Another Look At Community

Good evening to you all, dear brothers and sisters in the living faith of Jesus Christ our Lord. I write to you on the eve of our Matriculation retreat. Classes will be suspended this week in order to spend time in silent retreat and corporate worship. Our retreat leader is Fr. Patrick Reardon, an Eastern priest from Chicago; he also is the senior editor of Touchstone Magazine, which is well worth reading.

In light of this retreat, I'm once again pondering true Christian community. I say 'true' community because most of what passes as community is actually quite insular. And this, dear ones, is not the way in which the gospel calls us. Love expands. Love never contracts! Case in point: before we moved to Nashotah House we lived in an affluent 'community' where we only knew a handful of our neighbours. We drove in and out as if there were no other souls on the block, implying that our neighbours were somehow less important than us, less human. I know we're not alone; this is in fact the way most people live. And this is not good. Actually, this is deplorable.

I don't point this out to say we're somehow more holy now that we're part of an intentional community of faith, nor do I mean to chastise my dear friends who live ten yards from someone whom they've never had the pleasure of meeting. And I certainly am not extolling the virtues of Christian community to say that we, by our own power no less, can cure every conceivable ill on the planet by pretending to love our neighbour. That's just plain silliness and pride writ large. Loving thy neighbour comes only from casting our gaze on the true fount of all love, the one who loved us first - Jesus Christ our Lord. From Him springs forth love of neighbour.


What I am saying, however, is that Jesus Christ, by virtue of the Incarnation, entered into a community, and through much of His life and teaching showed us what the community of heaven resembles. A word of caution is in order here, a caveat lector, we might say. Usually at this point one of two things happen in theology: first, revisionists like to use this fact to claim that because Jesus ate and drank with sinners that anything goes for the sake of community. I say no to the poppycock, and I ask you to say so, too! Secondly, they say, because Jesus spent so much time exposing his society's insular nature, that we can fix it all, especially the environment. Again, this is just plain silly.

Here's what I am saying: Christian community and its ultimate fulfillment, heaven, is not a four bedroom house with a three car garage, a plasma TV, an American Express with a high limit, and a trophy spouse, though I'm fond of most if not all of these silly matters. Moreover, Christian community is certainly not a shot in the dark at establishing some kind of modern utopia. Actually, the opposite is true.

Christian community, by the world's standards, is a complete train wreck. True Christian community, taking its cue from our Lord, is more concerned with the messy stuff, and it's wonderfully messy. Don't think for a second it's about Jungian self-actualization. It's about brutal honesty of a pilgrim people living in the tension of the now and not yet of Christ's return in glory.


Namely, Christ is after the heart - whether it's hurting, joyful, weeping, angry or glad. Christian community is not about smiling and agreeing; it's about honestly recognizing one another's differences and pressing forward together for the sake of building up God's kingdom here and now. Christian community is not primarily about eradicating poverty and starvation, though these are certainly crucial to its vitality. Rather, Christian community is focused on making sure extreme poverty and starvation never happen in the first place by focusing on Jesus Christ, who for our sake became poor, even to the point of death on that cursed tree. Christian community is that place where we, as St. Paul would have it, work out our salvation together.

So I hope you see that community is paradoxical. It's not about us, nor is it even about fixing everything. No, true Christian community is all about Jesus Christ, the one in whom we have community with one another and all the Saints.

And I offer this tonight not as a set of tracts or platitudes; rather, it is my fervent prayer that we all just take a step back and ponder these things. Ponder what is means to be given the gift of others. Ponder what it means to be given friends, family, neighbours, and communities in which can grow and change. Ponder what God is doing in our lives right this moment. Let us open ourselves to the emancipation that comes from being with Jesus, not in a closet alone, but with others.

So how can I bring this around and give you something to sweeten your joie de vivre? How about this: pray tonight that God would reveal to you how He wants us to dwell where He's put us. Ask Him to bless our vocations, our families, and our friends. Go ahead, ask Him to show us what community is all about.

I dare say this is the one post that requires no recipe attached! Christian community with all its scars and flaws is true joyous living in a nutshell - it's a recipe for glorious disaster!