Sustainable Faith & Friends 2
May 18, 2008
“We do not exist for ourselves alone, and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin to love ourselves properly and thus also love others …. It is because of [our deficiencies] that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another …. [The] meaning of my life is not merely in the sum total of my own achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time. It is seen, above all, in my integration in the mystery of Christ.” (Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island)
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It is impossible to live the Christian life alone. Period. And what passes as “shared life” in most western world churches is so weak and tasteless that it’s an insult to the Christ who redeemed us to be his body.
The level of interaction between Christians in many local churches consists of nothing more than a coming to and going from a weekend event at a public building where those who profess Christ, right alongside those who are looking for him, sit together as strangers. If we do have conversations, they’re fleeting, shallow and safe because, after all, it isn’t the time and place and there’s too much to get into and you don’t know who can be trusted. We are alone in the same room (alone together), consuming what is passed out by “religious professionals” and then returning to our fortresses to live in relative isolation, apart from the the church: the body of Christ which is his people. And in this isolation we struggle to sort out family life, marriages, finances, vocations, and the press of daily life. Cloistered we struggle to overcome vice and to put into practice all the things we heard over the weekend.
How are we doing in this respect? Well, statistics say that collectively we’re failing miserably in this task, and that the life we have gained in turning to Christ is virtually indistinguishable from the life of those who have not turned to him. We lie as much, have affairs as often, and are addicted to the same level as the world in which we live. And in the area of divorce we slightly outpace the rest of society.
Many of us know that we’re failing. Deep down we know it but have been afraid to admit it, so we console ourselves with two fictions that help us live with the unease of not being in relationship and not living with much power. The first fiction is that we don’t have to be deeply involved in one another’s lives because “we’re a family linked in our perspectives and attitudes.” Because, then, we’re a “society of spirit,” even when we go our separate ways we’re still “together in our hearts.” This is real fellowship, we say.
But the truth is that no society of hearts is capable of existing only in the realm of the mind. If we’re to hold each other in mind when apart, it will only be because we’ve held each other close when together, which is the way it’s meant to be. If we’re to be saved at all, we will be saved together. Through Jesus, God has penetrated life in a new way in order to create a people who are necessarily linked. They are joined not only in their attitudes but in a type of life so different in kind from the society at large that it stands out sharper than fresh blood on white linen.
The second fiction we console ourselves with says that the profound brokenness we experience is okay, because what really sets us apart from the rest of society is a profession of faith that guarantees us eternal life. In other words, we’ve prayed the “sinner’s prayer” and others haven’t. We have a divine insurance policy and they don’t. But what good is a “sinner’s prayer” if it doesn’t, in communion with others sinners, lead us together from our individualism to become a holy ethnos, the new people, the body of Christ, the temple of God — all biblical images? At its worst it becomes a superstitious formula, some magic key that gives us, we believe, automatic entrance into the kingdom of God. It’s what we speak when God says, “Psst! What’s the password?”
The good news is that we can overcome this deficit of imagination and understanding. At least some of our inability to live in life-transforming relationships with one another is rooted in our ignorance of “the shared life” as it’s presented in the New Testament. We take our cues from present day church life and mistakenly believe it to be the truth. But what if we saw and decided to live the according to our calling? What if we looked at the portrait of the early church as it’s actually presented? And what if we allowed that picture and understanding to reform our current practice? There’s still space for a revolution.
Comments
3 Responses to “Sustainable Faith & Friends 2”
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“If we’re to be saved at all, we will be saved together.”
i love it!!
another thought:
how do we share in the corporate sins committed as, asy for example, “Americans” or “British”? does this have some of the remnant thought, like the exile of the Jews to Babylon…those who will be saved are amongst and share in the larger corporate nature.
like i said before, i love the thought that if we are to be saved, we will be saved together…but does the opposite work? if we are lost, are are lost together?
I agree with everything or nearly so of what you’ve written here. A big problem as I see it in our (western anyway) church today is a lack of economic connectedness. Men especially spend the majority of their waking time working and/or learning for the expected financial security and/or advancement of a profession and/or their own feelings of self-worth/personal accomplishment/civic duty etc. I am maybe simple and naive enough to look at models such as the Amish to plan the direction I want to go to find community where “our daily bread” is actually a “mutual fund” and the commitment is tangible. I’d love replies..
Ben W