Even as I emphasized the importance of Community in restoring God’s
design for interactions between people, I must emphasize the importance of
personal identity and uniqueness of each individual, for the community to be
functional and not uniformed.
The three viruses
destroying community, Individualism,
Isolation, Independence - are interfering directly with Divine roles and
revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Isolation would never occur if people would see God as Father of all,
and community as a family sharing common place.
Individualism would not perpetuate when people accept Christ’s mission
and responsibility for all humanity, and Christ’s design of Church as One
Body. The Independence works against the
Holy Spirit distributing variety of gifts to many for edification of all, none
possessing everything, and needing each other interdependently.
As I keep communicating
this metaphor of community, I hope to communicate clearly the fact that
community is not about uniformity. Just
like body parts remain uniquely differentiated in shapes, forms, functions,
density, composition and size, and do not mesh to become a uniform mass within
the body, so do we remain separately unique in Community. Just as kidney differs from the eye, or a
lung differs from tongue, so do we differ in our gifts, talents, personalities
in the Common Body of Christ. Not only
that, there is a certain proximity and distance of parts that is designed for
effective functionality: i.e. stomach is connected through duodenum to the
small intestine on one end, and through the esophagus to the mouth cavity on
the other, thumb does not grow beside the nose, and ear is not next to the
knee. So it is in the human community,
the Body of Christ. There are certain
talents and people that must be close together, to work and function
effectively, yet must be appropriately distant from others.
Next month I will begin a
special series of sermons, lasting through the summer, on God’s design for each
one of us as unique individuals, on personal responsibilities of individuals in
communities. Quoting a comment I
received last Sabbath – God did not design us to be “leeches” on the healthy
body, but each a contributing and functional organ. No believer should see him/herself in a
parasitical mode of “take, take and take some more.”
When we abide in one common
place, and have a mutual purpose to share then each one has to be both,
contributor and recipient, and this are not sequential, but simultaneous. Examine yourself, are you giving only, or
receiving only, or are you doing both?
