with a little help from my friends

  It takes a village to raise a child.  It's a common enough saying.  We engage in the business of raising up and shaping our - all of ours - children communally.  Our children benefit from being surrounded by a community who cares for them and about them.

A community rich in grace, filled with opportunity which is also secure and safe can build children into confident, merciful, well rounded adults.  However, a community that is chaotic, built on values of power which demonstrate little concern for the neighbor can easily lead to fearful, power seeking, adults whose perspective on the world is no bigger than their own front yard.  

A community which is formed around the Word of God in Jesus has its own flavor as well.  It is a community where strangers are not just welcomed but included.  It is a community where no one is too little or unimportant.  These are people who understand their own flaws and sins and the enormous gift of freedom that God's forgiveness in Jesus has given them.  Therefore, these are people who hold forgiveness in the highest regard and work daily at achieving it.

In a Jesus community, the story of creation is important.  It tells us that life, from its first moment, was a gift from God and was 'very good.'  We learn that God created humankind in God's own image, male and female each created the same.  All humans were created in the image of God.

From the story of the escape of Israel from slavery in Egypt, the long story of God's emphasis on freedom begins.  Freedom from slavery, freedom from economic oppression, freedom from gender oppression.  Jesus frees the folks he encounters from hunger and demons and sickness and small mindedness.  Jesus opens a whole new world.

As people of Jesus we are called into this 'new world living' through the waters of baptism.  Generosity is the energy that flows through us, forgiveness drives our relationships, freedom is another word for justice in our civic and religious lives.

In our worshipping communities, we are called to create a place where these values are the formative ones.  We are a people of forgiveness, of generosity, of a peculiar perspective on living out our lives which includes all the people around us.  We seek justice, not for ourselves, but for those who this world oppresses.

We fail.  We continue to be plagued by our own limits.  We often turn a deaf ear and blind eye to Jesus.  But this is what we are aiming for: a community that raises up all people to new life, full life, abundant life, forgiving life, generous life .....in Jesus' name.

It's good to go back to the beginning every so often and remind ourselves.