Fountains of Grace
Fountains of Grace
When we live in community, fountains of grace pour out into us so that our talents, gifts and power to work for a just world are overwhelming in abundance. ‘Get real,’ you say sarcastically, ‘we do not live in community, sies, that sounds socialist and it is my Jesus not yours. When we sing, “I have come to praise you,” even though many people are singing this together, it is for me, and they can fight me for it, but I found Jesus first!’
In the days of antiquity, I mean really a long time ago, people were living in community as the norm and they did not consider it a political decision but everything was a village. Even then, they struggled with finding grace. Rules drove them to do certain things to receive grace: going to church, reading the bible with others at home and father every night, praying every day, giving money to God and the state, confessing to the local priest weekly, baptised one another (once a year), receiving mass regularly, working with the poor, evangelising and doing death rituals. I say rules drove them but it was the law! Even today, in some denominations and cultures, you lose your membership if you do not partake in the above activities and they say, “Because it is good for you!” It is like taking Epsom salts, “because it is good for you.”
We no longer listen to that advice. We no longer go to church, or pray or read the bible. As for going to a priest to admit anything about our personal lives is crazy, “What have we done wrong?” Nothing, there is no such thing anymore of wrong or right, besides we go to therapy once a week and we are mentally healthy. We meet with friends in the local pub; we give huge taxes to the state for the poor; we organise amazing events on the internet to galvanise things like the Arab Spring to bring democracy to the world and we just do it, not because we have to, and the last thing on our minds is searching for grace!
Guess what, despite the above, whether you know it or not, grace pours out in response to all these activities that we do. The world is a better place because of these fountains or experiences of grace and our acting in them. Would it not be a good idea to re-evaluate our lifestyle and co-ordinate those means of grace regardless of the church wanting us to do it theirway. There is nothing wrong with church; it works like a mega-fountain; everything in it points us to grace and its outpouring. The church in its reaction to human beings rejection of its tradition has wised up, cleaned up and looks good with contemporary music, modern preachers and lovely leaders – in some arenas. If you want out, that’s ok but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Co-ordinating your churchless life so that grace pours out is the way forward. Even if you are a churchgoer, take note: doing things with others is not necessarily community.
Go back to my Mending Fences course and own the inner meshing of ‘being alone’ and ‘being a participant’. Modern Western lives hate participating, but remember again that that is what makes us human. God made us that way, modern society manufactures a false identity that values only the individual, rugged and successful. ‘Participating’ is not a socialist thing, it is a human thing and when you hold the two in tension and enjoy that your ‘personhood’ comes from being with others. Then the pub becomes a church, the shopping mall becomes a community singsong. Encountering God with others on the village common is prayer.
