Community as Paradox

Greater love has no one than this, that you lay down your life for your friends. - John 15:13

Christian truth has many aspects. Together they create a paradox. Somehow in the wisdom of God, in the depth and richness of our life and God's life, some things are true and at the same time bigger than we can understand.

One example is that Christian history tells us we are free to make choices and that what we choose will determine what our life will be. Yet, on the other hand, Scriptures tell us that God knew it all from the beginning anyhow. Somehow God is so big and has so designed the world that both are completely true; they don't cancel each other out. It's a paradox.

Laying down our lives for one another is like that. We come into Christian community believing that here above all places we are going to love one another; we are going to give ourselves. There's a calling on our lives, and as we come together in covenant, faith, and sacrifice, there's a tremendous flow of love.

Yet, there is the paradox: At the very place where we have come together to love one another more fully, more sacrificially, more deeply, it seems we end up hurting and disappointing one another.

In my experience, both sides of the paradox are descriptive of Christian community. This is where God's love and the love of brothers and sisters for one another is profoundly revealed. But Christian community is a place where the lack of love seems also to be manifest.

When we come into Christian community we have a vision of laying down our lives for our friends. We don't understand what this means, but as we are together its meaning begins to unfold.

Sacrifice doesn't come at the point that we have decided to sacrifice. Believing that it does gets us into trouble. We talk about all the wonderful things that we are going to do for each other, but then what really gets us is that the things that we are called upon to sacrifice are never what we agreed to give up.

Some moments, of course, we have the vision of putting in our whole lives, and we mean it. Deep in our hearts we mean to give everything we have, but practically speaking we translate this desire into what it will mean in terms of our time and our resources. We have a long list of things - very important, sacrificial, wonderful things that we are doing for one another and for building up the body of Christ. But what disturbs us is that often when we have done all of these, somebody comes along and wants something else yet.

Another paradox is that as we start living more closely with one another and sharing more deeply, the self-centeredness in each of us starts to come to the surface and be more visible. When we are born anew by the Spirit of God there is a deeper reality than our self-centeredness, and that is Christ within us. So the deepest truth about us is not that we are self-centered, but that we are love. We are God's love.

But part of our old nature is that deep self-centeredness - although it's pretty civilized, very polite, sophisticated. When we start living together closely, it comes out in the little things. We can handle all the big issues of life, but what really gets to us are things like not being able to get into the bathroom right away when we want to, or the different ways we approach food consumption.

In a community household, getting there first and getting the best piece often become real issues. It's amazing how petty we can become. We're glory-bound citizens of the kingdom of God, but we're out there hustling for the biggest piece of pie. Then we feel insulted when we see someone else playing the same game. An anxiety sets in that we aren't going to get our needs met, that we can't really trust God and these people quite as much as we say. So we've got to be in there looking out for ourselves and perhaps neglecting others. We also take one another for granted. The kind of love that we extend to each other in a Christian community is fantastic - what we are willing to do for one another! We share time and money and put up with all sorts of difficulties in sisters' and brothers' lives. But being the kind of self-centered, id-nature folks that we are, we translate that love as what we have coming to us. We expect it, and we forget that all of this generosity and sacrifice for one another is a free gift. These other people are not required to do these good things for me; they offer them out of the love and generosity of their hearts.

Even more difficult is when others are not only unthankful but are expecting a little bit more besides: "Take care of this too," and, "How about that as well?"

Self-centeredness comes out in our closest caring relationships. Sometimes the people who most need to be served and cared for begin to resent that caring because of their own inner struggles. Or from their point of view, they have submitted themselves to others in trust, especially to those who serve as leaders and pastors in our communities; and when the limitations of the leaders become apparent, submission becomes difficult.

Probably one of the deepest hurts occurs in those situations where we've been very close for a long period of time. We've given and shared greatly of ourselves with one another, and then one or another or a combination of difficulties arises. Problems develop which are so complicated that we can't solve them. The end result is that we have to separate with difficulties unresolved.

So we've given; we've shared; we've invested. We've had such great hopes for this relationship, and it all falls apart and ends in tragedy. There the paradox of community comes out strong.

Sometimes we begin to feel overwhelmed, and we start to ponder what Christian community is all about. We came here to really love and care for one another. Now it's become so complicated. What about the love and sharing and positive vision we had of Christian community?

There seems to be a relationship between how close we get and how many of these problems begin to surface. As we begin living more closely with one another, we tend to create a situation I sometimes call the "family zone."

There is a difference between the way we relate in families and the way we relate otherwise. When we're at home we feel free to show our true selves. Drawing together in a Christian community gets to be like home, like a big extended family. Family dynamics start to come out in our relationships with one another.

This "family effect" is coupled with the "church effect." The church is the place where God's love and grace are revealed, so people start coming into a community with a lot of expectations: "Finally, the things that I've always looked for, hoped for, and longed for are coming true."

When we put family and church together in the way we do in a Christian community, we get a situation in which people get the idea that now at last their needs are going to be met, and so they go about seeing to it.

The positive side is that the Holy Spirit is at work. God is searching hearts and causing honesty and confession of sins. Sometimes people reveal things about themselves that they didn't even know. We often don't understand ourselves very well; it is God who searches out the depths of our hearts. And the Spirit makes it possible for us to be forgiven, understood, and supported.

Suffering Unjustly
There's a scripture passage that speaks of servants and masters, but I think the author is laying down a spiritual principle that applies in a broader way: "For you are approved if, mindful of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. What credit is it if when you do wrong and are beaten for it you take it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you take it patiently, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps" (1 Peter 2:19).

So we as Christians have been called to suffer while we are doing right. The love that we're called to manifest toward one another is especially revealed at precisely the points where we feel we're being let down or taken advantage of. Right at that point is our opportunity to express the deepest manifestation of Christian love.

If someone is being reasonable, grateful, and considerate, we're easily able to give and receive love from them. That's good, but that's just normal. Our Christianity really comes forward when we're in the same position as Jesus was when he was suffering on the cross, when we're giving love that's not being reciprocated or even understood.

We're called upon to approach these situations in a spiritual way: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).

We have the example of Jesus, but just knowing what we're supposed to do doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't come naturally to any of us. But we have not only the example of Jesus to show us how to respond, we actually have the power of Jesus within us. When we're in these difficult situations, we need to fall back on the reality of the Christ within us and let the power of the Spirit of God come forth.

When we react defensively, protectively, out of self-centeredness, we realize that such reaction provokes the same in another, just as one person's Godliness tends to provoke Godliness in another. We need to say, "Crucify that old self, and let your love come forth in my life." It's like going down to the altar afresh - surrendering ourselves, giving up the self-defense, the grasping which comes so naturally, and giving way to God. Each of these moments becomes one in which we can experience the crucifixion of our old nature and the revelation of the cross of Jesus Christ - the forgiving, self-giving love manifested through Christ on the cross.

If you've got the faith to do it, living in Christian community is a great blessing, because you have lots of opportunities to experience the crucifixion of your old nature and the giving of yourself through the grace of Christ. On the other hand, if you do not have the faith to cope with it, living in community can lead to bitterness and hardness. This can occur when we're getting so many opportunities to share this kind of agape love that we can't near keep up with them all; we can't respond to all the stimuli and the requirements. So we start fighting against them, and protecting ourselves; and a sort of reverse flow sometimes takes place.

We need a sober judgment concerning how well we're doing and whether we're living constructively in the situation in which we find ourselves. In community we create a lot of structures for our lives. We live in households. We have meetings. We choose pastors. We create specific relationships. Many things become intentional. The structures help to facilitate the life.

But sometimes we find ourselves in a situation in which we've structured more than we can take care of. Then practical adjustments become necessary.

Theoretically, we've got the resources in God to cope with anything. Practically, we don't always know how to make that work. So it takes some pastoral discernment for each of us to find the place in which we're being challenged and stretched to give, to share, to serve, and to love in line with our capacity. Otherwise we get overloaded to the point that we experience a reverse flow, so that instead of growing in love we are protecting ourselves in a more and more self-centered way. If we adjust the practical situation to something that we can handle and learn that spiritual process, then Christian community, and even the paradox, can be the most growth-producing and growth-enhancing situation that we can possibly imagine.

Let us return to the text from John: "Greater love has no one than this, that you lay down your life for your friends." This verse reveals a profound truth that is clear if we restate the verse in a slightly different way. It takes a deeper quality of love to get along with friends than to get along with anyone else. As we open up our lives in a profound way, such a tremendous sacrifice is required to stay with it that the verse might better read, "Greater love has no one than this, that you can hang in there with your friends."

In loving our enemies we have to show forth that kind of sacrificial love, but with enemies and other people out in the world we don't expect so much. Loving our friends is where we disappoint one another. Where we've trusted a lot, we've expected a lot. Such love is costly.

To go on loving, to go on giving ourselves, when we've been disappointed by our friends, when we've been hurt by the people we've given so much to - that takes a miracle. That takes the Christ within, because humanly speaking that's the point at which we start to defend, or retreat. We can't handle the disappointment except by the miraculous grace of God. It's a wonderful opportunity we've been given: being called together in a deep life of sharing. We are people committed and attempting to love and care for one another. There's a tremendous opportunity that God has opened up for us to experience divine love, the power of the Holy Spirit, the reality of the kingdom of God in such a profound way. If we can love our friends, if we can love our brothers and sisters in Christian community, that's the kingdom. That's the miracle. That's the crucified life as Jesus himself revealed it.

Virgil Vogt was a pastor of Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois, when this article appeared. This article is excerpted from a speech presented at the First Baptist Church in Chula Vista, California.