Community

I love books. I especially love it when a book seems to come into my life as an unexpected delight.

This week I happened to pick up a copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. It is a book that has come highly recommened but one I’ve never managed to read. For some reason, this was my time. I’m only two chaperters in and I’ve already been convicted and inspired. (A good combination, because one without the other usually fails to produce much change.)

Bonhoeffer’s main point in the first chapter is that as Christians we take fellowship with one another for granted. He points out that many Christians in the world do not share in the privilege of communion with other believers. Even Jesus’ disciples left him alone in his last hour. I know a missionary in Gaza who rejoiced when he was able to rent a home with a basement where the believers could lift the voices in song without the anti-Christian government overhearing them on the street.

Obviously, Macy is totally taking for granted the blessing of fellowship here:

And we probably all do the same thing, even despising the gift of each other at times.

Bonhoeffer writes, “between the death of Christ and the Last Day it is only by gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in the visible fellowship with other Christians.”

Like Macy, it is easy to forget the blessings that are right next to us, especially when it is hot and they are trying to make us do something we don’t want to do. But, out of respect for the believers who yearn for just a fraction of the freedoms and blessings of fellowship that we enjoy, may we grow in our ability to cherish one another in every moment.