We live in a broken world, whose systems aren't made for love.
In this statement, I am summarizing my realization, that as I look around, live and work- the kinds of human systems we set up are not normally built to inspire and encourage love towards one another. Business, civics/government, entertainment, commerce, humanitarian groups and even religious organizations all contain systems that seem to drive us away from putting flesh and blood coverings on our care for one another. Even when something is a noble cause, the machinery built around such causes becomes a twisted irony that demands more servitude to the machine than to the people which it is meant to serve.
The state of most organizations, in its efforts to achieve efficiency, often seem to swing towards the painful eroding of our humanity. This is counter to the state in which we find true community which seeks to build love toward one another in our humanity, often at the expense of efficiency in organizational, measured ways. Hence, our thesis- our broken, sin-invaded world offers no systems which are made to foster community and encourage love. God, however, not only had community before creation (the fellowship, love and unity the Father had through Himself with the Son and Spirit before creation), but He calls us with an invitation into community with Himself by calling us His children.
You didn't receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, "Abba, Father." (Romans 8:15)
Community it not a system of this world- it came before creation. The community and love of the Trinity is the divine example from which our human lives and relationships take its model. Jesus explores the Triune understanding of community as he prays:
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17:20-25) [emphasis mine]
Community is a central foundation which God gave to us to bring life, and encourage love. It is out of the grace of community that we see God manifesting the institutes of marriage, family and the local church. To call those systems would be a cold comparison to worldly archetypes that hold no hope for Kingdom reality.
Does this mean that these institutes operate in perfect harmony with God's intentions? Clearly, no. Marriages fail, families are torn apart and local churches can be places of of pain rather than redemption and grace. But this is not God's intention. God's intention is that our marriages, families and churches would be the earthly echos of His heavenly community. Our task is not to try to create new institutes, simply because some of our marriages, families and churches have succumbed to the pain and destruction of our sin-filled world. No.
If we are to be agents of God's grace on earth, we must do so in the vehicles he has called into being in our planet. We must instill our marriages, families and churches with the things that have been squeezed out of them by the systems of this world. Those things are simply- community and love. How can we breathe these sacred elements into our world? We must rely on the Holy Spirit to help us bring that love and community into our situations.
Paul put it this way in talking about how foundational love and community are to our marriages- First, he says "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" and then later "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:21,25). Paul gave us hints on how our families could be strengthened to be places of love and community when he instructed parents and children on how to treat one another by saying (among other things) "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4)
Finally, the writer of Hebrews compels us to continue in the local church by remaining consistent in our commitment to our gathered family of God:
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another —and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-26)
Let's pause for a moment and consider who Paul and the Hebrews writer is talking to here. Why would these authors need to warn the early church not to "give up meeting together"? Wasn't this the archtype of Christian community? This was the first century church of whom the following entry is written in the book of Acts:
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)
It might have been the early church, but it apparently still suffered from the effects of a broken, sin-filled world. We find a church that (much like ours today) can occasionally become a place where people who meet together might hurt one another and might (whether intentional or not) be more of a source of pain than healing from time to time. So Hebrews points us back to activities that would require love as their root- "encouraging one another".
This "encouraging one another" is, of course, an echo of the only new command that Jesus brought to earth in all of His teaching:
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)
In this breif statement Jesus links love and community- true disciples (followers) will be seen as those who take the love God has given them and bring it to their community. Love one another.
Every relationship, family and organization can have its failures and successes. But at the core of real life you will always find the duo of love and community. The world we live in leans away from these because it is neither efficient nor easy to place love and community ahead of the needs of the organizations in which we contain our efforts. So while this statement is true:
We live in a broken world, whose systems aren't made for love.
But there is hope, and we need not be afraid or despair. We can invoke the grace of God following the life of Jesus, laying down our lives for one another in love. By doing this we are bringing heaven down to earth, through fostering community and loving one another.
church,