Community
The faint echo of yesterday holds the key to tomorrow. Quietly tucked away in the genesis of Genesis is the corner-piece to the puzzle of human history, "It is not good for the man to be alone." Almost a whisper, so quiet and faint that it screams for investigation. For the first time in eternity something was declared to be not good. How? The great thud in Eden had yet to occur. Adam had no needs. Food, shelter and provision were his in abundance. For companionship he had the eternal omnipresent God of the universe. The world was his home and every animal his pet. Not good? But why?
Prior to Adam God had made all of the animals according to their own kind. And here is the key; Adam had no one of his own kind. He had no equal, no partner, no dependent being with whom to commune intimately. Why, though, would he need to exist in a community of equality with his own kind of clay?
For this we must look to the Potter. After all, the clay was formed in the image and likeness of the Potter. What we find is that the Potter Himself is a community. In creation, the Father spoke, the Son created, and the Spirit hovered above the deep bringing order out of chaos. The One Potter who exists in a community of three created.Communities. A cosmic community of planets existing in harmony. An environmental community of plants dependent upon one another. An animal community of like kinds. And a human community family that was the crowning community given dominion to care for all communities for the Potter.
Man was created for community and experienced alienation and death by breaking his communion with the community of God. The result was a severing of his communion with the communities he was called to care for. The clay was back to being alone.something not good.
Many weekends have since passed. The astrologers and shamans seek to restore our communion with the cosmic community. The environmentalist seeks to restore our communion with the dust of the earth. The animal rights activists seek to restore our communion with other kinds. The psychopagan therapists seek to restore our communion with one another.
We are alone. We are lost. We are alienated. Because of sin we each exist in a community of one. Ours is a generation which desires community. However, we live in a nation, of fiercely independent individuals, that was birthed in revolution. Likewise, Protestantism is a religion birthed in revolution. We indeed have no pope, who is good, but we have each become our own popes, which is tragic.
As a solution we center our lives on Jesus. Jesus is sold as the Enlightenment's model modern man. He is the great quintessential loner. He teaches himself. He provides for Himself. He speaks for Himself. He raises Himself from the dead. Jesus was our own kind, but He was also the Potter's kind. Jesus life was lived in community, with the Father and the Spirit.
We do not understand community. Community cannot be realized until we dust off the doctrine of the Trinity. There we find our model for the good. Equality and submission. Unity with diversity, love and intimacy. Trust, respect, and communication.
How does the Gospel go forward?
In Acts it came through the planting of new churches. A product of the modern western cult-like hero worship of the rugged individual, I had always assumed that churches were planted because one lonely loud preacher would roll into town with a loaded Bible, clear his throat and reason everyone into heaven.
As I surveyed Acts, however, a mysterious and humbling pattern emerged. Before the preacher uttered a word, a rag-tag band of broken believers centered in an area and simply were the new community reconciled to God and one another through Christ. With little programming or fanfare, God sovereignly authenticated His presence among His people by changing their lives and caring for them demonstrably.
Curiously, others began to notice these peculiar people, making them the center of attention spiritually, politically, socially etc.
They were not hidden in some deep dark cultural ghetto trying to not be worldly while bickering over the rapture or number of feet in a cubit. Like a child knows his mother, they knew that heaven began the moment they were changed from enemies of God to children of God, and lived this new reality without shame.
Their collective light illuminated the darkness to such a degree that those in darkness began to inquire of this peculiar people. Tired of spending their income futilely attempting to purchase the fruit of the Spirit, those in darkness actually asked for the Gospel. It sounded like too-good-to-be-true news that only a wishful dreamer or a wretched sinner would believe.
The church simply answered their question. The church did not answer every question, but they did answer that question, since that is the question which answers all others.
Such a scandal. Are we to actually believe some people desire the Gospel? Could it be that God has already put salt on their tongue, causing thirst for the Water of Life?
To find out, they must come to the peculiar people who have drawn from their deep well hewn from the heart of God. They will come if we are, first, that new community. Our being must precede our doing. The gospel must breathe Spirit life in our midst if it is to be believed. Preaching, worship, evangelism, conferences, books, ministries and all other well-meaning efforts are but an offense if they do not flow from and to a community in which the power of the Spirit is demonstrated, as they are the hermeneutic of the Gospel.
We cannot forsake the local church, the whore and bride of God--the one thing which our Lord Himself established, guaranteeing its' perseverance until His returning consummation. As Paul understood, each believer is an essential part of this collective new body of life, this eternal bride being made ready for her wedding day. The apostle tells us that it is in this body which the Spirit dwells, and from this body that Christ stretches out his hand to exalt the humble and humble the exalted, that all His children might experience freedom and dignity.
Today, the Bride is bedridden. Her legs left her when young people ran away from home, not believing their vertical relationship with God and horizontal relationships with fellow believers were intimate lovers.
Before the Gospel will have great credibility among the darkness, it must be experienced as new life among those who know Him in the midst of a community that reflects the image and likeness of the Community from which it was birthed and redeemed. This is not a light matter since our redemption as a community of individuals was accomplished when Christ became our sin, thus separating Himself from the Community to stand alone as the "I"; thereby reconciling us to His Community.
It is often pondered why Christ never wrote a book, but in forming a community He wrote His biography.
