In the last month I have had the privilege of sharing a meal with several pastors and religious leaders in the Mobile area. Though we come from varying backgrounds and even different faiths, there seems to be a common denominator in our society that we are all lamenting: the loss of authentic community. Now, lest you rare up and think this column is another good whine about the golden age of religious devotion and church attendance, well, it is not that. Instead, it is more of a consideration of how the finer tuned edges of society, what we once called community, are slipping away from us.
How and why is this so? Well, first things first. Community is a word that we often hear, but in many respects are losing touch with in the digital age. If you do a Google search on the Latin word ‘communitas’ this is what you will find: The word "community" is derived from the Old French communité (cum, "with/together" + munus, "gift"), and is a broad term for fellowship or organized society in which intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.
Those of us in a faith community, then, come together in our giftedness to worship God in a fellowship of shared beliefs, resources, preferences, needs, and to even take risks so that we find a collective identity together. If we miss any one of these ingredients, if we fail to risk, need, share, or fellowship, then we are short-changing a gift which God intends to give us in one another and shortchanging our identity too. How is it then that we have allowed this gift to slide down the list of priorities, to become unimportant in our weekly lives?
I think we must be vigilant in recognizing the gift of community, in honoring it and nourishing it for proper growth. And, to be in a community and in a relationship in this way means more than pushing a "like" button on a Facebook page or firing off an email every now and then. It means taking the time to care, to remember, to dialogue, and to reach out. It means setting aside time to sustain the tie that binds us and not taking them for granted.
St. Benedict once said that a faith community is a "school for souls" in which we learn not just how to live, but also how to experience abundant life. My weekly presence in a faith community allows me to see beyond myself to this abundant life, to see how God loves and forgives by calling me to extend that same kind of love and forgiveness to others. I could not have learned this lesson alone, safely nestled in my chores and the daily tasks at hand.
Faith and sustaining a community is not an arrival; it is always a journey. The faith questions put to each of us when we joined a church are important. Often, if you remember those moments, you will realize that those most basic faith declarations that we have made are usually at odds with our culture of relativism and individualism; and, they do not indicate that a faith relationship is something that you do once and for all.
The human fact is that we are in process—all of us all the time. We are never there, but always on the way. We do well to remember Martin Luther's conviction in this matter: "We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished, but is going on; this is not the end, but it is the road."
I cherish the tie that binds me to my fellow sojourners in faith. In our Sunday worship, we regularly affirm the importance of community and this journey in a favorite hymn, "Blessed Be the Tie that Binds" which bids us to remember why we gather and why it matters as is summarized in this opening and closing stanzas: "Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above...When we asunder part, It gives us inward pain; But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again."
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