Reflecting on Belonging, Community, and the Kingdom
Revealing a New Way Together in Kingdom Community
True community does not build fences to keep others out - it builds wells to draw others in who are thirsty for acceptance, inclusion, and love. Jesus taught us how to build wells. Yes, Jesus is the Living Water contained in those wells. He is also the Bread of Life passed around the community dinner table. He is the Good Shepherd, calling out to those still lost in the night. It seems, throughout the Gospels, that the only requisite for invitation into Jesus community is that you thirst, hunger, are lost, or long for a seat at a table.
We are thirsty, starving, weary people drawn to the same King as other thirsty, starving, weary people - calling out to the thirsty, starving, weary people who have not yet found their way to the table - meeting their need with drink, food, and rest. These are the kinds of people Jesus surrounded himself with throughout the Gospels.
These are the kinds of people that the heart of God beats for throughout the entirety of scripture - the poor, vulnerable, oppressed, sick, weary, and suffering. This has always been the community of God. It was in the midst of this community that Jesus proclaimed His vision for a new kind of Kingdom - shaped in the manner and likeness of its King, embodied in the values, truths, and actions of its citizens.
Jesus taught us how to build wells. Jesus also taught us how to draw water for others - and Jesus calls us to do it together: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12).
Heaven and Hell –The Difference
There is a story that I came across many years ago that, I believe, captures how community becomes Kingdom community when priorities and perspectives are rearranged.
“A man spoke to the Lord about Heaven and Hell. The Lord said to the man, ‘Come, I will show you hell.’
They entered a room where a group of people sat around the huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished, desperate & starving.
Each person held a spoon that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer than their own arms that it could not be used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible.
‘Come, now I will show you heaven,’ the Lord said. They entered another room, identical to the first — the pot of stew, the group of people, the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and well-nourished.
‘I don’t understand,’ said the man. ‘Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and everything was the same?’
The Lord smiled. ‘Ah, it is simple,’ he said, ‘Here, they have learned to feed each other.’”
* Story from: Ann Launders, Chicken Soup for the Heart & Soul, Heaven and Hell –The Difference. 1994
Does this story resonate with you?
Which illustration sounds more like the way our world and culture work?
