The Trinity: Authentic Life, Authentic Community

There are a lot of thoughts today about how to live a good life.  Book stores are packed with stuff on how to be a better person or how to create a holistic society.  Good stuff but did you ever wonder if it was just rehashed garbage that really didn’t make a difference other than providing someone with a paycheck.  Not that we shouldn’t be concerned about improving our lives and bettering the planet.  I’m all for improving the environment and helping people overcome the problems of life.  It’s just that I’m wondering if we’re going about it by accepting insanity as a substitution for truly trans-formative actions. 

What does it mean to live in community with one another anyway?  How do we know we’re bettering our lives when it seems like we’re constantly having to run after the latest fad in order to live in an increasingly dysfunctional world that appears to be teetering on the verge of annihilation (overstatement perhaps but you get the point).  Perhaps we need to start with a bigger picture of reality that allows us to go deeper than the consumer rehash of burned out ideas.

There’s a story of Jesus relating to a blind man who sat by the side of the road.  This blind man had no access to health care or medical treatment.  Being blind he was unprofitable to the society at large and totally dependent upon the compassion of strangers, family, and friends for support.  His world was one of poverty and oppression by foreign rulers so the support that came was minimal.  The man’s existence was marginal and dehumanizing, he didn’t have a meaningful connection to society and was treated with disrespect.  A person to be ignored like all the others that have slipped through the cracks.

Now Jesus is walking along with a crowd of people and this blind man hears whose approaching and starts to call out Jesus’ name.  The people around him tell him to shut up thinking that he’s not worth much and shouldn’t be acting this way.  But, the man is stubborn and refuses to listen to their voices.  Jesus comes to him and asks him what he can do for him to which the man replies that he wants to see.  So Jesus heals him right there on the spot.  Jesus humanizes someone who has been rejected by giving him time, listening to him, and meeting his needs with respect and dignity.

What we need isn’t another self help idea or some new model for community.  What we need is the willingness on the part of average everyday people like you and me to step out of our comfort zones, leave behind what is normal, right, and safe for us and find ways to humanize, love, listen to and positively interact with the other, the stranger, the enemy.  We need to stretch out our hands and touch the sick and stop waiting for some government agency to do it for us.  It’s time to get off the couch with it’s mind numbing control of programs and methods that don’t change hearts and only provide a band aid and start loving the other and humanizing the stranger.  Then true community will be created and experienced.