“… but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son
cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

It takes this idea of walking in the light to have
fellowship with one another; what a powerful notion!  And it seems so true, for when I feel myself
veering off of Jesus’ path of love and forgiveness, I find it extremely
difficult to be in community and fellowship with others.  I only find mistrust and brokenness—a place
where a strong relationship cannot thrive.
In our world today, it seems community is even more important than ever.
With the Coronavirus creating a sense of fear and panic, it seems so easy to
look at one another with mistrust or to look out for ourselves before
others.  Yet it seems now is an opportunity to share God’s
love more than ever—to find ways to care for those who may be struggling or who
feel alone.  Perhaps it is just a kind note,
or a phone call, but we all need support during times of crisis.

*Devotional Question: What does caring for the least of
these, as the gospel of Matthew urges us to do, mean and look like in a time of
fear and health concerns?  How can our
faith increase in times of confusion and crisis?

We too often experience division based on religion or
political ideology, when Christ continually calls for us to come together in
love.  I own for myself the ways in which
I “other” people– the ways in which I turn my head, look away in defeat and say
to myself, they will never understand.
But the world loses when we do that.
The world loses when we give up on each other.  It’s so easy to say that “people will never
change, so why bother”.  But we lose out
on the beauty of fellowship when we allow that to happen.  We lose sight of what it means to be a
Kin-dom, a Family of God.  Being part of
the mystery of the Kin-dom of God is not being surrounded by like-minded folks
who “get it”.  It’s about living in the
tension, and overcoming our differences for the sake of love and
community.  Yes, we have to speak out,
and speak against injustice for the sake of our neighbor and for the sake of
the world.  But at the end of day, we are
all made in the “Imago Dei”, the Image of God, and if we can’t find ways to
like our neighbor, at least we can try and love them (you may have heard it
said before, “I love you, but I don’t have to like you”.  Sometimes that may be the truth of it).

*Scripture verses for encouragement: Galatians 5: 13-14: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and
sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,
but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up
in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself."’

Philippians 2: “If
then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any
sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of
the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do
nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as
better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to
the interests of others… Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed
me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you,
enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

And I struggle with this!
I struggle because I feel like while I am trying to be loving, those on
the other end of the table are looking for ways to knock my legs out from under
me.  And sometimes I react to this in
anger.  Sometimes my passion for what I
know in my heart is right overwhelms me and I can’t help but yell it out.
Sometimes the vision of God’s Kin-dom is so pervasive and vivid in my mind that
I just feel heart-breakingly defeated when others cannot seem to understand
what I see.  So where do I find
comfort?  How do I maintain relationships
with people who think so very differently from me that it would seem so much
easier to just walk away?  It helps when
I remember that it is not up to me to change hearts and minds.  Honestly, it helps to reiterate the mantra,
“it’s not about me,” because it’s not.  Others
understanding of the world is not about me, and it’s not up to me to fix
them.  And as difficult as it is, I have
to remember that most of the time I actually really do love these people.  Maybe they are close family members, or a
childhood friend with whom I share a lot of wonderful memories.  They are a part of me somehow, in some way,
and I can’t just let go of that because we see things differently.  And maybe we don’t see things as differently
as our voting record might suggest.  Maybe
we have just been taught to regurgitate certain rhetoric filtered through our
favorite news sites, but things won’t really change until we can come together
with the remembrance that each of us is a beloved child of God.

I am so tired of screaming out into the wind all the ways I
want the world to change.  I have to
comfort myself knowing that the world is changing–God is always revealing
something new, even when I fail to see it.
Though while we may be walking in darkness much of the way, each of us
can be a light. Even in the midst of fear, despair, strife, and sickness, God
is active and among us.  We live in a
post-resurrection world, but what does that mean?  I am still learning what it means to
experience the in-breaking of the Kin-dom of Heaven in the here and now.  I am still learning what it means to see
beauty in the everyday.  Each of us can
carry a shred of hope for the restoration of peace and harmony.   I may not be able to argue my point
effectively, but I can still show love in a way that honors God.  As is written in 1 John, it is only in unity
with the other that we can be truly cleansed from our sin.  Or said a different way, it is only in
restoration of a broken relationship that we can find wholeness.  In a world where suicide and mass killings
run rampant, where events, schools, and even churches are closing due to
illness, we need to lean on each other; we need to know that we are not alone,
and that we can seek refuge in community.
Stick together, friends.  Hold one
another close and remind each other of why it is important to have fellowship,
for it is oh-so-true that we are often better together.  Amen.