Reed Mueller

The following quotes were culled by Mark Waltz, a pastor in Indiana, as he worked on some thoughts about community. As they reflect very well the perspectives developed in our Life Together / Serving Together series earlier this year, I thought I’d pass them on as reinforcement.

Our life is full of brokenness – broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God’s faithful presence in our lives? – Henri Nouwe

Community is a place of pain, of the death of ego. In community, we are sacrificing independence and the pseudo-security of being closed up. We can only live this pain if we are certain that for us being in community is our response to a call from God. If we do not have this certitude, then we won’t be able to stay in community. – Jean Vanier [emphasis mine]

The call to community is clear; we can’t escape it. Yet, neither can we escape the fact that leaning into the community we have been placed in (whether we like it or not) – the Body of Christ – is exceedingly difficult. It is difficult because of our brokenness. It is difficult because of others’ brokenness.

In light of this, what Vanier says is so important: we must be certain to take the call to community, to life together, seriously and live it out in faith, through both pain and joy.

If you’ve missed the last five messages in our Life Together series, you’ll get a fair overview of them in the following two quotes…

There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relation to Christ can only be realized when one has “come to himself” as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship. – William T. Ham, “Candles of the Lord” (via CQOD)

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when He called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone, you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called… Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called–the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together