Fruitful Community

In the summer of 2024, I began to contemplate community, hoping to better understand something that seemed to be slipping into dysfunction. That led me to write the blog Spiritual Community.

Yet for the past two years, the idea has stayed at the back of my mind. I was always searching for more practical ways to apply it. Then came the inspiration for the Community of Boundaries post, which seemed to break the proverbial dam, and now I’m seeing it everywhere. A single post has turned into a series. Which brings us to the passage below.

This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” -Jeremiah 17:5-8 NIV

In the passage, a counterpoint is given on where we place our trust. You may not readily see anything to do with community straight away. So let me ask you this: if you liken yourself to the proverbial tree by the water, how do you feel about the metaphoric bushes far from the stream? Are we punishing those who had the misfortune of taking root in a less-than-ideal place? While the passage says they are cursed, are we applying this as if we need to be the ones who curse the dry bushes? Instead of viewing their circumstances as a need for water offered in love. As well as going through the tricky long-term process of transplanting them into a healthier position or community.

Consider this: in a previous post, I pointed out that if we grew up in an unstable and unloving environment, our social skills tend to not be about giving and receiving love. Instead, they are about dealing with all the terrible things done in the name of love. Hence, trusting only in themselves and not in that life-giving water. My point being, are we acting as impatient, unkind, rude, and critical towards those far from the river as the one who pushed them far away in the first place? If so, we are being as toxic as them. In other words, trying to solve the problem with the cause of the problem. So why should they see any value in the river that way? It doesn’t resemble a healthy community at all from their point of view.

While transplanting is possible, it needs to be handled with care. It needs to be done in the right season. Otherwise, you will shock and kill the plant. A healthy community understands this. Where an unhealthy community wants to uproot them hastily or just watch the bushes burn in the sun. If that is your attitude, you are not as well rooted as you think. So ultimately you’re unfruitful as well. One detail we need to take note of in this agricultural metaphor is that fruit can be self-sustaining. If we know how to replant the seeds, that is. Which I dare say many do not in this age. Another point is that fruit trees often take several years to mature enough to bear fruit. Yet in our greed and impatience, we don’t want to work within these practical truths. Yet we wonder why the orchard (Community) is slowly fading away.

My point being, ancient people understood the frequent garden metaphors in the Bible. So they recognized that community requires proper maintenance, just like orchards do. Our postmodern civilization is very much disconnected from nature, and it’s showing in our neglect of community. As well as our attempts at curing the curse by cursing them more.

The Visual PARABLEist

Counter-Community

My hometown has a monthly art walk. I try to participate once a year. Last time, one little girl pointed at one of my drawings and said to her dad, “I don’t like that one; it’s creepy.” To which I replied, “Unfortunately, many people choose to live like that, but they need just as much love and understanding as everyone else.”

The drawing itself is about how people often wear their emotional wounds like an identity. For example, the alternative fashion of counterculture movements. The psychology of this is actually a camouflage. In other words, they are controlling how they are being judged. If you believe you’re going to be judged anyway, it’s easier to take if it’s just for something superficial, as opposed to what’s really going on inside. Rejecting the broader community in favor of a group identity of an alt culture built on mutual resentment. In the case of emotional scars, they can be too much to hold in indefinitely, but also too painful to face head-on. So external signs of melancholy can ultimately be a superficial way to cope. Is this part of the reason why Jesus said. . .

“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” -John 7:24

There is often a huge disconnect between the public and private self. This incongruence is often not as cut and dry as we assume either. Hence the need to look closer.

Still, isn’t the good news of the gospel about seeking and saving the lost? Do we foolishly assume that the lost always openly own this and ask for help? Never hiding their brokenness behind a virtual mask. Which begs the question. Are we failing our community by accusing and criticizing mere appearances? Rather than trying to understand the hurting person behind the false self. Are we like that little girl telling them, I don’t like this one; they're creepy?

The Visual PARABLEist

Who will lead us back to Community?

There is a saying, “God doesn’t call the qualified; he qualifies the called.” These recent community posts bring me a whole new appreciation of this saying. Meaning the people who have the natural social skills to integrate into the community with ease have never had to consciously think about it. Let alone define their talents. So their advice concerning their skills is often not very practical at best, and dismissive at worst. So perhaps what it really takes is someone who has experienced the problem firsthand to even consider the issue objectively. Let alone understand it well enough to come up with a solution. It’s an unfortunate but all too common reality that people often have little empathy for problems that don’t affect them. As if what is easy for them should be easy for everyone. This attitude doesn’t help the community in the slightest. True Biblical community is meant to complement one another, not imitate one another.

But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” -1st Corinthians 12:18-21 NIV

I dare say that many parts feel unneeded these days. Often because the church seems to only value a few key talents. Also because we would rather amputate broken parts than get involved in the mess that broke them in the first place. Which has made for a very one-dimensional community.

Yet just maybe, they are the ones who should be leading the way. Not opting out.

The Visual-PARABLEist

The fractured foundation of Community

There are two kinds of churches right now. Those that cater to young families, and aging churches that used to cater to young families. Yet the fastest-growing demographic right now is the unmarried, childless adult. So where do they fit in? Do we even care to consider the challenges that they face?

One thing is evident in this apparent rift in the unmarried community. Both sides of this proverbial gender war are bound and determined to make the opposite side solely responsible for everything, while accepting no responsibility at all. Which is not realistic. Nor is it consistent with what the disciple is called to do. Correct self first and foremost, then lead by example. (Matthew 7:1-6)

The average church's response tends to be as it always is anymore. Start at the perceived end, and work backwards. Missing all the gateway truths you will need to actually make that journey towards holiness. In the case of single people, it sounds like “just get married, then you will be welcome into our family-centric community. Until then, you've got to figure it out for yourself.”

Consider this. The Bible does not say as much about gender “ROLES” as tradition would have you believe. Most of these roles originated in ancient times when it made sense for men to do the more dangerous work, leaving the less dangerous work for women. But everyone did have to work to ensure their own survival. Technology has made much of that less necessary, creating more leisure time than ever. Which has only bred dissatisfaction, ironically enough. Yet many are still trying to stick the square peg of convention into an elliptical hole of the contemporary world. So we are all a little lost on how relationships should look and function these days. While we should make room for a dialogue about this, most are only monologging “my way or no way.” Hence the growing unmarried demographic.

However, scripture does have much to say about marriage and family in general. (Ephesians 5:21-33, Colossians 3:18-25) Yet there are three ways to read these famous passages.

1. Focus on the responsibility that you are meant to fulfill.

2. Focus on what you’re entitled to receive from the other side. 

3. Envy what the other side is meant to receive.

How you read these passages really says a lot about the state of your heart. In a perfect world, we could all do our part without keeping score, and nobody would be without. But this world is far from perfect, so natural givers tend to be used and ruined. This is why so many resort to these lesser approaches. Only focusing on what you’re entitled to shows that you just want to take and not give. That detail in itself invalidates love. Envy isn’t much better. Like so many things, there is a privilege side and a responsibility side. To envy the privilege, but not accept the responsibility, makes you covetous. Which is not behavior becoming of a disciple. Covetous takers who shirk their responsibilities and don’t reciprocate have no right to demand anything. Yet they are, but people are learning to not waste their time starting relationships with them. Hence the decline in marriage.

Which gets to the heart of the issue, not just the symptom. A world full of covetous takers leaves many damaged people in its wake. So much of what we do stems from dealing with these scars. Always wanting emotional painkillers to cover up our aches. As well as a safe place that won’t ever trigger our wounds. Yet we want to maintain the right to vent with impatience, unkindness, and rudeness. We’re looking to our relationships to produce this imbalanced environment for us with the intent of forever avoiding facing our own brokenness. This is a very poor environment for a healthy relationship. Few want to admit this, despite the havoc it’s wreaking on our community.

So it’s no wonder so many people have gotten so hesitant with relationships. Our toxic self-centered approach makes them more likely to break us than make us. We are more apt to lose ourselves than find ourselves within them. So I don’t even blame them for it, even if so many others do, including church people.

“The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” -Matthew 19:10 NIV

Again, the church is hesitant to address this issue directly. So we just lean on the whitewash of tradition as we have been. This only contributes to the mess we're in. As well as producing diminishing returns in the harvest. We are only sealing our own doom by ignoring it. 

The Visual PARABLEist

In the Post-Modern world, we have enabled many to follow their feelings blindly. This is not only unhealthy, but impossible to deal with. That's why many have just given up on trying. 

Community in Mourning

Last time I wrote about how excessive boundaries are limiting discipleship and the effect on church community. It soon became apparent that this issue goes even deeper than that. Hence the revisit.

Keep in mind that Biblical times were mostly an agricultural-based society. You depended upon the whole community to ensure survival. The concept of community was not even something they had to think about consciously. So it was important to be transparent about our troubles, so the community knew where support was needed to maintain the tribe. This was the norm for thousands of years.

This did not change until the Industrial Revolution. This created the opportunity to be more independent and ultimately more isolated as a result. This trend has only escalated with advancing technology. This is what led to the perceived need for privacy, and the downfall of community has been a side effect. I dare say this has even led us to shame sorrow, and rush people through their mourning. Making people feel all alone in their pain. Let’s look at the main perceived criticisms of public troubles to determine whether they are founded. 

The first being seeking only provision, not solutions. Galatians 6:1-6 indicates that church support is about a hand up when needed, not a permanent crutch. So that they can be the one to give support next time. The original pay it forward. As well as a sign of healthy community. There will always be those who seem to be forever in need, yet never reciprocate. Despite only taking, they always seem to have the least too. An obvious lack of blessing is seen here. This is where our fear lies; not in how it harms the community dynamic, but how it affects us. I dare say we have all been exploited through our charitable acts. Leading us to qualify our support first, or just deny everyone to be certain. Forgetting that grace does not work that way. If they themselves establish a questionable pattern that hurts the community, then we should reconsider how we support them. But let’s not judge everyone by what someone else did. Give people the benefit of the doubt until they earn that doubt. Giving with the right motives is our main concern; what they do with them is on them. People even exploited Jesus' generosity too. He never let that stop him, but unlike us, he had nothing to lose. (John 6:25-27)

Another criticism is that they are only seeking attention. Well, of course they are. They are thirsty for human connection within a dysfunctional community. Maybe we should address the obvious ills of our community, instead of shaming the one who is an obvious symptom of the problem. Then maybe they wouldn’t have to seek it in such shallow and self-destructive ways, as social media seems to be enabling right now. Are we effectively kicking people while they are down when criticizing the lonely and sorrowful for being vulnerable in their sadness? It’s gotten to the point where many are denying themselves their basic and necessary need for human connection because community has become so toxic and self-centered. When no connection seems better than the risks of unhealthy connection. Then we obviously have a very serious problem. The church should be combating this, not enabling it.

First Corinthians 12 is a passage that we tend to only look at through the lens of spiritual gifts. Yet often fail to recognize how it also has a dimension of church community. Verses 25 and 26 in particular.

“so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

Do we really have equal concern for one another? Or do we value some more than others? Or always put self first? Do we genuinely rejoice and suffer together? Or do we envy others’ accomplishments? Do we come together as a community to assist the aching parts? Or is suffering treated shamefully, and kept private as a result? Let’s face it, much of our desire for privacy tends to take root in fear of judgment. Much like the Pharisees, we tend to treat sinners as bad people who should be scorned. Yet, Jesus treated sinners as people in need. (Matt. 9:12) Not that I’m saying suffering is a sin in itself, just that a dysfunctional community tends to treat it that way.

Still, behind much of our sin that leads to suffering is a genuine need or wound. In our impatience, or perhaps feelings of isolation, we take the quick painkiller approach. Which becomes far less effective over time, and self-destructive in the long term. Permanent healing requires facing and owning the issue. It requires being vulnerable. It may even require the support of discipleship. But even that will do us no good if our fellow church members only whitewashed their plank, rather than deal with it. Since they had to face it all alone themselves.

We as the church need to start cultivating a true community of discipleship again. That means setting aside the culture of shame and condemnation for those who don’t maintain the mere illusion of community by whitewashing their pain. So we can start promoting an environment of grace, healing, and support within the community once again.

The Visual PARABLEist

Community of Boundaries

The other day, a retired minister told me how his denomination had adopted “boundary training” for their ministers in the nineties. This discouraged ministers from getting too familiar with their members. This really got me thinking.

To explain, let me tell you a story. While I was at a certain church. I worked under many different ministers in the nearly 20 years that I was there. Most of them had some sort of big push towards outreach. Yet nearly every one of them hit the same wall. There was this overwhelming reluctance to do so by nearly everyone. I’m sure there were many reasons for this. But a good broad explanation is that they didn’t want to get wrapped up in the messy lives of those outside the church. I recall one person in particular asking, “Why are you so focused on people outside the church, when the people here are in need?” Yet the ministers in question never wanted to take a step back and deal with those internal obstacles first. Ultimately, that would require getting involved in the messy lives of the church members, ironically enough. Maybe it wasn’t a simple matter of not wanting to teach by example as I assumed. Instead, they had been instructed not to, due to boundaries. Perhaps that’s even part of the reason why there was this repeated push; they knew they couldn’t. Hard to say since most have moved on; I will ask if I get the chance.

While I understand the intent behind this training. But are they aware of the huge hindrance to discipleship this has become? Has it only made the church powerless, and ultimately unhelpful? Focusing more on defining and assuring people where they are already at. Not rolling up those proverbial sleeves to get them to the next level of ever-increasing glory. That church I mentioned is no more, by the way.

This may be a sign of community as a whole breaking down, because It’s not just the church being affected by this. This so-called "dating crisis" has women asking, "Why don’t men approach anymore?" Never considering that our boundary-laden culture makes it difficult to act natural anymore. So the most damaged people are the ones setting the bar to a highly sensitive level. They can be very loud and public when their boundaries get crossed too.

Think of it this way: we all have front doors, and many of us lock them. Good people wouldn’t even approach the door without reason, and wouldn’t even check if it was locked unless there was already an invite and an established relationship. Good strangers always knock first. Bad people wouldn’t care if it was locked if there was something they wanted to take from you. My point is: the laws of attraction may cause us to part our boundaries like the Red Sea for certain people, but it’s only the bad ones that will take advantage. So our use of boundaries in dating is often inconsistent and applied backwards. Leading to more boundaries to protect our new wounds.

One thing I think we tend to not understand about the symptom of so many boundaries is this. If you grow up in a toxic environment, then your social skills are not about giving and receiving love. They are more about dealing with difficult, abusive, and neglectful people. I dare say we are even getting to the point where they outnumber the securely attached. Such people don’t respond to sincere love like a cup of cold water on a hot day. They respond with caution and suspicion. While we always assume our coping mechanisms are perfectly rational, we also assume the way other people manage their wounds is out of line. When they are likely both just as unhealthy. All because we assume our good intentions are obvious. When nothing is obvious in a world full of manipulation and passive aggressiveness. It’s a messy issue that requires more than mere boundaries to deal with. In many cases, we put up boundaries to avoid dealing with issues that need attention. 

Do we as disciples care enough to look past people’s behaviour and consider the scars behind their actions? Are we patient enough to build the trust to break down these barriers? Are we courageous enough to face our own wounds and let Jesus deal with them, so we will be better equipped to deal with hurting people ourselves? Or are we just going to hide our wounds behind the boundary of a whitewashed heart? Only to teach others to adopt the same surface-level righteousness. Will you allow the institution of the church, as well as society as a whole, to fade away like a shadow as we grow further apart in our failing community? It’s something we should all think about.

The Visual PARABLEist

Calling out Jesus?

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” 

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” 

“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” 

Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.”-Matthew 15:21-28

In recent days, I’ve seen a few modern pastors comment on this passage and arrogantly try to act more righteous than Jesus over his bluntness. However, they are only looking at it with the depth of a teaspoon. So let’s take a closer look at one particular detail you may not be aware of.

As it says, she was a Canaanite. Meaning she was an indigenous pagan. Canaanites worshiped gods like Baal, Asherah, and Dagon. All of which are specifically denounced by the Old Testament. Their worship involved temple prostitutes, to put it mildly. They even practiced human sacrifice, including children. So it’s likely that her own dark practices brought on her daughter’s demon possession. In context, “dog” seems rather generous. Unless you still think she needs to be patronized with kindness, knowing what you do now? Or is it only right to deal with her as bluntly as those people trying to correct Jesus? Let it also be known that Jews of the time did use their word for dog as a derogatory term for a gentile. However, it's not what we see here. Puppy might be a better way to translate what he says. So Jesus is pulling his punch, if you will. 

Still, his words here are unapologetically honest, as he often was. Like he was with the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, and even his own disciples. They ultimately had to face themselves and the real issues they were avoiding by engaging Jesus and the truth he stood by. As I said in a previous post, it’s not really that kind to water down the realities of self-destructive behavior. In her case, Jesus wanted proof that she knew her responsibility in the situation that she found herself in. More importantly, was she willing to own it? Once satisfied that she understood this. Only then does he grant her request. In doing so, Jesus also showed her that he had authority over the evil things she once worshiped. I dare say that brought on a change of heart better than any superficial kindness ever did.

So why do so many stand by the mediocre practice of tact, rather than truth? Even the most tolerant, ideologically speaking, have their obvious exceptions. Ironically, they can be the most vitriolic of all. In the end, such people have thin skins and very sharp tongues. They only want to be on the receiving side of grace, but only on the giving side of discipline. There is nothing righteous or even mature about such behavior. So they have no business correcting anyone, let alone Jesus. Perhaps they should follow the Canaanite woman's example in owning their dog-like behavior.

What issues have you asked to be delivered from, with no answer? Perhaps it’s your lack of humility. It's your unwillingness to face a harsh truth about yourself.

The Visual PARABLEist 

“You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” -Matthew 10:22 (Jesus)

Truth isn’t always pretty. Anyone who says otherwise is not being honest.