Community

DAILY BYTE

Yesterday we reflected on our own families as a place where God’s glory and grace can be seen. Today, we expand that thought by thinking about the wider family of faith, and how the formation of diverse and inclusive community is a source of such rich hope for our world.

Of course, not all communities are hope-filled. Many communities offer very little that is truly life-giving and transformational. This usually happens when they become little more than closed groupings of people that have an inward rather than outward focus.

Interestingly, the early church in Acts struggled with this very same thing. They were a new community of faith grappling with what it meant to be faithful and obedient followers of Christ. This new faith movement had emerged out of their Jewish heritage, and so for some believers their Jewishness was an essential part of their identity.

But God had much bigger and broader intentions for the church, and there was a seismic shift that happened in the church’s self-identity when those intentions were expressed. The Spirit was poured out on Gentiles, and Peter immediately recognized that the old criterion of Jewishness that the church had been holding onto was redundant. And so these Gentiles were baptized and incorporated into the church.

In explaining his actions to the Jewish Christians back in Jerusalem, Peter describes a vision he had of a sheet descending from heaven, laden with all sorts of food that any self-respecting Jew would never touch. Strict dietary observance was, of course, one of the essential aspects of the Jewish way. But in the vision Peter is commanded to eat. He protests. He says it will make him impure and will diminish who he is. God says, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now get up and eat.’

I’d like to think that in the vision, before the sheet was pulled back to heaven, Peter got to sink his teeth into a succulent pork chop for the first time in his life, or maybe a crayfish tail, and realized, ‘God’s right. This is good. This is not diminishing, but enriching.’

Do you get the picture of what this is saying about our understanding of community? The common fear is that in opening up the doors in radical hospitality and inclusive embrace we will lose our identity and be diminished as a result. But according to God, exactly the opposite is true. And whenever you see communities growing more diverse, be it in your neighborhood, at work, your child’s school, or your church, give thanks to God. Because hope is being born again.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Our prayer today is taken from a contemporary hymn:

Your love O God is broad like beach and meadow
Wide as the wind and our eternal home
You leave us free to seek you or reject you
You give us room to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’

Your love O God is broad like beach and meadow
Wide as the wind and our eternal home

We long for freedom where our truest being
Is given hope and courage to unfold
We seek in freedom space and scope for dreaming
And look for ground where trees and plants can grow

Your love O God is broad like beach and meadow
Wide as the wind and our eternal home

But there are walls that keep us all divided
We fence each other in with hate and war
Fear is the bricks and mortar of our prison
Our pride of self the prison coat we wear

Your love O God is broad like beach and meadow
Wide as the wind and our eternal home

SCRIPTURE READING

Acts 10:44

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.