Just what is community? and What is not community?
I was the only African American Trinity Fellow. This creates real space for the full gravity of questions of being in community.
I'll never forget jogging by two African American guys, one of whom said "What's good family?!" He said this because I was jogging through the neighborhood for Trinity Pres.'s VidaJoven jog. This run was designed to get people out and together to raise money for Nicaraguan children who need financial help attending YoungLife camp this summer. Trinity Presbyterian is currently, mostly Caucasian American. So I, and a long line Caucasian Americans had, passed these two men as they walked along the street. I passed them by again, (I had to meet up with a sixth grader) they regarded me and did not smile.
Were these two men my community, automatically because of their race? Were we automatically brothers in the same struggle? or not? Did I betray my community?
I don't think we were. I didn't know them, they didn't know me. Our struggles might have been similar in a few instances. Along with community comes with responsibility. I mean that we are both able to respond and can be held accountable to respond to those we are in community with. This is possible because of a relationship built and maintained overtime. How can you have community without relationship? As a Christian, how can you have community based that based on everything but THE relationship? Deitrich Bonhoeffer writes in Life Together, "What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ." The community of the body of faith is not built on our taste, culture, or shared history. Part of what determines my relationships is part of what Christ has done in placing me here. I believe that God has placed people in my physical presence for a very embodied community. You can see examples of this at the end of Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and 1 Peter, the apostles admonition for Christian to greet one another with a "holy kiss."
Now, I know social kisses are intrinsic to Greek culture but the point is that you can't greet and kiss those who are not there, no matter who similar the two of you are. Physical presence as a necessity for relational community is found in many other places throughout the Bible. It is found in process of discipleship that Jesus used. It is found in the help Aaron and Hur holding Moses' hands. It is found in the community of David and his vagabond warriors that ran for from King Saul.
In short, I believe that God has made no mistake in placing me where I am. He has made no mistake in placing certain people, like Fellows, around me. This does not mean that I should exclude every other relationship in life. God gave those too and he must be honored in them. It means that must honor his decisions. In doing so, I must choose make my life with those in the Fellows world and to allow them to do the same with me. This has not been easy nor has it been perfectly done, but I must continue to honor God's decision and trust that His work is good.
An Addendum:
Part of me wants to delete this post. There's so much to explain around it. Yes, there is no denying that through our rich forms of communication it is possible to build relationship without a physical presence. Still relationship depends on the person being knowing and being known, not just a set of assumptions.
