Faith in Community
1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35[1]
I think many of us are discovering how important community is in
this strange time. It’s wonderful to be able to stay connected through
technology. But it’s not the same as gathering together with families and
friends. And this is true as well for families of faith. We miss seeing faces, shaking
hands, giving and receiving hugs. And it is stressful to us all when we have to
do without those person-to-person contacts that we were so used to.
While we all have probably heard someone say “I can worship God
better on my own than at church,” the fact of the matter is that our faith
thrives in community, because we thrive in community. We experience the
wholeness of the new life through our community of faith. Something about the
way we’re put together as human beings makes it so that we just cannot grasp
the high and holy truths of our faith unless someone is there to show us the
grace and mercy and love of God in action. We need our community to enable
faith to truly live in our hearts.
Unfortunately, I think our present crisis has exposed to us how
“futile” our way of life has become. We have closed in ourselves as a society,
isolating ourselves by engaging in a reality that is “virtual” as we stare at
one kind of screen or another. While the “futile ways” that Peter mentions in
our lesson for today were very different from ours, I think the message applies
to us as well. We have given ourselves over to a way of life that is draining,
hopeless, and empty. And yet, the good news of Easter is that we have the
freedom to change, the freedom not to stay stuck in the same old ruts, the
freedom to find new life in our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.
Part of the reason for this is, as Peter says, we have been
“ransomed” from those “futile ways.” Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we
are now free to make the change from a way of life that essentially drains the
life out us to a way of living that is whole and truly alive. We have been set free from everything that
would keep us stuck in a rut that leaves us feeling drained and empty instead
of fulfilled, joyful and whole. This transformation happens best in a
community.
The simple truth is that faith has always been a community
endeavor. From the very beginning, we find Christians gathering together to
share with each other the experiences they have had with the risen Christ. As
our Gospel lesson illustrates, when the disciples discovered that Jesus was
alive they immediately went back to the rest of the group to tell them what had
happened. It’s one thing for them to race from Golgotha to the upper room in
Jerusalem. It’s another thing altogether for the disciples on the road to
Emmaus to run 7 miles back to share the good news with the others! The
cumulative effect is that in the sharing they were supporting and encouraging
and strengthening each other’s faith! As one contemporary prophet puts it, “The
resurrection is not a fact to be believed, but an experience to be shared.”[2]
I think this is true for all of us. Faith simply does not
flourish in a context where we think we can be spiritual “lone rangers.” Faith
flourishes in a community. I like the way Henri Nouwen puts it:
“Christian community is the place where we
keep the flame of hope alive among us … . That is how we dare to say that God
is a God of love when we see death and destruction and agony all around us. We
say it together. We affirm it in each other.”[3]
It takes a community for us to make the journey of faith if for
no other reason than we need human flesh and blood, skin and bones to translate
the truths of our faith into new life. We
need the experience of living out our faith in a community where we “love one
another deeply from the heart” (1 Pet. 1:22) if we’re going to thrive.
Especially in this challenging time, we need a community to hold on to the
faith that God is working to bring grace and peace and mercy and love and life to
every life in the midst of all the suffering and heartbreak that are going on
right now. That doesn’t happen well when we try to go it alone. Faith is
something that thrives and grows when we share it with a community.
[1]
©2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered
by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/26/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman,
NE.
[2]
Walter Wink, “Resonating With God’s Song,” The
Christian Century (March 23, 1994).
[3]
Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home,
105.
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