One of the most penetrating questions a friend has asked me: Do you want to be well?
From Brokeness to Community By Jean Vanier
"Thus community is not an end or a final goal in itself. It is the place where we can meet Christ and discover his love for humanity and for every person. Martin Buber said that the community is the place of the theophany. it is the place where we meet God in a very intimate relationship, where we can have that experience of being "siezed by Christ." God loves us and draws us into the mystery and love of the Trinity; there we can rest in his love. But community only keeps its meaning if it remains open to mission.
At this point I need to say a word about the difference between issues,causes, and mission. Today there are many groups of people. There are clubs, there are political parties. There are many forms and types of issue-oriented groups; against nuclear armamnet, against racism, against this or for that. There is a danger, in issue-oriented groups not based on community, that the enemy is seen as being the one outside of the group. The world gets divided between "the good" and "the bad." We are among the good; the others are the bad. In issue-oriented groups, the enemy is always outside. We must struggle against all those who are outside of the group, all those who are of the other party.
True community is different because of the realization that the evil is inside – not just inside the community, but inside me. I cannot think of taking the speck of dust out of my neighbor's eye unless I'm working on the log in my own. Evil is here in me. Warfare is inside my own community, and I am called to be an agent of peace there. But warfare is also in me and I am called to seek wholeness inside of myself. Healing begins here, in myself. If I am growing toward wholeness, then I'll be an agent of wholeness. If our community is an agent of wholeness, then it will be a source of life for the world around it.
To have a mission means to give life, to heal, and to liberate. It is to permit people to grow to freedom. When Jesus sends people off, he sends them to liberate and to heal others. That is the good news. And we can become people of liberation and of healing because we ourselves are walking along that road toward inner healing and inner liberation. Jesus calls his disciples to bear much fruit. "If you bear much fruit, you shall be my disciples, and bring glory to the Father." To bear fruit is to bring life to people. Not to judge, not to condemn, but to forgive. It is to remove our neighbor's burden. Remember those last words of Christ: "Father, forgive." Essentially, a community is based on forgiveness and signs of forgiveness. it is not a group of people condemning or judging outsiders; it is not a people of violence. it is a people who trust that if their hearts are given to God, he will defend them.
Trusting people are vulnerable and can be easily crushed, as Jesus was crushed. A community which trusts in God rather than in the righteousness of its "cause" can always be crushed, but from that crushing will come resurrection. There is a hidden strength in being vulnerable, open, and non-violent, in being a people of the resuurection, knowing that we are loved and that God is guiding us, in all out fragility and littleness. We are not an elite. We are people who are poor, but who have been drawn together by God and put their trust in God. THat is what a kingdom community is about; a community that knows it has been called by God in all its poverty and weakness, and that God is love.……
……We Feel small and weak, but we are gathered together to signify the power of God who transforms death into life. That is our hope, that God is doing the impossible: changing death to life inside of each of us, and that perhaps, through our community, each one of us can be agents in the world of this transformation of brokenness into wholeness, and of death into life" (Pg 49-52).
So my question is Do you want to be well? and Can I walk with you in the direction of wholeness?
Lets be people of the resurrection. Agents of wholeness. Though I feel small and weak He is Strong!
