Being Christian means being in community

Good News ReflectionTuesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary TimeAugust 25, 2009
Today's Readings:1 Thes 2:1-8Ps 139:1-6Matt 23:23-26http://www.usccb.org/nab/082509.shtmlUSCCB Podcast of the Readings:http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/09_08_25.mp3
Being Christian means being in community
We cannot be true Christians – truly Christ-like – if we are not in community with other believers. This means more than going to Mass (although worshiping God with others is an important aspect of it). It means being in active relationships with other believers. Community means journeying together on the path to heaven.
In today's first reading, look at how St. Paul preached the Good News to the Thessalonians. "We were determined to share with you ... our very selves." While Paul and his evangelism team visited Thessalonica, they entered into relationships with the people. As I tell groups when I travel to parishes for missions, "A stranger is only a friend I haven't met yet. We are friends because we belong to the same community of believers. Come, let us journey together!" I consider every interaction to be an actual relationship.
Paul lists what community is not (i.e., what's contrary to Christian relationships). In holy relationships, there's no deceit or impure motives or trickery, no ear-tickling with polite or flattering words, no greed of any kind, no glory-seeking.
In contrast, the Pharisees whom Jesus scolded in today's Gospel reading did not understand community life. As blind guides, they missed the inter-personal faith-building experience. They fulfilled their religious obligations, but their hearts were filled with "loot and lust" or "plunder and self-indulgence".
What's our loot? It's anything that we steal from others: their dignity, their value, their time, their respect when we're not respectable. How are we self-indulgent? By forcing anything upon others for our own sake: our agendas, or our warped, lustful, codependent ideas of love.
Jesus names the glue that bonds people into community: justice and mercy and fidelity. Since to be Christ-like means treating everyone with justice and mercy, instead of limiting it to those whom we like most, our community is far larger than our little circle of friends.
How much of the community are you ignoring? How much farther can you extend your reach? In Good News Ministries, we circle the world with two online communities of faith-sharing and love: See http://gogoodnews.net/GNMcommunities/.
What are you doing with the community you see face-to-face at Mass?
Whatever is lacking in our lives, whatever we've been asking God to provide that seems too slow in coming, whatever unmet needs we have – God gives it to us THROUGH and IN community. Community is SO important to God that he created us with a need for the experience. Faith practiced only by ourselves is very lonely, and very exclusive.
© 2009 by Terry A. ModicaFor PERMISSION to copy any of my reflections, go to:http://gogoodnews.net/DailyReflections/copyrights-DR.htm
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