Inspired by a wise and committed neighbor and friend, my thoughts turn to community once again. This is something that has been on my mind and my heart a lot these last several months, and I am reminded again of this burning desire for radical community life that extends beyond the four walls of our house or the confines of our circle of friends and embraces the people here in our neighborhood and brings them into fellowship together. I want to love the people God has placed me in close proximity with – but who I often feel worlds apart from. You can’t love people from a distance, and you can’t love people without knowing them. I want to know and be known in this place – and learn what it means to love despite seemingly insurmountable barriers – of race, class, and gender; or of busyness, routine, and complacency.
I have a vision of people of different races, languages, ages, backgrounds, and genders coming together around a shared table, children breaking the ice with their games and laughter, conversations starting, connections being made, stereotypes breaking down, relationships being formed – and God’s Kingdom coming in the midst of it.
I’m not naïve, and this isn’t going to magically happen just by willing it. Although we cannot force it, we do have to make an effort. Because the whole point is that these aren't the kind of relationships that will just happen – with all of the barriers our society has constructed, it’s become very natural and easy to keep to ourselves and be with people like us. Breaking out of that to reach out to those very different from us is not the norm – but it should be a marker of God’s upside-down Kingdom.
The how and when I don’t know, but what I do know is that this has to be part of what we do and who we are if we’re going to call ourselves the Body of Christ…otherwise, what are we doing?
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"Kingdom Comes" - Sara Groves
When anger fills your heart
When in your pain and hurt
You find the strength to stop
You bless instead of curse
When doubting floods your soul
Though all things feel unjust
You open up your heart
You find a way to trust
That's a little stone that's a little mortar
That's a little seed that's a little water
In the hearts of the sons and the daughters
The kingdom's coming
When fear engulfs your mind
Says you protect your own
You still extend your hand
You open up your home
When sorrow fills your life
When in your grief and pain
You choose again to rise
You choose to bless the name
That's a little stone that's a little mortar
That's a little seed that's a little water
In the hearts of the sons and the daughters
The kingdom's coming
In the mundane tasks of living
In the pouring out and giving
In the waking up and trying
In the laying down and dying
That's a little stone that's a little mortar
That's a little seed that's a little water
In the hearts of the sons and the daughters
The kingdom's coming
May it be so. AMEN.
