Community
Have you heard that God is Love? If course you have. God does not have love, He is Love. It is His nature. Love requires relationship. When love is alone it is egotistical, or self-love, and this is pride. When God revealed Himself to man, He revealed Himself in a three-fold relationship of: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When Moses asked God what His name was, He said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. This is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3.15) God chose a man to have a family, which became tribes and nations. Through community the Love of God is revealed.
This message of community is central in the Scriptures. For example, in the Old Testament, there are traditionally 613 commandments. Of these 248 are positive, (things to do), and 365 are negative, (things to not do). Simlai, an old Jewish sage, noted that 248 correspond to the 248 bones of the human body and 365 to the 365 ligaments of the human body. No one can keep all the laws, because some are only for priests, others for women, others for those living in Israel, etc. To fulfill all the law requires a community working together. In the New Testament, the Church is called the Body of Christ. Each member of the Church corresponds to a member of the body. There is diversity in relationship. Each one is necessary for the whole to function. God’s work was never intended to be a one-man operation.
I like Isaiah’s picture of God’s people. He compared them to a cluster of grapes, (Is. 65.8). He said that in the cluster is the “New Wine”. It is in the cluster that the blessing is found. The psalmist wrote that God places the solitary in family and that only the rebellious dwell in a dry, (forsaken), place. God is the Father, or initiator, of all families. Community is His idea. It is where He commands the blessing.
Just as love is revealed in community, sin too is manifest in relationships. Sin is always against someone. It is intent on destroying relationships, especially our relationship with God. No one sins in a vacuum. The consequence of sin involves others. Even the innocent becomes victims where sin prevails. To avoid the destruction of our souls and the collateral damage that results, we must press in to love God will all our hearts, (passion), and others as ourselves, (compassion).
Scriptures to meditate on: Psalms 133; 68.6; Isaiah 65.8; Matthew 22.37-40