Extreme Community
John 6:48-58
"I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."
In the movie "Hotel Rwanda", a hotel manager in the central African city of Kigali saves 1200 refugees from the genocide which claimed the lives of almost a million Rwandan people. Paul Rusesabagina never intended to be a hero, but with amazing courage and wit, he sheltered these desperate people until the Tutsi army drove back the killing hordes of Hutus. Paul created an island of life in a sea of murder and blood.
In the same way, Oskar Schindler rescued thousands of Jews from extermination in the very center of the Holocaust in Poland. Surrounded by evil and always a hair's breadth away from being killed, he somehow managed to keep the Jewish workers in his factory alive until the Russian army drove back the retreating Nazis.
Both men started their heroic journeys without any pretense of heroism. They were businessmen, practical and worldly, without any idealistic impulses to trouble their hearts. In each case, it would have been easier to run from the evil, or to go along until the wave of death had passed. They were caught in a storm of events beyond their control, but at a crucial moment, they chose not just to survive, but to save others. Why?
We are constantly reminded that we live in a very privileged society, that we are insulated from the horrors which much of the world must face. We only touch that horror when we watch a movie or the news. Sometimes a disaster like Katrina or Rita reminds us of our vulnerability, but most days we live our lives in the same manner as Paul Rusesabagina or Oskar Schindler before they were confronted with danger. God blesses us with families, homes, jobs, wealth, medicine, education and freedom, and we occasionally remember to give Him thanks.
In John 6, Jesus tells us that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Another way of saying this is that unless we believe in Jesus Christ as our savior, then we are dead. Our bodies may move, our mouths may speak, our eyes may see, but without Christ, we are dead, that is, we have no life in us. The Spirit gives life, Jesus says, and without Him, there is no life.
What if we could physically see this life and this death of which Jesus speaks? What if we could put on a pair of special lenses which would allow us to see a living person, filled with the life which only Christ can give, or if we could see the walking corpse, without life or hope? Would this change our actions? Would this change our thinking? It is good that God forbids us to judge others, because if we could see as God sees, we would go crazy. It would be like a bad horror movie, like the "Night of the Living Dead" as we walk through the mall, or drive down the street, or go to a school function. How could we even function in such a world if we could really see the spiritual dimension as it truly is?
Maybe this sounds morbid or melodramatic. We cannot compare our comfortable lives to the slaughter in Rwanda or Poland. After all, going to church on Sunday isn't a life and death matter. It is what we do as Christians. It is what our parents taught us to do. We do it for our kids so that they can receive some idea of moral tradition other than what they get from school or television. It is the practical thing to do.
And that is the biggest lie which we can tell ourselves.
Put on your spiritual glasses for a moment and see the truth of the spiritual world. How many people do you know who are spiritually dead? Or do you believe that in God's mercy and out of His love, He saves everyone regardless of their faith or lack of faith. Jesus says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear Him (that is, God) who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28) It is Satan's intention that we all lose our eternal life, for he desires above all else to ruin God's creation and diminish God's glory. His best tool is to remove our spiritual sight so that all we see is the physical appearance of things rather than the eternal battle. From the very first deception in the Garden of Eden, he has tried to hide or distort the truth.
If we had the same concern for saving others from spiritual death as we have for saving them from physical death, then perhaps our terror of physical death would diminish. Hotel Rwanda was a frail refuge from the murderers who ravaged the city of Kigali, but it was also an example of real community. Call it "Extreme Community" because the bond which held this family of 1200 together was their will to live in the face of horrible death. They loved and cared for each other because they knew the alternative. They had all seen the hacked bodies, the rape, the torture, and the madness in the world just outside the hotel grounds.
What do we see outside the church? With spiritual glasses on, can you see the broken lives? Can you see the anger and depression in so many families? Can you see the hopeless faces of unbelievers at a funeral, when they look at the hole in the ground and believe in their hearts that it is a doorway to nothingness? Can you see children growing up in a home without Christ, filled with wrath, selfishness, and rebellion? Are the walking dead any less dead be they rich or poor, sick or healthy, young or old? Or is this just an exaggeration, a metaphor, is it only Jesus using colorful language and symbolism? Is being born again something which only rabid fundamentalists believe, or are we as Christians truly born into a new life when we accept Christ?
Look at the neighborhoods, the homes, the buildings, the parks. Look at the millions of automobiles, the bustle of enterprise, the shopping, the endless activity which fills our city. Now put on your spiritual glasses and look again. All the appearances vanish, and the homes and buildings are filled with zombies. Unless they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they have no life in them. At my church there may be people who are going through the motions. We cannot know and we are forbidden by God to judge, but if we could put on our glasses, how would we respond to those who are coming to our community, but do not really know Christ? Would we love them as God loves us, or would we just go to the Lord's table and mind our own business? After all, our spiritual life is a private matter. That's why the word Gospel really means "Best Kept Secret" rather than "Good News." Let the dead bury their dead.
The truth is that we don't really see this as a matter of life and death. If a church could suddenly be transformed into Hotel Rwanda, and if we were all Tutsis, clinging to one another for life, praying to God to save us from the demons outside these walls, then it would be obvious. We don't hear the crying, we don't smell the sickness, we don't see the bodies. It is all locked away behind doors, behind walls, behind privacy fences, behind hedges, even behind bars. There is nothing extreme in our community except perhaps anxiety, which is the universal condition of our modern world. It is this same anxiety which tells the truth to our hearts. We call it fear of the unknown, but it is really fear of what we don't want to know, don't want to see, don't want to think.
In the middle of this illusion that everything is almost but not quite alright comes Christ. He offers community, not only with each other, but with His very being. He offers His body and blood, and we share it together not only as a symbol, but as an act of taking Christ into ourselves so that we can be with Him now and forever, and so that we can be with each other, now and forever. Because if we are going to live forever, we had better learn to love each other. Forever is longer than an hour of worship, or a two hour small group meeting. This is the heart of small group life -- learning to love one another as Christ commands us, opening our homes, opening our hearts, and opening our hands. Put on your spiritual glasses and see the darkness around us, but also see the light of Christ which illuminates all things until He returns and destroys death itself.
"I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."
In the movie "Hotel Rwanda", a hotel manager in the central African city of Kigali saves 1200 refugees from the genocide which claimed the lives of almost a million Rwandan people. Paul Rusesabagina never intended to be a hero, but with amazing courage and wit, he sheltered these desperate people until the Tutsi army drove back the killing hordes of Hutus. Paul created an island of life in a sea of murder and blood.
In the same way, Oskar Schindler rescued thousands of Jews from extermination in the very center of the Holocaust in Poland. Surrounded by evil and always a hair's breadth away from being killed, he somehow managed to keep the Jewish workers in his factory alive until the Russian army drove back the retreating Nazis.
Both men started their heroic journeys without any pretense of heroism. They were businessmen, practical and worldly, without any idealistic impulses to trouble their hearts. In each case, it would have been easier to run from the evil, or to go along until the wave of death had passed. They were caught in a storm of events beyond their control, but at a crucial moment, they chose not just to survive, but to save others. Why?
We are constantly reminded that we live in a very privileged society, that we are insulated from the horrors which much of the world must face. We only touch that horror when we watch a movie or the news. Sometimes a disaster like Katrina or Rita reminds us of our vulnerability, but most days we live our lives in the same manner as Paul Rusesabagina or Oskar Schindler before they were confronted with danger. God blesses us with families, homes, jobs, wealth, medicine, education and freedom, and we occasionally remember to give Him thanks.
In John 6, Jesus tells us that "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Another way of saying this is that unless we believe in Jesus Christ as our savior, then we are dead. Our bodies may move, our mouths may speak, our eyes may see, but without Christ, we are dead, that is, we have no life in us. The Spirit gives life, Jesus says, and without Him, there is no life.
What if we could physically see this life and this death of which Jesus speaks? What if we could put on a pair of special lenses which would allow us to see a living person, filled with the life which only Christ can give, or if we could see the walking corpse, without life or hope? Would this change our actions? Would this change our thinking? It is good that God forbids us to judge others, because if we could see as God sees, we would go crazy. It would be like a bad horror movie, like the "Night of the Living Dead" as we walk through the mall, or drive down the street, or go to a school function. How could we even function in such a world if we could really see the spiritual dimension as it truly is?
Maybe this sounds morbid or melodramatic. We cannot compare our comfortable lives to the slaughter in Rwanda or Poland. After all, going to church on Sunday isn't a life and death matter. It is what we do as Christians. It is what our parents taught us to do. We do it for our kids so that they can receive some idea of moral tradition other than what they get from school or television. It is the practical thing to do.
And that is the biggest lie which we can tell ourselves.
Put on your spiritual glasses for a moment and see the truth of the spiritual world. How many people do you know who are spiritually dead? Or do you believe that in God's mercy and out of His love, He saves everyone regardless of their faith or lack of faith. Jesus says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear Him (that is, God) who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28) It is Satan's intention that we all lose our eternal life, for he desires above all else to ruin God's creation and diminish God's glory. His best tool is to remove our spiritual sight so that all we see is the physical appearance of things rather than the eternal battle. From the very first deception in the Garden of Eden, he has tried to hide or distort the truth.
If we had the same concern for saving others from spiritual death as we have for saving them from physical death, then perhaps our terror of physical death would diminish. Hotel Rwanda was a frail refuge from the murderers who ravaged the city of Kigali, but it was also an example of real community. Call it "Extreme Community" because the bond which held this family of 1200 together was their will to live in the face of horrible death. They loved and cared for each other because they knew the alternative. They had all seen the hacked bodies, the rape, the torture, and the madness in the world just outside the hotel grounds.
What do we see outside the church? With spiritual glasses on, can you see the broken lives? Can you see the anger and depression in so many families? Can you see the hopeless faces of unbelievers at a funeral, when they look at the hole in the ground and believe in their hearts that it is a doorway to nothingness? Can you see children growing up in a home without Christ, filled with wrath, selfishness, and rebellion? Are the walking dead any less dead be they rich or poor, sick or healthy, young or old? Or is this just an exaggeration, a metaphor, is it only Jesus using colorful language and symbolism? Is being born again something which only rabid fundamentalists believe, or are we as Christians truly born into a new life when we accept Christ?
Look at the neighborhoods, the homes, the buildings, the parks. Look at the millions of automobiles, the bustle of enterprise, the shopping, the endless activity which fills our city. Now put on your spiritual glasses and look again. All the appearances vanish, and the homes and buildings are filled with zombies. Unless they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they have no life in them. At my church there may be people who are going through the motions. We cannot know and we are forbidden by God to judge, but if we could put on our glasses, how would we respond to those who are coming to our community, but do not really know Christ? Would we love them as God loves us, or would we just go to the Lord's table and mind our own business? After all, our spiritual life is a private matter. That's why the word Gospel really means "Best Kept Secret" rather than "Good News." Let the dead bury their dead.
The truth is that we don't really see this as a matter of life and death. If a church could suddenly be transformed into Hotel Rwanda, and if we were all Tutsis, clinging to one another for life, praying to God to save us from the demons outside these walls, then it would be obvious. We don't hear the crying, we don't smell the sickness, we don't see the bodies. It is all locked away behind doors, behind walls, behind privacy fences, behind hedges, even behind bars. There is nothing extreme in our community except perhaps anxiety, which is the universal condition of our modern world. It is this same anxiety which tells the truth to our hearts. We call it fear of the unknown, but it is really fear of what we don't want to know, don't want to see, don't want to think.
In the middle of this illusion that everything is almost but not quite alright comes Christ. He offers community, not only with each other, but with His very being. He offers His body and blood, and we share it together not only as a symbol, but as an act of taking Christ into ourselves so that we can be with Him now and forever, and so that we can be with each other, now and forever. Because if we are going to live forever, we had better learn to love each other. Forever is longer than an hour of worship, or a two hour small group meeting. This is the heart of small group life -- learning to love one another as Christ commands us, opening our homes, opening our hearts, and opening our hands. Put on your spiritual glasses and see the darkness around us, but also see the light of Christ which illuminates all things until He returns and destroys death itself.
posted by moleses | 8:02 PM
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