Living Community
by Joram Kimenyi
Tuesday, March 8 – Psalms 97, 99, 100, 94, 95; Gen. 49:29–50:14; 1 Cor. 11:17–34; Mark 8:1–10
(BCP Readings for today)
Most of us grade our adult lives on a productivity scale. We decide whether or not our time was wasted based on how productive our schedules are. The Bible reminds us time and again of how our goals are achieved in communion, as the universal body of Christ. Take the 1920 Gahini (Rwanda) revival that spread to Kenya and Tanzania in the 1930’s and 1940’s for example. It started with a few young men and women who were heartbroken by the direction their countries were taking. They decided to spend time fasting and praying. We know now that the results of those prayers were children that lifted their communities out of poverty and created hope for the entire region. Most of the people in the initial group didn’t live to see the fruits of their prayers. In fact, for the majority, life got much harder before anything changed.
It started with a few young men and women who were heartbroken by the direction their countries were taking. They decided to spend time fasting and praying. We know now that the results of those prayers were children that lifted their communities out of poverty and created hope for the entire region. Most of the people in the initial group didn’t live to see the fruits of their prayers. In fact, for the majority, life got much harder before anything changed.
While I was writing this, I heard a great analogy on a podcast about ants. As a unit, an ant colony can carry out incredible feats in their day to day life. They build intricate structures, find and store food head of harsh weather and even wage war over scarce resources. Remove an ant out of the colony and its chances of survival drop dramatically. We were created to live in community. In the same way that studying one ant cannot reveal the working of a colony, neither can one learn the nature of the whole body of Christ by studying one church or community. Lent is the season where we tap into the source of our faith, together as the body of Christ. It’s the season of rediscovering our collective path and sharpening our collective focus.
In the same way that studying one ant cannot reveal the working of a colony, neither can one learn the nature of the whole body of Christ by studying one church or community. Lent is the season where we tap into the source of our faith, together as the body of Christ. It’s the season of rediscovering our collective path and sharpening our collective focus.
Peggy Adams told a a fascinating story to Ginny and I. When Peggy was a small girl, living on her parent’s farm, she had a blind sheep that walked off a cliff and fell into a valley. Peggy pleaded to help her father go out and search since it was her sheep. Her father was reluctant because it was very likely that the sheep would be injured and have to be put down. In the end, Peggy joined her father and went in search of the fallen sheep. Amazingly, the sheep had survived! As it turns out, the sheep had fallen on its back. Peggy’s father agreed to let the sheep live after surviving such a fall, and together they led the blind sheep out of that valley and back into the barn. The next day, when all the sheep were let out to graze, the blind sheep walked right back to the cliff and fell off.
In this season of Lent, let us pick up where the brave men and women of Gahini left off and carried the torch of prayer and fasting for our coming generations. Lent is our opportunity to pray for mercy and intercede on behalf of the persecuted, the weak and the lost.
Image of Rwandan Church Song by Adam Cohn (used by permission via Creative Commons).
