Community

“You are the Light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” (Matthew 5:14)

These words of Jesus describe the special place that Christ’s true followers have on the earth. It is not just that we as individuals are meant to model virtue for others. The redeemed community, permeated with truth and mutual love flowing from the Triune God, is the vehicle for God’s redemptive action for the earth as a whole. Individuals may call other individuals to a life with God, but only the life of God present in a human community can defeat the evil of the social and political realm.

Indeed, these communities do not need to be large to restructure the world. The Roman Empire was transformed from paganism to Christianity by a small number of “house churches.” Throughout Western history, we have over and over experienced the impact of little communities that are totally devoted to Christ. From the Desert Fathers, to the little monasteries of Benedictines, to the small bands of Franciscans; from the Huguenots, Puritans, and Anabaptists to the 19^th century Methodists, it is little communities radically devoted to Christ that have been the cities on a hill and the lights of the world. The level of civilization at which we live is deeply dependent on the influence of little groups such as these.

The very first Christian churches, that is, the Jewish communities in mid-first-century Palestine, became a place where the word and power of God could issue forth into all of the earth. Some of the missionaries hailing from these communities brought the gospel as far as India and China before the year 100.

This is difficult to understand today for several reasons. First, we are often given little instruction on what it means to be radically obedient to Christ as individuals, let alone as churches. Secondly, the presence of rather old and established denominations (as well as upstart, artificial communities) can trick us into thinking that this is going on around us everyday. Thirdly, the collapse of relationships that has occurred in the post-War era has been recognized to some extent by the churches, and so there has been a resurgence of talk about “community.” But powerful institutions are not able to bring about the change that is needed on a day to day level; and little groups that do not have Christ’s power cannot resist the mammoth forces of evil at work in the social and political realm. Christ living in a few people together is both necessary and sufficient.

I think this is why the image of a city came so naturally to Christ’s mind when describing the place that believers would have in their world. The biblical and classical image of a city is a relatively self-sufficient group of people in which each person plays a unique and irreplaceable part. This is what Christ offers each of us– to work together to bring about changes that are above and beyond our individual or common capacities.

Right now there is a very small minority of Christ’s disciples in the American and English churches. However, they are rather unconnected to each other and so do not benefit from one another, nor are they able to accomplish something together. The challenge to us in the 21^st century is for the disciples of Christ to find each other so that redemption can flow outward throughout the Western world and the rest of the earth.

I should mention that I do not consider this impossible, nor even unlikely. We cannot know when God will bring about the full consummation of His rule on earth, but small minorities of disciples have sent shock-waves throughout the nations before. God’s full resources for the kingdom are available to every generation; and it is entirely likely that as the number of Christ’s disciples on the earth continues to increase (as seems to have been happening in the last 20 years), sooner or later they will find each other and find a way to live together.