Koinonia

Meditation for May 13, 2012
Scripture: John 15:9-17

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. I suspect most parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, and sisters would agree. Maybe we’d all agree—it takes a lot of love, support, time and patience to raise a child.

I think John would say it also takes a village to be a Christian. Our scripture passage from the Gospel of John this morning is the final chapter in Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples. Jesus leaves his disciples with the reminder that the greatest commandment is to love one another.

This is central to John’s theology. We experience the love of God through Christ Jesus. John writes, God’s love is so great that his son freely gave his life and because God loves us that much, we must show that same extravagant love to others.

We cannot be Christians without a village to love and to love us. It takes a village to be a Christian, a village of people we can love and support and who can love and support us.

Just as we think about Jesus and what his words meant to his disciples we must also consider how this passage sounded to John’s community—a small community of Christians living three generations after Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.

This small band of Christian followers were persecuted for their faith. They were frightened, yet faithful. For these Christians, community—being together with other believers—meant security. It meant support, and it meant hope that Christ’s love was transforming the world. Being in community is just as important today as it was to Jesus’ disciples and John’s community.

But, of course, the challenge with any community is that they are made of imperfect human beings—human beings striving to share God love, but who often fall short. Human beings chosen by God to bear fruit but who don’t always know how. Human beings who ask God for guidance but don’t always fully understand God’s answers. So we live in a community seeking to serve God and love one another.

Building a Community

A village, a community, Koinonia. Koinonia is a word with depth and meaning that none of the English translations fully capture all it encompasses. Koinonia means love, community and communion and all that each of those words mean and more.

Koinonia is the heart of the love John is talking about. It’s about building a community that is the living body of Christ. It’s about building a community that pools resources, material goods and communal fellowship. It’s about sharing God’s mission in the world. It’s about knowing that Jesus loves us so much that we become a beacon of that love, letting it shine throughout the world.

Communities are sometime intentional and sometimes they happen quite by accident. In Ann Patchett’s book Bel Canto, a community of unlikely comrades is created. A group of people from all over the world are at the vice president’s mansion in an unnamed poor South American country for a Japanese businessman’s birthday, when all of a sudden a group of terrorists seeking revolution come in and take the group hostage. Over the next few days a number of hostages are released including the sick, women, children and a priest. The last 39 hostages remain with the terrorists, locked in the mansion for months.

As the drama unfolds unlikely relationships develop. Even between the terrorist and the hostages. Roxanne Cross, a world famous Opera singer finds that a Japanese businessman is a well practiced piano accompanist. They begin to practice together everyday. Everyone is fed by the music. Their spirits are lifted. They are carried away by the melodies.

One morning, Ms. Cross does not appear. As her accompanist Kato begins to play, one of the young terrorists begins to sing in a beautiful, though untrained voice. Ms. Cross offers to train this young man. A world famous opera singer trains a teenage boy who came from rural poverty.

Likewise, the translator, a well-educated man of some wealth, begins to teach one of the terrorists to read and write. Born to poverty, she joined the militia seeking a better tomorrow and here she found the tools to lift herself out of poverty in the knowledge and teaching of one of the men she captured and holds at gunpoint.

These relationships were only possible because they found themselves stuck together. A group of people, each on very different journeys found themselves in the same place at the same time and community developed. Over time they began to care and love one another. That is community.

Oftentimes at church, people with whom we might otherwise never cross paths, come together to be a community. Sometimes we have very little in common, except that we seek to know God and grow in our relationship with Christ.

Our prayer is that community blossoms; that koinonia grows; that we love one another just as Christ loves us. Amen.

The Rev. Kristen Curlee
May 13, 2012

Commentaries and Sources
Feasting on the Word: Lent Through Eastertide Year B, Volume 2 edited by Bartlett, David L and Barbra Brown Taylor. WJK, 2008

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Harper Collins, 2001.