COMMUNITY IS LIFE
By PASTOR TONY
January 29th, 2021
Community is life and vice versa. It is impossible to live without community, to literally have life without community first existing is not possible. I first learned that in health class and I’m reminded of it in Scripture. In the beginning of all things, the very first thing God said was not good, was being alone. (Gen. 2:18) Being together is life-giving. It is very good. Yet even though it is impossible to live without community, a vast majority of people have tried and been trying to live without community lately. I believe it is killing us. Though not as potentially deadly to humanity as COVID-19, this virus has separated many from their source of life. Their life source.
One comparison that comes to my mind is that of a bodybuilder on a diet. In fact, I was recently watching an episode of the hit comedy tv show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, in which one buff character, Lieutenant Terry Jeffords, played by actor Terry Crew, starts a diet to support his wife, who is trying to eat healthier. However, Terry works out exceedingly and in other episodes is described as needing at least 10,000 calories per day to sustain the number of calories he burns working off daily. Yet in this episode, he spends nearly a week living on a diet that could not have been more than 200 calories. For some meals, he was only permitted to eat a solitary carrot! It showed. Each day he became increasingly wearier and incapable of achieving tasks he otherwise would have accomplished with ease.
“Even though it is impossible to live without community, a vast majority of people have tried and been trying to live without community lately. I believe it is killing us. ”
That is a picture of how much of the world has operated over the past several months. We have been living off an insufficient diet, and it’s killing us! Our muscle mass is deteriorating, and we are becoming weak. Normally sustained by smiles, laughter, hugs, or simply being present in the same space, we now find ourselves seeking to become self-sufficient and failing. Most of the time when you laugh, you don’t see your own smile, and you may even struggle to recognize your own joy. When you don’t hear someone say, “you seem happy,” you can’t respond “I am,” and be reminded of how much that simple response means. It’s like we’re on a diet of breadcrumbs. Meaningful encounters come and they go, quickly. We follow the trail just to eventually find the bread gone and ourselves unsatisfied. Even those who rarely follow social distancing guidelines find themselves increasingly more dissatisfied with the “community” they encounter. This diet is not sustainable.
But at least we endure together! I love hearing about the diets where once a week you can eat out, or have your favorite dessert, because then at least once a week you get to experience a taste of what you love. Maybe that taste will help you hold on, to stay strong for the week to come. As a church, I believe the last few months we have endured on a limited diet of livestreams and Zoom meetings, and we are surviving but starving for more. I know there are many reading this now who struggle with the heartbreaking effects of these past few months. Maybe you feel distant from God or have struggles you didn’t ever expect to find in the past year. This is a hard diet to maintain. In fact, that is the same reason why most diets fail and the people who attempt them re-gain all the weight they had previously lost. However, there are two other options: 1) The dieter becomes part of the slim minority, an exception to the rule or 2) They never stop dieting; it becomes a way of life.
I’m positive that I don’t desire for quarantine to become the new way of life for people today and I’m grateful that I don’t mind putting the weight back on. In fact, I believe that though this diet of limited community has strained many to the core, there is a day soon coming when we will get our sustenance back and back in full. I believe that the world’s desire for community is stronger now than ever before in my lifetime and I can only imagine what that could mean for the Church. Today we endure, but soon I believe we will increasingly larger portions of community in our lives until we are full—overflowing with life.