Fellowship: Why We Gather
I know a lot of people think that they don’t need the church. I’ve heard people say that nature is my church. Or it doesn’t matter if I come to a church or belong to a community, as long as I believe that is fine. We may have any number of reasons to say this. The politics, the relationship struggles, the bad choices, the brokenness, the desire to just stay in bed, or some sporting event - even with all of these reasons, as many of you know, if we do not belong and meet regularly in a Christian Community we are fundamentally lacking something in our faith and life. As Christians without a community, we are like an eye or an arm without a body, we lack belonging, purpose, wholeness, even life, and communion with our head - Jesus Christ.
I think this image of us, Christ’s church, as the body is such a ponient one. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the image in a very pragmatic way, as he addresses disunity, disrespect, pride, belittling, and a lack of love between its members. At the same time as he uses the image to try to correct their poor relationships, he is also moving them into a mysterious unity beyond anything else we know in this world.
Most of us know that closeness is very important. As COVID was winding down we began to see a lot more studies released about the simple benefits of human touch, a hug, someone’s presence, a good listener, and all the other realities of a close relationship. Yet, this kind of closeness, this kind of unity can be tough in today’s world. Even marriage which is society's best example of closeness and unity is under fire and struggling these days. So, what unites us? Mostly, what I see in Toronto is that people are connected through a common interest or cause. This might draw people together for a special event, or to share in a particular joy or struggle, but beyond that particular how does it truly connect people? I have had plenty of friends that I couldn’t talk to about much of anything outside of acting, or video games, or sports, or music. Maybe a better example is the unity of family. Yet, even here are bonds are only so strong as our willingness to depend on one another. I have seen too many times that blood does not guarantee closeness. In fact, one of the goals as parents is to help your children be increasingly more independent, though this can never be absolute. Marriage is a better vision for unity, but that has a singular reality for unity. That relationship is only meant for one other, in a mutual self-sacrificial faithful commitment.
So, how can we live in unity with one another? There is only one thing, one person who can connect us beyond our great differences, and that is Jesus Christ. In Him, we can and should be connected in a whole new way, that is impossible otherwise. So, Paul leans on the image of the body, with Jesus as our head - the one guiding, the one filtering our communication, understanding, and senses, the one who is driving our emotions and actions. Jesus being our head is the first essential part, because we do need something that binds us, we do need something that draws together our differences, we do need something that gives us a common purpose and guides us towards caring for the whole. If Jesus is not our head, our guiding voice, we can either become like an eye that cannot see, or an arm that does not work, or in the worst case we can become a cancer to the body that infects and destroys the whole, all because we don’t want to live into our common purpose.
This is a hard reality to face, especially because it can be a hard reality to see. Most of the time we live our lives so independently that we rarely see the consequences of not connecting, of misspeaking, of acting out, of not living in a Godly unity. We rarely see how our driving affects others, or our shopping, or our passing someone by without a connection. Half of the time we may not even realize how this affects us, but we do feel it. We do feel the lack of unity in our daily commute, at work, in our politics, in our everyday lives, and we definitely see the consequences in our world. We know we are meant for at least a greater care for one another, but what Paul is showing us is that this love only comes from our collective unity in and with Christ.
The amazing thing is as we live and work in the community, as we live in this unity, we can come to meet and know God more. The head, Jesus Christ, is always communicating to and through the body. It might not always be obvious the connection between the brain and the finger, but you can see and know the mind and purpose through what the finger does. The foot may feel the love of the head, through the work of the hand. We all want such unity that we know and experience the love, direction, and strength of our Father God, but it is just as important that we experience and know Him regularly through those he works through.
It doesn’t matter how different we are, we can still be connected and one in Jesus. If you are a hyper-capable CEO, or someone riddled with mental and physical barriers, if you are a retiree looking back on your life, or a youth searching for who you are, if you are a new parent, or a lifelong single or without children, if you are from South Africa, or Pakistan, or China, or Belgium, no matter what we can be and are one, united in Jesus Christ. Nowhere else can we see this, a family or a friend group might have aspects of this, but here in this church we are together lifting up God and one another using the numerous differences, experiences, and gifts that God has given us.
Here we get a fundamental part of our unity - which is a common but at the same time individual purpose. If we look at our own body, there is a common purpose of caring for and lifting up the body as a whole - which often means taking care of the individual parts too. The hands and the mouth might work to feed the stomach, but we know then that the stomach feeds the rest of the body. The mind might have to work to get us to bed, but the whole body benefits from the rest. There is this simple common purpose of caring for the whole that actually helps to care for the individual parts. Yet, the purposes of each individual part look vastly different as the parts are different. The hands and the eyes are very different and do very different things and yet they are both very important to the building up of the whole. So an important part of our fellowship here is in finding and living out our individual and common purpose - and a common support.
If in our differences we can find such a common and individual purpose and work toward it, we can begin to experience this greater unity and so ultimately, we can come to know the greatest belonging that is possible. There are numerous places we can find belonging, but in many of them in my life, I feel like I can’t share a part of myself. There are many places where I don’t feel comfortable sharing my faith, talking about my purpose, or exploring my faults and brokenness. There are many people that I don’t feel comfortable being in silence with, discussing hard conflictual topics, or keeping accountable. We experience belonging, but most of the time it is just a taste as we feel like the whole of ourselves doesn’t belong.
That should be different in the church. This is a place where we should feel wholly ourselves as we help one another to find ourselves. Sure, we are still building trust. Sure, we are all trying to move beyond our brokenness. Sure, we are still learning to understand our differences. But we do this together and as we do, we see one another and our own belonging in whole new and fulfilling ways. We see that all of ourselves has a place, even the brokenness that we are working through. So our fellowship is important for us to find the kind of belonging we were meant for.
This belonging is essential to our ability to grow well too. Psychology talks about a healthy connection as securely attached and how a secure attachment, where we feel trust and confidence allows us to move in the world more freely, trying new things, screwing up, succeeding, and more, because we know that we can always come back to a relationship that accepts us and cares for us. This is even more the case when we belong to a Christian community that knows every part of us and helps us through it. Mutual accountability is an important part of this. If we know that we are loved and belong even when we screw up, then we can face one another in those challenges and learn and grow from them - and somehow through the redemption of Jesus Christ become even closer to one another.
I have only just begun to talk about what a Christian fellowship can mean for us, as it becomes a place for us to meet God, to share our whole selves, a place where we truly belong, where we have a shared and yet an individual purpose, a place where we can explore and grow in faithful love for God and one another - each of these has massive implications into our health, our lives, our hopes and so much more. This Christ-centred community is yet another gift that God gives and it can be such a blessing, especially as we live into it. What comes from Jesus Christ, here and among this family, can be such an overflow of blessings that it is hard to imagine. I hope you are beginning to realize how true Psalm 133 is:
1 How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down over the collar of his robes.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
life for evermore. AMEN
