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Second Stone: Community Dialogue, confession, ethics invitation, baptism, religion as context The Immanent "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves." (Romans 14:7) "If any one says "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." (I John 5:20) "No man is an island, entire of itself." John Donne If it is nature that first teaches us about God, community is our second teacher. It is within the family that a child first comes to a sense of herself and her place in the world as she interacts with others. Later, those relationships extend beyond the family unit into the world in increasingly complex relationships with those who are not our kin. All that we are and all that we know comes to us through the communities of which we are a part. Our existence is a coexistence. We put ourselves into the care of others. Plato said that it is the community that gives us our soul. Aristotle said that only God and beasts are able to exist outside of community. Human community is made possible through a set of covenantal relationships that are arrived at through dialogue with others. The Biblical understanding of the nature of community is that we exist in a covenant relationship with God that is reflected in community relations which include a commitment to justice, mercy, faithfulness, caring for the poor and the stranger, and maintaining a mutually agreed upon code of ethics. Our willingness to enter into and abide by our covenantal agreements with God and with others is reflected in a richly symbolic entrance ritual known as baptism. The Christian understanding of baptism is much more than a public profession of our desire to be in community with others who share and assist us in our faith journey. Baptism is understood as even more symbolic of our understanding that it is only God that makes it even possible for us to keep covenant and live in community. Human weakness necessitates that we regularly confess our failure to live within our covenant relationship with God and with others. but because God has a personal relationship with us that is reflected in his mercy and compassion and love for us, God freely forgives us when we fail and actively seeks to restore us to communion with Him. By the same token, we are called upon to reciprocate God's mercy by showing the same mercy and compassion and forgiveness to others. Our inability to understand God's relationship with us in the abstract necessitated God sending His son, Jesus, to live with us and share our struggles, hopes, joys and sorrows. It was God's will to be as close to us as possible to help us. As we seek to follow His Son and live like him, we come to understand more clearly the relationship God desires with us. Jesus is truly God With Us. The Immanent One. back to Stepping Stones |