practicing community means showing the love God has given us.
The challenge of community is not just to be around people,
but to be known, loved, and to love. Community is a crazy thing God does
through us because He’s already loved the unlovable. He loved us while we were
still sinners and he died so we could be reconciled to him. All we have to do
is live in that love and let it transform the world. Which is a simple, radical,
and completely ludicrous idea that actual works. If I could explain it I would.
But I know the love of God is so great that trying to explain it is like trying
to explain the ocean, or the universe, or why we choose to love one other
person unconditionally in this thing we call marriage. There’s simply something
we miss trying to put these mysteries into words. Yet this mysterious thing is
so practical and so simple we often overlook it, which leads us to place where
we ask, “How can we find and practice the love of God?”
How do we put this love into action? I can’t really put that
into definite words, because each person is different, but I can say by getting
to know someone we open doors to learning how to love them. God loves us
because He knows us. He knows we are His; He created us. He knows everything
about every one of us. Everyone who has ever lived or will live God knows and
loves. The question is, “Will we let that love restore us and be reconciled to
our creator?” Community reconciles us to each other, not just to God. This communal
reconciliation has the power to bring us to a place where we see and grasp the
love of God because we see people loving as God loves. This is the mark of
Christian community: loving as God loves. Not because we think someone deserves
love, but because God looks at everyone and sees His own child and desires to
be in relationship with them. The communal love of God is about relationship.
The saddest thing about our choice to be in a relationship
with God is that we can reject it. We reject God’s love when we reject other
people. So often we refuse to love other people because they’ve done something
to us, and we let that something come between us and them. There is an art and
a science to healing broken relationships, part of that science is to remain in
community, even though the intimacy of fellowship is broken. I whole heartedly
understand some broken people chose not to be restored: in some cases community
cannot be reconciled. Why? Because accepting God’s love is a choice. We cannot
force the love of God on each other. Even when communities fail God’s love
remains. Communities are forever going through the process of being shaped and
re-made, that’s life, but whether or not we choose to live life governed and
guided by the love of God is up to us.
The love of God is about difficult times and places. Jesus
loved a very hard and broken Jewish community. Some of them accepted God’s
love. Some of them rejected it. Some of them killed Jesus over His love for
others because it threatened their security and special privileges. The love of
God breaks down walls and barriers, it helps us all to see each other as
brothers’ in Christ: male, female, old, young whatever-you-like we are all
equals and inheritors of God’s kingdom. That’s what being a brother is all
about. Equality. There’s no distinction, no glass ceiling, no holding each
other down, only lifting each other up and supporting each other. Equality
gives way to encouragement. It casts out fear because there is no hierarchy to
be climbed and no ladder to fall off. Equality praises success and builds up
those who struggle and fail. That’s the hallmark of a Christian community,
recognizing what is good and encouraging people along the way.
When I consider Paul’s letters to the churches, he did a lot
of encouraging, but he also did a lot of protecting. He protected what was good
by pointing out what was evil. He didn’t get bogged down in pointing out evil,
but rather used the opportunity to write about what is good, pure, and lovely.
If our focus is simply sifting out evil, we can get trapped in a legalistic
mindset when we engage in community. We start forming rules about life and
habits, building a culture around don’ts, forgetting the seed of that culture
is freedom in love. Love creates freedom, but that freedom must be used wisely.
When I consider the Law, it tells us what not to do. It’s very specific in this
regard because we need a definite outline of evil, but when it comes to loving
God the Law is an open book. God gives us freedom to love Him, but he also
draws the line and tells us when the freedom of His love goes too far. This is
where community is essential. We need each other to see, remind, and caution
each other of going overboard on the Law and overboard on freedom.
In our cautioning we must act in love. We must point back to
the source of that love, for the love of God is what transforms us and shows us
what is true. The focus of our community needs to be on the love of God, not just
cautioning each other on doing good and avoiding evil. For when we make our
communities about caution they are no longer about love. They become based on
the fear of not loving properly. True love casts out fear. True love conquers
fear. Fear has no place in community, for the fear of God or the fear of each
other will surely annihilate community. We should not be afraid of God, but
hold Him in awe and respect, honoring and worshipping Him in love. For God is
mighty and powerful and fully above our ability to understand; that’s why his
love is so powerful and life changing. It simply is above and beyond our
capacity to understand. It’s so deep and so wide that He constantly takes us
back so long as we continue choosing Him. His forgiveness knows no bounds. No
matter what we’ve done God will never give up on us unless we’ve fully and
completely turned our backs on Him. His love is so strong it binds us to Him
and to each other. His love is not just for us as individuals, but to reconcile
His creation. His love creates community. The practice of community: forgiveness,
encouragement, spurring each other onwards, clinging to what is good, leaving
behind what is evil, is what God’s love is all about. That’s the love He
manifested through his Son, Jesus. That’s the love He wants to manifest through
us, bringing many sons, many heirs of all genders and ages, to glory.
Hallelujah, amen!
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