communities
Manifest in Us
By Linda Rex
April 28, 2024, 5th Sunday | Easter—Do you know what love looks like? Do you know what it feels like to be loved with self-giving, sacrificial, other-centered love?
According to the apostle John, we should be experiencing this kind of love when we encounter those who profess to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is especially true in our covenant relationships, small group gatherings, and spiritual communities. In our New Testament passage for this Sunday, 1 John 4:7–21, the apostle explains how he and those who shared in his apostolic ministry had personally seen and experienced this kind of love in the person of Jesus Christ. As God in human flesh, Jesus personified this love which is particularly found within the Father, Son, Spirit Triune fellowship.
Apart from our participation in Christ, we are unable to love one another in this way. No, it is not until we receive God’s love as a gift, that we are able to offer other-centered, sacrificial, self-giving love to others. John stresses the importance of loving one another, that in doing so, we will show those around us who God is as love. We become living testimonies of the love of God poured out in us and for us in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. The abiding of God in us, and therefore, us abiding in God, is an essential part of our being able to love others in a way that is a true reflection of the divine love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The gospel reading for this Sunday, John 15:1–8, is where Jesus uses the image of a vine, its branches, and a vinedresser, to talk about our direct connection with himself in the Spirit. Abiding, then, becomes more than just staying in one place. Rather, we find it is a dynamic state of rest (if that possible) in which we as believers are always drawing upon the source of our being, in Christ, and are always growing into the fullness of what we were meant to be, in Christ, coming to the place where we blossom and produce fruit which will last. This drawing from and pouring out is a way of being which reflects the inner relations of the Father, Son, Spirit fellowship, where each pours into and receives from the other, overflowing love.
When we look at our fellowship with one another, especially within the body of Christ, the Church as a whole, we don’t often see or experience this type of pouring into and receiving from that reflects the divine love and life. In the Triune life and love, there is authenticity, transparency, truth, purity, affection, kindness, giving—all things which too often, we are missing in our interactions with one another. The result of not living true to our design to be image-bearers of God in Christ is fear, the dread of punishment. This fear, which isolates us and damages our relationships, is a kind of punishment in itself, for it blinds us to the reality of the love poured out for us in Christ, which frees us from such fear.
As the body of Christ, we want to be living out the truth of who we are as those made in the image of God to reflect his likeness. In order for us to love God and love others, which we cannot do on our own, we need to receive first the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the heavenly Spirit. We need to attend to Jesus Christ, all he has done for us in his incarnation, his life, his death, resurrection, and ascension. In Christ, we see our heavenly Father and his great love. As the apostle John shows us, the whole Trinity is involved in our salvation—God is love and loves each and every one of us profoundly. Making the effort to focus on this love, to sit at Jesus’ feet as Mary did and learn of him, is one way in which we open ourselves up to God’s love.
Gathering with others who are believers to worship, pray, serve, give, help, study the Word of God, hear and share the gospel, opens us up so the Holy Spirit can begin to pour God’s love into us. We understand that humans are broken and not every fellowship recognizes what it means to participate in Christ’s life and love in this way. But as we allow the Spirit to lead us, we will find others who are abiding in Christ, and together we can grow into a fellowship where God’s love finds full expression.
Dear Father, Jesus, Spirit, thank you for loving us so profoundly and unselfishly. Thank you for living in us and with us. Grant us the grace to see, recognize, and receive your love. And in receiving your great love, grant us the grace to love others in the same way as you have loved us, through Jesus and by your Spirit, for your glory, Father. Amen.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” 1 John 4:7–21 NASB
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:1–8 NASB
Recommended reading: What if Jesus Meets Us in the Good, Bad, and Messy? by Greg Williams and Mark Mounts [Grace Communion International publication].
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Bound Together in Community
By Linda Rex
The door to my bedroom opened. In walked my daughter’s dog. She headed straight for the bed and jumped up on it. Rather than curling up at the foot of the bed as she often does, she curled up right next to me so her side was pushing against my body.
It seems my daughter’s dog understands better than we do sometimes the need for physical connectedness. She knows by instinct the need for relationship and belonging.
It is too bad we are often so busy pushing one another away or protecting our space, we end up alone and disconnected. We prefer our independence rather than understanding and living in the truth we are all interdependent. We cannot and should not live as separate satellites. This was not God’s intent when he created us.
I think it is interesting that when we pack ourselves together in big cities, people become more and more disconnected. We find ways to hide from each other and to protect ourselves from being harmed. We isolate ourselves and then wonder why we are lonely and depressed.
I was reading an online article this morning about these utopic wellness communities which are being created. They are places where people live together in natural and wholistic communities where their environment is kept as close to nature as possible, and in which people live together and interact together in a community life.
Unlike the inner city, such a community leaves room for people to interact with nature as well as with one another. There is space to just be out and free, rather than concerned about one’s safety and one’s belongings.
I first felt this sort of freedom when I moved to southeast Iowa many years ago. The place I moved to was out in the midst of rural Iowa where any city of any size was about half an hour to forty-five minutes away. Leaving the back door unlocked was the norm, and taking a walk in the woods was a normal daily occurrence when the weather was nice and one wasn’t working. Letting the kids roam at will in the outdoors was a just a part of everyday life.
I noticed a couple of things when I first moved there. The first and most immediate was a sense of relaxation, of rest. I was not in a constant state of subtle inner anxiety. I could just be. The self-protective angst of the big city was not necessary in the same way anymore.
The second thing I noticed and had a hard time getting my mind around, was how everyone knew everyone else. Relationships in a small community were the norm, not the exception. It seems if you didn’t open up and be friendly with your neighbors, that was more of a reason for talk than if you did.
The sense of community all of us long for is a precious commodity. Not all of us have the financial resources or the ability to move to some place which can be more conducive to such a way of life. But we can learn to live in community right where we are. We can learn to live in the rest and freedom of knowing we are included and held in God’s love and life.
In creating the Body of Christ, the Church, Jesus created a community where people who are sharing in God’s love and life are brought together into relationship. The work of the Spirit brings people to faith in Christ and binds them together in spiritual family. The Church then becomes a place of rest where people can grow in their relationship with God and one another, and can find themselves in a “safe” place. This is what the Body of Christ is meant to be for God’s people.
The Body of Christ is also meant to be a safe haven for those buffeted about by this world—a place where they can encounter the Lord Jesus Christ and experience a little bit of the kingdom of God on earth, and the love of God expressed in and through his people.
When someone enters the door of our fellowship hall or our chapel upstairs, they should feel as though they could come in and snuggle up against us, trusting we will not kick them out the door. This requires a lot of grace and understanding. It requires being able to set healthy limits on what we can do and can’t do as far as our behavior toward one another. The house of God is meant to be a place of order, of peace, and a place of worship—but also a place of welcoming, understanding, and grace.
In Christ, the kingdom of God was initiated here on earth. Over the centuries, the Church of Christ has taken on different forms and shapes. But the one identifying factor we can all cling to is that the Church is meant to be a reflection of the very nature and being of Jesus Christ himself. The Church is his hands and feet in a dark world. The Church is a place of hospitality and welcoming when all other doors are shut.
The Church is never meant to be a place of hurtfulness, abuse, or rejection. It is never meant to be a place of separation, cliques, or snobbery. When we find ourselves treating people in these ways, it is time for us to rethink who we are. As God’s children, made in his image, we all gather at the table to share the abundance of his goodness and love. May we never forget the blessings and benefits of sharing in his divine community, and let us never fail to share them with others.
Lord, I thank you for all you have done and all you are doing now, and all you will do, to bring us together into one body in Christ by your spirit. Open our hearts to the truth of our inclusion in your community of faith. Grant us repentance and a change in our way of living so we will begin to experience and live in the truth of how you created us to be as your children. Do continue to work to tear down the walls between us and to create places of community, peace and unity in our world, through Jesus Christ our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 NASB
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