In an ideal sense, a community is a safe place. By protecting and nurturing the dignity of its members, the community is sustained even when challenged by external forces. Virgilio Elizondo (1935–2016), a Catholic priest and community organizer from San Antonio, Texas, compared communities formed among the marginalized in Latin America today with the earliest Christian communities. Working together in faith, they bring new life, hope, and dignity to their individual and corporate selves. Perhaps the current civil unrest we are experiencing across the nation is a cry for the same?
What happened in . . . parts of Latin America appears to be no less miraculous . . . than the spread and consequences of early Christianity itself. When the poor, the oppressed, and the marginated become aware of who they are in the Lord and begin their struggle for humanization, then the true liberation of humanity has begun. No matter how slow and difficult it might be . . . liberation will succeed, because no human power can keep Jesus in the tomb. . . . Not with the weapons of destruction will the converted poor triumph, but with the weapons of the power of selflessness and truth in the service of love.
An important element of this new power is that it is not power for the sake of personal gain, but power for the sake of all the oppressed, ignored, forgotten, and exploited members of society. The powerless are recouping power . . . the power of the gospel, which works for the betterment and liberation of all, especially those in greatest need.
In all this, prophecy is not just being spoken about; it is being lived out in ongoing confrontations by the previously powerless of society who now dare to go to the Jerusalems of today’s society: city hall, transnational corporations, boards of education, ecclesiastical offices. Those who had before simply accepted their state of exclusion and exploitation are now coming out of their tombs of substandard housing, disease-infected neighborhoods, economically enslaving jobs, schools that strengthened illiteracy, and churches that perpetuated segregation. Those who had been dead are now coming back to life.
In this awakening . . . renewed Christians are called to exercise a prophetic role. True prophecy is based upon a prophetic lifestyle, which of itself—wordlessly—confronts an ungodly society. It is this new lifestyle—this new way of relating with persons, goods, institutions, and God—that is itself an arresting alternative to the ways of the world.
Deep bonds often form during times of crisis, loss and uncertainty; people seek solidarity in human connection. What new communities and associations are being forged right now? How will they grow in the months and years ahead? What lifestyle changes and prophetic actions are being called forth by the new realities created by Covid-19?
Community
as Alternative Consciousness
Monday, June 1,
2020
The goal of the spiritual journey is to discover and move
toward connectedness on ever new levels. We may begin by making little
connections with other people, with nature and animals, then grow into deeper
connectedness with people. Finally, we can experience full connectedness as
union with God. Remember, how you do
anything is how you do everything. Without connectedness and communion, we don’t exist
fully as our truest selves. Becoming who we really are is a matter of learning
how to become more and more deeply connected.
The
spiritual experience is about trusting that when you stop holding yourself,
Inherent Goodness will still uphold you. Many of us call that God, but you
don’t have to. It is the trusting that is important. When you fall into such
Primal Love, you realize that everything is foundationally okay. Unfortunately,
this confidence is often absent in our world especially under conditions of
great upheaval and suffering.
Foundational
love gives us hope and allows us to trust “what is” as the jumping-off point,
no matter how unsteady it feels. It allows us to work together toward “what can
be.” The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus shows us what’s fully possible.
God will always bring yet more life and wholeness out of seeming chaos and death.
In the words of Timothy Gorringe and Rosie Beckham, “Faith in the resurrection
is the ground on which Christians hope for a different future, a
transition to a society less destructive, more peaceful and more whole. Living
in this hope . . . calls ekklesia [the assembly of Christians] to live as a
‘contrast community’ to society.” [1]
Building
such “contrast” communities was precisely Paul’s missionary strategy. You can
see it throughout the New Testament. Paul believed that small communities of
Jesus’ followers would make the Gospel message believable: Jesus is Lord
(rather than Caesar is Lord); sharing abundance and living in simplicity
(rather than hoarding wealth); nonviolence and chosen suffering (rather than
aligning with power). Paul was very practical. He taught that our faith must
take actual form in a living, loving group of people. Otherwise, love is just a
theory.
Paul seems to think that corporate evil can only be confronted or overcome with corporate good. He knows that a love-transformed individual can do little against what he calls “the powers and the principalities,” or what some of us call the “system.” Our collective consciousness deems such institutions “too big to fail.” We are mostly oblivious to these forces because we take them as normative and in fact absolutely necessary. Cultural blind spots can only be overcome by a group of people affirming and supporting one another in an alternative consciousness. Thankfully, we’re now seeing many people, religious and secular, from all around the world, coming together to form alternative systems for sharing resources, living simply, and imagining a sustainable future. It has been one of the spiritual gifts of the pandemic. God never misses a chance to help us grow up.
Alternative Community
Common
Ground and Purpose
Sunday, May 31, 2020 Pentecost Sunday
It’s
sad to say, but for centuries the Christian vision was narrowed to what we have
today—a preoccupation with private salvation. Our “personal relationship with
Jesus” seems to be based on a very small notion of Christ. We’ve modeled church
after a service station where members attend weekly services to “fill up” on
their faith. We’ve commodified the very notion of salvation.
People want
something more from church than membership. They long for a spiritual home that
connects with their whole life, not just somewhere to go on Sunday morning.
Church is meant to be a place that nurtures and supports individuals along
their full journey toward the ultimate goal: a lived experience of the
communion of saints, a shared life together as one family, the Reign of God “on
earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
Too often, the
formal church has been unable to create any authentic practical community,
especially over the last half-century. In response, we see the emergence of new
faith communities seeking to return to this foundational definition of church.
These may not look like our versions of traditional “church,” but they often
exemplify the kinds of actual community that Jesus, Paul, and early Christians
envisioned. People are gathering digitally and in person today through
neighborhood associations, study groups, community gardens, social services,
and volunteer groups. They’re seeking creative ways of coming together,
nurturing connection, of healing and whole-making. The “invisible” church might
be doing this just as much, if not more, than the visible one. The Holy Spirit is humble and seems to
work best anonymously. I suspect that is why the Holy Spirit is
often pictured as a simple bird or blowing wind that is here one minute and
seemingly gone and then nowhere(John 3:8).
It’s all too
easy to project unrealistic expectations on any community. No group can meet
all our needs as individuals for emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
The human psyche needs space and healthy boundaries and not co-dependent groupings.
I certainly learned this lesson myself through my participation in the New
Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati in the 1970s and 80s, and even earlier as a
Franciscan brother. Almost any community can serve as an excellent school for
growth, character, and conversion, even though it may not be a permanent “home”
for many reasons.
So what makes a good community? The remainder
of this week we’ll look at a few of the factors that contribute to healthy,
whole communities. Our very survival as a faith tradition, not to mention a
species, might just depend upon this. Remember, the isolated individual is
fragile and largely helpless to evoke long-term change or renewal. By
ourselves, we can accomplish very little. We must find common ground and common
purpose to move forward. It was Jesus’ first and foundational definition of
church and even divine presence—“two or three gathered together” in the right
spirit (Matthew 18:20), and “I am there”—just as much as in bread or Bible!
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This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
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