We had a festive evening last night during our Vespers Service. We sang through Psalm 40, learned a new through-composed psalm, and then chanted through portions of Proverbs 10. There was prayer, Bible study, more singing and then a massive pizza/salad extravaganza. The tables were full of joy and laughter, theological discussions, story-telling, and strategizing happening all over the place. As the Puritans would say, there was a jolly intoxication taking place; the Spirit-led variety.
Moments like last night make me pull out my inner Bonhoeffer and take a few moments to exalt the virtues of community life and to show that without it, one’s humanity suffers:
First, to be in community is the closest human sample to that heavenly experiment in the age to come. To be with others is to experience–though incompletely–community with resurrected others in the world to come.
Second, to be in community is to put to test those divine imperatives to love, show kindness, and cover one another. If we feel unprotected, it’s because we have abandoned community or chosen faulty versions.
Third, to be in community is to see weakness displayed often and to be humbled by it. We experience our frailties most consistently together and we find ourselves apologizing, reconciling and desiring the good of others.
Fourth, to be in community is to improve on your baptism (Q167, LC) and see the fruits of faith. A child is baptized to grow into a community of faith. He/she improves on their baptism not outside but within the structures of church life.
Fifth, to be in community is to allow one another to be fully human and fully flawed and fully forgiven. When we are within, we taste fullness and abundant life, whether in the confession or absolution.
Sixth, to be in community is to see little children playing a fundamental role in the sanctification of parents, churches, and the kingdom. To segregate children from the life of the church is to miss community as it is intended to be in the Scriptures (Psalm 8:3).
Seventh, to be in community is to learn from one another; to be like one another in important ways, and to embody the healthy habits of one another. As one of my mentors has said, “we are to be 10% like those with whom we commune.”
Eighth, to be in community is to sing together Zion’s songs while allowing our voices to minister to one another in psalms, hymns, and songs of the Spirit. As I sang with my people last night, the music’s very fabric was connecting the fabric of our relationships. We sang together and therefore grew together.
Ninth, to be in community is to weep and rejoice with one another, to experience the cycles of life together. There is nothing more meaningful than to taste the sobriety of life in sorrow and the festivity of life in jubilation.
Tenth, to be in community is to long for the Lord’s Day on Monday and to prepare for it on Saturday. When we commune together, we long to be together in the call of God each Lord’s Day. It fills our hearts with eagerness to be gathered into one body and formed by Father, Son, and Spirit.
To be together, to experience life in all its glory, is to satiate our experiences in a sacred composition of Trinitarian benediction.
