The Durable Community--October 3, 2023
"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others." [Philippians 2:3-4]
The way the Christian community continues--indeed, maybe the only way communities ever continue--is that we keep looking out for each other. At our best, at least, we keep putting the interests of others before our own immediate convenience or wishes, and others keep doing the same for us. And all the while, we teach the newcomers--children, learners of the faith, and those looking to start over--that this is all our way of life together. That's how genuine Christian community not only survives, but thrives.
It seems so fragile, doesn't it? A community, that is. Community is something more than just a collection of individual people. It isn't reducible to a building they share or a town they inhabit. It doesn't rely on force to compel people or money to persuade people to remain in it. It is constantly susceptible to dissolving, since it only exists when people choose to continue to keep it going. And yet the kind of community we call "church" has endured, for all of our failures, fractures, and fears, over two millennia, simply by the power of people choosing to stick with each other. We continue, we members of Christian community, because that is what love does. Love keeps us coming back to look out for each other, and keeps risking the trust that others will come through for us in our need, when we are running on empty. And that persistence commitment to one another is what makes authentic Christ-like love different from flaky feelings or fickle emotions we often conflate with "love." Genuine love, in other words, keeps on looking out for the others around the table, even when we don't feel like--while everyone else commits to look out for you and me, too.
It really is an amazing thing to consider how durable Christian communities have been in the past twenty centuries, when much more powerful, rigid, and impressive organizations have come and gone into the dustbin of history. The empire that ruled the known world at the time when Paul wrote today's verses from Philippians, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, eventually collapsed under the weight of its own greed and need for domination. Rome claimed to be eternal, but it was an eating machine--constantly needing new peoples conquer and more wealth to plunder in order to keep going--and eventually it ran out of things to gobble up... so it devoured itself. The same has been true with every other empire that took Rome's place, along with the rise and fall of superpowers, nation-states, corporations, clubs, and societies. When those institutions and structures cease to care about others, or when their members no longer seek each other's well-being before their own, it is only a matter of time before they fragment into oblivion. For a while, an empire can mount up some momentum and look like an unstoppable juggernaut, but once it runs out of fuel (enemies to invade and conquer, treasures to plunder, and people to enslave), it sputters out. The difference of Christ-like community is that we keep on making the commitment to making sure none of us burns out or runs dry, because we are each invested in one another's well-being. Love enables us to endure, because love never ends the conversation with, "Well, my wants are taken care of, so that's all I care about." Love insists that everyone else around the table get what they need, and it keeps looking to make sure nobody has gotten left out from the table, too.
We'll have to continue this train of thought tomorrow with Paul, because he will have more to say about what enables us to keep putting others first, and how the person of Jesus is at the crux of it all (literally). But for now just consider how stark the contrast was between the Christian community in first-century Philippi and the Roman Empire that surrounded them on all fronts. To any outside observer's eyes, the little house churches in Philippi must have seemed puny and pathetic, like a smoldering wick waiting to be snuffed out, and the mighty Empire seemed indomitable and eternal, just like its propaganda bragged. Caesar's dominion was backed up with armies, technology, wealth, and brute force, and the First Church of Philippi was just a bunch of anybodies from different backgrounds without power or status, bound together only by the love of Jesus that kept spurring them on to keep caring for each other. And two thousand years later, the Empire is an afterthought of dusty ruins, while the community of Jesus has adapted, persisted, grown, and remained. Love gives the capacity to endure, because love Christ-like love is willing to make sure that all are replenished, renewed, and recharged to keep going. That's the secret, and it's an open one at that. Love enables us to endure for one another and with one another.
Today, who are the people you and I can be looking out for? And who are the ones God may be working through today as well to make sure your needs are met, too? And how might we endure for each other, right where we are?
Lord God, let your love lead us to seek the needs and well-being of others before our own, while we trust you will raise up others to seek our well-being too.
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