Wise words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
“Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic book, Life Together, makes this observation that should be pondered by many in the church, especially those discontented with the relational dynamic in their particular congregation:
“The people most in love with community are in danger of destroying community.”
In other words, there are people who have made such an ideal of “Christian Community” that they are easily dissatisfied with the real thing.
No doubt there is much room for relational improvement in many churches – perhaps even most of them. But Bonhoeffer’s point is still valid. Sometimes it may be a “You” problem, or a “Me” problem, more than it is a “Them” problem.
Yet, as Brad Watson points out in an excellent short article for Gospel-Centered Discipleship, titled Our Hunger For Community:
“Broken families, broken relationships, and an epidemic of loneliness has created a ravenous hunger for community in this generation.”
This is true. And our churches and Christian communities must be aware of this hunger, and need to be prepared to provide such a haven for all who are seeking it. But Watson also points out a problem common to both those hungering for community and those who are anxious to provide it:
“But our flesh can seek our idea of community more than we seek Jesus. Our souls, it seems, are ready to settle for a sit-com style of friendship instead of striving for the spirit-led family of God purchased and created by his son’s death and resurrection.”
I think this is a very real issue. And I suspect this mindst feeds the discontent that Bonhoeffer warned about. When we put so too much weight on friendships, when our expectations of others is as heavy as what we should only expect of God, stress fractures are almost certain to eventually occur – and with them, emotional pain, and senses of disappointment and alienation, which often leads to difficulty of trusting others, with the ultimate consequence of inability to cultivate and sustain healthy relationships.
Bonhoeffer warns:
Those who want more than what Christ has established between us do not want Christian community. They are looking for some extraordinary experiences of community that were denied them elsewhere…Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial…Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.
In response to this common concern about Christian community, Watson has noted 6 Misunderstanding of Community and suggests 7 Components of Gospel-centered Community.
6 Misunderstadnings of Commuinity
7 Components of Gospel-centered Community
Whether you are one who is hungering for community that seems lacking, or one who is committed to cultivating community within your group or church, I hope you will give some thought to these premises; and benefit from Watson’s article: Our Hunger for Community
When God had mercy on us, when God revealed Jesus Christ to us as brother, when God won our hearts by God’s own love, our instruction in Christian love began at the same time. When God was merciful to us, we learned to be merciful with one another. When we received forgiveness instead of judgment, we too were made ready to forgive each other. What God did to us, we then owed to others. The more we received, the more we were able to give; and the more meager our love for one another, the less we were living by God’s mercy and love. Thus God taught us to encounter one another as God has encountered us in Christ. “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15.7)
Shakespeare’s Othello bellows:
“I have loved not wisely but too well.”
What he means is that his passions consumed him, and now he had destroyed what he loved. If you know the story, you will remember he had strangled his wife out of the mistaken fear that she had not been faithful to him.
Similarly, in his monumental book, Life Together, Dietrich Bohoeffer warns:
“The people most in love with community are in danger of destroying community.”
In other words, there are people who have made such an ideal of “Christian Community” that they are easily dissatisfied with the real thing. In their dissatisfaction they grumble, causing others to become disaffected, which further fuels their sense that this real Christian community does not meet the measure of idealized Christian community. In many cases such people eventually withdraw themselves from fellowship with the visible Church. In the end they devoid themselves of what they say they most wanted. And in their wake they leave behind others with feelings of abandonment, rejection, confusion, anger, and more inclination toward disengagement. These are the effects of their having loved “not wisely but too well”. Like Othello they kill what they claim they love.
I know people like this…
It is easy to love people hypothetically, or to love hypothetical people. It is quite another thing to love real flesh and blood. Real people are flawed. The better we get to know others the more apparent those flaws can become. That’s why the old adage is true: Familiarity does breed contempt. But more important, what Peter tells us is also true:
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4.8)
As I think about the communities of which I am part my hope is simply that, rather than idealizing Christian community, we continually recommit ourselves to enact and embody John’s encouragement:
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3.18)
Such love is founded upon the gospel. It is rooted in the shared experience of grace through common faith in the atoning work of Christ. It realizes that we will let each other down. It seeks reconciliation of wrongs and grievance. It models the laying down of our lives, and our preferences, for the joy of seeing others prosper and the oneness Jesus prays for us to be realized.
GRACE & PEACE 