The New Testament provides three basic pictures of spiritual community - temple, family, and body. We have spent some time describing the pictures and reflecting on their significance. Now we are ready to weave the three pictures together in order to gain a deeper perspective of spiritual community. We will do this by considering what the three pictures share in common. We will then demonstrate why the three New Testament pictures are superior to two popular contemporary pictures of spiritual community. We will conclude by reflecting on the difficult practice of embodying the three pictures.

Weaving the Pictures Together

Each of the three pictures of spiritual community are deeply relational. A priest to his god, a child to her family, and a part to its body - all are relationships that arise from intimate union with others. Our intimate union with God in Christ by the Spirit results in an intimate bond with other believers. This fundamental reality shapes our experience. "The church is a... community of people whose relations with each other are shaped by their common participation in relation with God in Christ" (Mark Heim, The Depth of the Riches, 63-64).

We share the most intimate bond possible with God and one another. This intimate bond is meant to result in loving relationships of mutual care and concern. A good priest is devoted to his God and his fellow worshippers. A good family is woven together by close filial bonds evidenced in nurture, protection, and love. In a healthy body, every part contributes to the common good of the body.

Through these intimate pictures we discover that loving God and loving others is at the heart of spiritual community. Put simply, God and people matter most. Authentic spiritual community will embrace the ultimate significance of loving personal relationships as the evidence of real success.

Ultimately, one symbol brings all three pictures together - the Eucharist. This "meal" is at the heart of every New Testament picture of spiritual community. The Eucharist is the cultic ritual of the priests of the temple, the family supper for the household of faith, and individual nourishment for the members of the body. It feeds our faith (body), brings us together (family), and is entrusted to us for the good of the world (priest).

We are "people of the table." Our community centers around a shared participation in Christ leading to shared life together as a family of holy priests. The greatest act of worship, the greatest act of familial love, and the most necessary food for our souls is our sacrifice, celebration, and sustenance as God's spiritual community. We unite around Christ, sharing his body and blood as our sacrifice, our bond of blood, and our spiritual food.

When viewed in this light, the Eucharist is revealed to be the sign of spiritual community. It is for this very reason that the "people of the table" are called to regularly repeat this central act of love and unity.

In summary: Community that is spiritual will consist of personal loving relationships that manifest God's presence for the good of all. "By this shall all people know you are my disciples, by the love you have for one another" (John 13:35). It is not surprising that personal loving relationships are at the heart of each New Testament picture. Eternal personal love relationship is at the very heart of the life of God. A spiritual community that is participating in the life of God will first and foremost experience personal transformation through personal relationships fueled and formed by divine love. This is our greatest good and our ultimate end - eternal union and communion with God and one another. It makes sense that we would taste of the future in the present through the gift of God's Spirit. For this reason the three main pictures themselves are shaped in a Trinitarian fashion: Family of God, Body of Christ, and Temple of the Spirit.

Two Popular but Problematic Pictures

The three pictures above allow us to evaluate two contemporary pictures of spiritual community commonly used to shape and sustain the life of a church. Both of these pictures are fundamentally flawed.

Some people picture the church as a business. Through mass-produced programs various retail chains (local churches) are allowed to market religion to the masses. Christian leaders who fulfill the role of CEO's, salespeople, or entrepreneurs (or a combination of all three) market religious goods and services to consumers who are constantly on the lookout for a good buy - the best bang for the smallest buck.

This picture is problematic for numerous reasons. For businesses, the bottom line is profit. Without profit, a business goes under, no matter how good its product or service. When profit rather than personal relationships is the bottom line then success is measured by things other than transformed lives. Effectiveness, efficiency, and profit are given priority over people.

Businesses are inherently competitive, striving to outdo their competition. Competition within a business for "top spots" can also provoke infighting rather than cooperation. This cannot be the case for churches. Our goal is not to crush the competition or one another but to partner together with others for the good of all.

A business sells a product or service; the church is called to proclaim a message about a person. Jesus is not a product or service, but a person who cannot be used, improved, or controlled. In order for a business to sell a product, it must advertise it in the most positive light - emphasizing its positive values and minimizing its shortcomings. The church does not have the liberty to modify its message to emphasize only the positive. When it attempts to do this, hardships, difficulties, cross-carrying and the self-denial it entails are underplayed. A relationship with God is not easy - it is demanding, difficult, and potentially dangerous. To teach otherwise is to misrepresent the gospel.

The theater is another popular contemporary picture of spiritual community. The theater is a place to enjoy entertaining presentations. Whether it is the one show of smaller churches or the three-ring circus of mega-churches, the goal is the same, to provide an entertaining, amusing, quality show. Christian leaders are performers who provide interesting, new, and exciting material for passive spectators who evaluate their performance based on its entertainment value.

Although we can incorporate insights from both contemporary pictures - business and theater - we must never allow these pictures to be the foundation of spiritual community. Certainly, there are administrative insights we can gain from business. Obviously, we want to present things in a quality fashion that is not dull and boring. However, these pictures fall short of a biblical understanding of spiritual community.

We can never outdo business. Money is too great a motivator. Spiritual rewards do not generally carry the same punch. (Simply consider the allegiance some people have to jobs they can't stand in comparison to how little commitment they will give to a church.)

We can never outdo the entertainment that contemporary theater provides. Because it is so difficult to make it in the entertainment business, the theater usually possesses the greatest speakers, the most charismatic performers, and the most gifted musicians. If we come to expect the same level of professionalism in every church, we will be sorely disappointed.

Ultimately, both the business and entertainment model strike at the heart of the essence of spiritual community: personal loving relationships that manifest God's presence for the good of all. The three New Testament pictures provide us with an identity that is deeply relational: priest and sacrifice in the Spirit's holy temple, children and brothers/sisters in God's family, unique and irreplaceable members in Christ's body. The relationships within the other two pictures do not share such intimate bonds. In the business model the salesperson, entrepreneur, and CEO share no intimate relationship with their customers. The customer exists to consume their product or service, not to share love. Likewise, in theater, the entertainers are distinct from the audience. The entertainers are expected to perform; the audience is simply expected to watch - to passively observe the performer's act. When the contemporary pictures shape the life of the church, most people within the church end up as consumers of religious goods and services and passive spectators of religious entertainment!

The three New Testament pictures are far superior to the two dominant contemporary pictures. There are two reasons that the other two contemporary pictures are so prominent in American religion. First, we are impacted by our culture more than we realize. The predominant social reality in America is corporate. It is no surprise that our churches resemble big business. "The corporate church differentiates its product from other brand names, uses long-term planning cycles, employs a marketing strategy, and sees growth as its overall criterion of success" (Pappas, Entering the World of the Small Church, 7-8). Also, the predominant way of spending leisure time is through the passive viewing of professional entertainment. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman has noted that one of the most tragic aspects of an entertainment society is its demand that everything - news, politics, and even religion - must be entertaining.

Unwittingly, we have fashioned our churches to conform to the two most dominant social realities in America - corporate America and entertainment USA. This is the reason that most churches feel more like a business than a family and that many church services feel more like a variety show than a holy service of worship.

The second reason the two contemporary pictures are prominent is this: it is difficult to live the three pictures. It is much easier to live the two popular contemporary alternatives. They do not demand as much from us. We simply have to be consumers and spectators, rather than holy priests, living sacrifices, devoted family members, and active body parts. The two contemporary pictures allow us to keep our distance, choose what religious goods we will consume, and demand that the goods we choose remain interesting and entertaining.

Living the Pictures

This is difficult work. Priestly service in holy temples, brotherly love in an extended family, and active self-giving in a diverse community are not easily practiced. We do not naturally tend to live for the good of others. Our impulses to self-gratification, sibling-rivalry, and self-promotion lead us away from, rather than toward, true spiritual community. To makes matters worse, the evil powers of this world are firmly pitted against authentic spiritual community.

It takes much time and wisdom to build a community. But it can take very little time to break and destroy a community... We must never forget that Satan is the adversary of love and communion. He hates communities where people are growing in love and in the knowledge of Jesus. He does everything he can to sow discord, to create tensions and divisions, and finally to destroy community" (Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, 128)

Perhaps the greatest danger is that our attempts at spiritual community will quickly sputter because of the great value we place on spiritual community. We can value community so much that we idealize it, and subsequently, idolize it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes of this subtle seduction:

Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality... He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial... How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things? If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ... Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 27, 29, 30)

We must lose the ideal and embrace the real. It is people we are called to love and support, not the ideal of community. "He who loves community, destroys community; he who loves the brethren, builds community" (Bonhoeffer). We love community by loving people, not by loving the ideal of community.

In order to embrace community in all its messiness, we must realize that there are normal stages to living in community through which every individual passes.

Almost everyone finds their early days in a community ideal. It all seems perfect. They seem unable to see the drawbacks; they only see what is good. Everything is marvelous; everything is beautiful; they feel that they are surrounded by saints, heroes or, at least, exceptional people who are everything they want to be themselves.

And then comes the period of let-down - generally linked to a time of tiredness, a sense of loneliness or homesickness, some setback, a brush with authority. During this time of 'depression', everything becomes dark; people now see only the faults of others and the community; everything gets on their nerves. They feel they are surrounded by hypocrites who either think only of rules, regulations and structures, or who are completely disorganized and incompetent. Life becomes intolerable.

The greater their idealization of the community at the start, the more they put the people at its head on pedestals, the greater the disenchantment. It's from a height that you fall down into a pit. If people manage to get through this second period, they come to the third phase - that of realism and a true commitment, of covenant. (Jean Vanier, Community and Growth 78-79)

We must lose the illusion and love the reality. We can be a selfish priesthood, more concerned about ourselves than God and the world we are called to serve. We can be a dysfunctional family, overwhelmed by relational difficulties and sibling rivalry. We can be self-promoting in competition with one another rather than self-giving for the common good of all. Because of our sin and brokenness, we are never all we should be. But Christ loves his broken community. We must as well. Indeed, we must love what really exists, in all its frail and flawed humanity, or we love an illusion - which is simply to say, we love nothing!

Perhaps no one has wanted to give up on spiritual community more than me. I am naturally independent, competitive, and self-sufficient. I know how to find the resources I need to survive and even thrive as a professing Christian. Furthermore, no community has hurt me more than those within the Christian community. I've been mocked, spurned, hated, betrayed and rejected by Christians within the church. Quite frankly, I don't need this kind of anxiety-producing pressure in my life.

Or do I?

Perhaps God knows best. Perhaps God knows that only in the dirt and grime of real relationships with real people will I be what God wants me to be. Perhaps God knows that only personal relationships truly possess the power to transform me. I would like to think that if I learn enough principles, memorize enough laws, and obey enough rules that I will be transformed. But human transformation is not so simple, tidy, and abstract. No, real human transformation is messy and sloppy. It comes about through interaction with others, not interaction with abstractions.

In response to my question to married couples, "So why did you two marry, anyway?" I have yet to hear the answer, "To be transformed, of course." No, we marry to settle down, to tie the knot, to grow old together. To be transformed? Whatever does that have to do with relationships?

But relationships are the contexts of our transformation. "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (M. Wayne Brown, Water from Stone, 171)

Entering, maintaining, and sustaining real loving relationships with real human beings is the hardest human discipline of all. At times, the difficulties force us to ask whether it really is worth all the effort it takes. "Are relationships worth it? Is my relationship to my husband, my family of origin - yes, even my faith - worth the suffering I go through to try to make it work?" (M. Wayne Brown, Water from Stone, 171-172)

Real love will not develop without real relationships that make great demands on us. "Pleasant experiences, happy moments, and always supportive people would be a wonderful way to live, but it would not do much to strengthen our faith or character" (Dan Schaeffer, Faking Church, 109). God places us within spiritual community for our spiritual good. Without it, we may never know divine love, and thus, we will never express divine love to others.

True Christian love is not a mushy, sentimental feeling; it is a deliberate act in full view and knowledge of others' failings and shortcomings. it loves not because people are so lovable but in spite of the fact that they are frequently not. This is the way God loves us, and this is the way He wants us to learn to love one another. The imperfect church is the perfect place for Christians to learn the lessons of love... When we choose to remove ourselves from His church, as believers we are choosing to forego one of the most important parts of our spiritual development. (Dan Schaeffer, Faking Church, 109, 110)

True spiritual community does not come easy. It demands that we wrestle with ourselves and others. It calls us to something larger than ourselves - the Spirit's temple as priest, God's family as child, Christ's body as member. A few months ago my five-year old daughter, Carmen, was complaining about how everyone is bigger than her. Out of the blue, she asked me, "The church is bigger than you, isn't it, daddy?" I replied, "Yes, it is." Her response was precious, "That's so you can fit in it, isn't it? If you were bigger than the church, you couldn't fit in it."

Carmen is right. Life is bigger than each one of us individually. Our world must not revolve around ourselves. It must revolve around God and others. Our own concerns, desires, and interests can blind us to the needs of others. Spiritual community challenges us to take the focus off ourselves and find our joy in loving service to others. It stabs at our inherent selfishness and calls us to find ourselves in the context of loving community. True spiritual community forces us to value the common good more than our personal good. It is God's way to rid us of our petty self-centeredness and open our heart to divine love for all.

We cannot experience spiritual community without giving ourselves away - our gifts, our time, our talents, our heart. This places us in a very vulnerable position. Our difficulties will multiply. Our suffering will most likely increase. However, to fail to do this is to set ourselves in opposition to God's desire to make us fully human - people who love deeply and are deeply loved. Only then can God's presence be known. Only then are we a true spiritual community.

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with little hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness… We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it. - C.S. Lewis

© Richard J. Vincent, 2004