A student I know, who is exploring faith, connected online with a Quaker community in the States during the last year. This person was overwhelmed when, at the end of worship on Zoom, they were thanked for their participation and their light. That the student was precious and mattered to a community on the other side of the Atlantic ocean was amazing to them.
I’ve started to re-read a book that was important to me when I was a student: Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In it he writes that true community ‘is not an ideal which we must realise; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.’ That is such a freeing and encouraging way to write about community; we don’t make it ourselves, we are just invited to join in with something God has made, something God is already doing.
Joining in isn’t always easy or simple, of course. It sometimes take courage to make ourselves vulnerable enough even to just turn up. Those of us who are part of communities where we see God’s light and God’s love active in others need to remember how hard it can feel for someone to turn up for the first time. Anyone created in God’s image is an indispensable part of God’s family. We need one another, even though this is something we often forget.
I’m not a New Testament Greek scholar, so I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I think the word translated ‘participation’ in the Bible is ‘koinonia’. What is interesting is that the same word is also translated ‘sharing’, ‘contribution’ and ‘fellowship’. It’s what makes up the church. We share/participate/contribute with Christ and with one another, and in this community we are changed and change the world. We all matter. As Paul says in Acts 17 “…he is not far from any one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being’.” How amazing that we can be a part of sharing that light with one another.
Karen Turner
Respond
