I wonder what you think of when you
hear the word Community. It is the sort of word which we all know and
use but which can mean all sorts of things in different contexts.
Perhaps you think of the people in your street or those who you do
certain activities with, perhaps your mind jumps to this Church or
perhaps you feel sad at community lost. We have community care,
community service and the government has a department for communities
and local government – indicating that Whitehall, at least, regards
community as based in a location and a key component of the Big
Society.
Community is part of a bigger
sociological picture and perhaps it helps just to briefly glance at
the other words which might be used to describe how we live together
as human beings. There is society – that is the structures within
which we live, the rules, systems and organizations which we put
around ourselves. Then there is culture – that is the things which
we normally do and make, the way we behave within our frameworks.
Finally there is community and community in this framework is all
about human living – how we live together, who we live with and the
intertwining and maintenance of relationships with each other.
In his life and ministry Jesus
challenges society, transforms culture and seeks to build community.
This passage which we have today – the call to living as servants
and children is both society changing, culture questioning and
community building – it asks us both to question deep held
assumptions about power and structures in society, it seeks to
establish a new norm for the disciples based upon ther vision of
themselves and each other and it seeks to establish sustainable
community rooted not in temporary human endeavour but upon the
everlasting truth of God's amazing action in Jesus Christ.
Jesus offers not a piecemeal solution
to a broken system but a revolution in thinking about God and about
God's creation and creativity.
There was a difference in ancient
society between servant and slave. Servants were employees of a major
micro-industry – that of the household. Households were much larger
that the family at their centre and servants in larger households
could be very influential – much as senior management might be in a
corporation. Whilst they did not hold the shares and investment in
the company but for many senior servants the day to day running of
significant swathes of life was their task.
In our culture it can be tempting to
think of the Victorian scullery maid and her worn knees – is this
what Jesus is calling us to? We cannot understand that because surely
it is false piety to suppress ourselves to the point of the most
menial if that is not who we are. That is not at all what Jesus is
saying – in his washing of the Disciples feet Jesus tells us again
that the attitude of all must be that of the humblest servant but
that paradigm comes out of a society where humble attitude might
accompany significant responsibility.
Almost to clarify this Mark has Jesus
taking a child. In another place Jesus asks us to be as willing as a
child to learn and grow, here he offers the child as an example of
those we are called to accept, the weak and vulnerable. We must pair
the mentality of the servant to be here for all, with the capacity of
the servant to excel, the willingness of the child to learn and grow
and be moulded in God's love with an open heart for all God's
children, and that means all of us.
As these people then we enter into
community and with these values we may find ourselves alienated from
our geographic community. The world around us will little understand
our motivations if they are to be the best we can be but without
expectation of reward and our treatment of others with unrequited
generosity.
We often hear it said that this is a
Christian society or that there are challenges to Christian society,
we often wonder about hierarchy and question its worth, we often hear
that culture is moving on. These are important factors but I wonder
whether they don't sometimes distract us from the important task of
building servant community.
Building servant community does not
mean that we all lay down on the ground and let the world trample
over us – it does mean that we have to continually strive to
realign our priorities and actions both to serve God and others. The
issue of being a part of a servant community is not to be confused
with the issue of structure and hierarchy – there are good
conversations to be had around how those who express faith in Jesus
Christ as Lord of all set up their societies. Jesus himself was most
certainly a leader, but a leader whose every action was shot through
with his servanthood. This model of the leader being there to serve
is so powerful and so revolutionary that it can be hard to comprehend
as we look around a world which struggles constantly with issues of
power and oppression.
Being a part of a servant community
means that we live in the shadow of the cross. Mark puts this in his
Gospel – he gives the outcome of Jesus serving and trusting and
being led as the crucifixion. Of course there is resurrection and
joy, of course there is love and laughter but the revolutionary life
of community is counter-cultural and makes demands on even the
assumptions of society and this is not without pain.
Being part of a servant community means
that we stand both as broken and restored human beings. It means we
know our frailties, explore and remedy our failings, rejoice in our
creativity and all the time, surround by the presence of Christ and
full of the Holy Spirit we look out to those around us. Servant
community has no space in it for putting people down or making life
worse for anyone, servant community seeks that all prosper together –
and not just financially. Although often those with the most material
wealth will seek to ensure the security and wellbeing of those with
least knowing that bread on the table is a moment of thanking the
Creator and that the wellbeing of the wealthiest is bound together
intrinsically with the wealth of the poor.
This community which we are called to
build is the moment where political ideology makes the full circle –
taking the imposed communuty of extreme socialism and the necessary
community required to prevent the collapse of capitalism and
producing inspired community, inspired by Christ, demonstrated in the
Holy Trinity, and lived out, at least in theory, in the Church.
A community based on Divine love and
inclusion of otherness, a bringing in and reaching out, a respect and
building up for and of is infinitely sustainable. Human beings are
who we are and we will not get perfection here on earth, but if we
could just see God with wide and childlike eyes, if we could just
trust each other enough to admit the weakness which we whisper in our
prayers and if we could just have enough confidence in ourselves to
truly rejoice in that others do walk with us we would have a very
different Pentecost world of commonality and real community.
If we are working towards such a world,
questions of how we order ourselves, of what our social norms are,
become less important than valuing each other as God values us. We
make that incredible, that almost blasphemous sounding claim that God
who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that therein is, God who
made me and you, God who reigns in heaven, that God came to earth and
served others, men and women from every walk of life, in every sort
of distress. God came to earth for each one of us, washes our feet,
offers us food and sends us out to do that same.
Jesus said, ‘Whoever wants to be
first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a
little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he
said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes
me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’
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