LIFE TOGETHER
By PASTOR TONY
Feb. 5th, 2021
As we continue to draw closer to our first in-person gathering on February 14th, the topic of community has been bouncing back and forth in my mind. I can’t get it out of my head! So, I’ve embraced this subject and even been taken back to former things I’ve read and studied about community in past years—ideas that I may have taken granted when I first read them. One book that I have cracked back open is titled Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. From the very beginning he defines community and sets the scene of what it can look like, or should look like at its best. He describes that community, as witnessed through Jesus Christ, is not simply a regular group gathering; meeting together is not enough and does not create Christian brotherhood. Instead, Bonhoeffer emphasizes that it is by engaging in what Christ has already established, bringing one’s broken, “muddled and impure” status into a life together. (27) Community is bringing our muddled lives together, with the help and example of Christ, so that we may become stronger together. It’s in this genuine and spiritual love that Christ binds the people of God into community as we share in “suffering and struggle” to experience God’s promised unity. I’ve experienced that kind of community before, but after this past year, I wonder if maybe I can appreciate it now more than ever before.
In Life Together there’s a chapter titled, “The Day with Others” and it outlines two major ways we grow: alone and together. Bonhoeffer writes: “Common life under the Word begins with common worship at the beginning of the day.” The worship he references is expected to include a gathering in praise and thanks, with Scripture reading and prayer and song. He’s making a point that worship isn’t only meant for one day of the week, it is every day. How often do our days begin in stress? Or do we wake up dreading the things to come? Bonhoeffer believed the day should not begin in stress, but in worship, waking to the love of God. In The Day with Others he gives us an example to help us wake up to the love of God, it’s called praying the psalter and I want to share that with you today.
“Community is bringing our muddled lives together, with the help and example of Christ, so that we may become stronger together.”
It’s not very hard, in fact, you’ve probably done it before or maybe even pray the psalter on a regular basis. Essentially, it’s opening up your Bible to the book of Psalms and praying the words of God and man; some of which can become uniquely one’s own in prayer. While there will be some psalms that may seem inapplicable to you, yet powerful prayers in their own respect. In the Psalter, one prays Christ, continuing prayers of the Father, of humanity, and the collective Christian body. (46) The Psalter is a school of prayer teaching people what prayer means, which is to pray “according of the Word of God, on the basis of promises.” (47) It is in the name of Jesus Christ, the Christian prays, and being that the Psalter is a form of “praying Christ” that means the psalms teach the Christian what they ought to pray, like Christ did for his disciples. Significantly enough, the psalms teach Christians to pray for fellowship as well, that we may enter into a day filled with the nuances of God and others, experienced in many manners, of which one can find expressed in and through Scripture.
If you have a moment, I invite you to join with me in praying a psalm today. I’ll provide one below, but feel free to open up to your favorite, or choose one at random. Whatever you choose, pray Christ.
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! 2 My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. 3 Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. 4 Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. 5 Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. 6 As they go through the valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion. 8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! 9 Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed. 10 For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness. 11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor. No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly. 12 O Lord of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.” (Psalm 84, NKJV)
In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.