Creating sanctuary - community

I am aware that I am the butt of some jollity because I use the phrase “community of faith” instead of the word “church”.

In our search to create sanctuary in a busy world, we need to deal with the issue of community and so, unfortunately, you will have to put up with me using that word quite a lot over the next few minutes.

Creating Sanctuary in a busy world starts with laying a floor of silence and contemplation leading to prayer. Prayer in which we converse with God as “you” not “him” or “it”. We then build walls of obedience and humility which protect us. We are obedient when we choose to listen to the voice of the father rather than many other voices, especially those of the materialistic world. Our humility comes not from doing ourselves down but from knowing who we really are – clods of earth that have life (not gods or God).

We now come to place a roof over our sanctuary and the way we do this is through building the shelter provided by community.

One of the interesting communities in the bible is the first one Jesus drew together: the 12 disciples. Although they had some things in common, they were also very different.

Four or more fishermen – a middle class job with good earnings.
One tax collectors – despised as agents of the occupying forces.
A “zealot” – the equivalent of an underground agent.
A dodgy accountant.
A doubting, the-glass-is-half-empty, negative person.
Probably a farmer amongst the others.
From same area, same language, all men, probably similar ages.

A bunch of people thrown together because of one thing – Jesus called them. That is what created the reference point for this community. In many other ways they would not have survived many minutes in the same room with each other. Yet Jesus pushed these guys through trauma, doubt, fear, failure, personal growth over a 3 year period. In that community of men there was sanctuary because Jesus was there.

After Jesus had ascended (and they lost their sanctuary), the disciples experienced the presence of His Holy Spirit and sanctuary was restored and they, as a community, in his power, went on to change the world.

What community is not:

Simply a group of people with some form of common identity.

We talk about the web site community, the sporting community, the global community.

That is not the meaning of the word in the bible – variously translated eklesia or koinonia. The community here is one where maybe the only thing in common is that we follow Jesus. We may not be similar in background and culture, in economic position or education, in temperament or politics.

We may not like each other very much – to start with.

But we are called to commit to the community of faith (church). The body of Christ. The group of people who are called by him to build community together. Although we may have preferences of form or formlessness, of traditions or lack of traditions, at the end of the day we are not at liberty to pick and choose the way we do this.

The disciples would certainly have made some changes to the way Jesus did things if they could have done. But at the end of the day, when others were leaving and Jesus asked if they were going too, Peter said to Jesus, “Where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

The reason this is so important and the reason why those who choose not to commit themselves to one community of faith are missing out is that in order to create sanctuary, a place where God dwells among us, we need to be in community. The community provides a shelter, a roof to the building if you like.

We cannot know the full presence of God unless we are in community with him dwelling at the centre.

Community is not defined by the way we do things, by our traditions or practices. Community is defined by the quality of our relationships. And this is where we hit resistance.

Take the England 2007 World Cup team. Talking about sorting themselves out after the record 36-0 drubbing by the South Africans in the group stages. A true community – they trust and value each other and can speak honestly to each other. Out of that emerged a new, stronger, better team. A previous tendency to individualism has been dealt with. They are a very different bunch of people – but the quality of that community is based securely on their relationships.

Our culture deifies independence. There is no higher value than my rights, my individualism, my enjoyment of things the way I like them. So to submit ourselves to relationship with others is hard and directly challenges our individualism.

But in working through relationships, in learning to live with each other, just like the disciples did, just like England, we can get through trauma and challenges, we will grow and learn more about Jesus. When the time comes we will know his presence powerfully at the centre of our lives to bring about the kingdom work he has for us.

This is why we do what we do:

We meet regularly like this in the larger group (hard for some I know – and an ongoing challenge as we grow).
We meet regularly in housegroups – small groups that meet in people’s homes.
We encourage small groups of 2 or 3 or 4 where you can hold each other accountable.

If you are not in a housegroup and joining with the rest of the community on a regular basis you are trying to operate without a roof over your place of sanctuary. There is no shelter from the rain and sun.

We have been saying in this series that sanctuary is something we work at and build – not discovered or found – something created.

We create a space that is set apart, but a space that is within us, a space of refuge – not a pause for breath or a minute’s silence – a firm, long-standing, robust place.

The first step is what they call “laying a floor”.

This step involves silence and prayer.

We fear silence, we find it uncomfortable.
Silence is difficult. It takes time to achieve.
Prayer is difficult too. We need not worry about being good at it, just honest.
The meaning of prayer is to relate to God as someone familiar – parent or friend – to focus on God as “You” – not it or him. Conversation. “What shall we do today, Lord?”

No matter how much we try we can’t avoid listening to the world’s voice but obedience & humility build the wall of sanctuary. Obedience means, “to listen to someone else”.

Freedom is not the absence of listening to what others are saying; that would mean living in a solitary confinement or on a desert island where we don’t have to listen to other voices. That’s not freedom.

Side by side with obedience – choosing which voice we will listen to – is knowing who we are. Being humble.

Humble as a child. The characteristic of a child is that he or she is … A child.

Not a grown up. Humility is simply a matter of knowing who we are and who we are not. A clod of earth that knows it is alive.

The creator is God, we are not. We are clods of earth that know they are alive.

Having laid a floor of silence, prayer and contemplation we build walls by choosing to listen to the voice of the creator. Of the Father who loves us. We know who he is and we know who we are. We choose the freedom that comes from humility and obedience.

Although these components of creating sanctuary have individual and personal aspects to them, they only come into fruition when they are experienced as part of a community. That is when the roof goes on.

The sanctuary metaphor starts with the contention that we create sanctuary through virtue – living rightly. You can only be virtuous in community

Finding sanctuary shows itself in serving and being open to others (good prayer shows itself in patience, obedience means working it out with others, saying sorry, humility means knowing where you are alongside others).

Some characteristics of being part of a community:

Stability – long haul

The willingness to commit to each other through the hard times and create a stable community of people who are with each other over the long haul – not just when it is easy.

Good conversation

The derivation of this word is that of “living together” not just speaking with each other. Open and honest words spoken and open and honest listening. Sharing our lives. Avoiding grumbling and complaint – that just destroys good conversation, good living together.

If you have a complaint – pray for the person/issue
If not resolved take it to the person
If not resolved go together to a leader
Live with the result
Don’t gossip, murmur, grumble, triangulate

Working through conflict

Good community does not avoid conflict but works through it. Good community is not necessarily tranquil – it may get loud and heated, even violent, but it works it through. Think about the England team working out their differences in the changing room. We are forced to confront those things in our lives which harm us and drive us to busyness. We learn humility, obedience, silence (restraint of speech).

Openness to the visitor

This is not just the community going outside being friendly – although this is very important. But is having what we call “a big front door”. Partly our welcome, partly our inclusion of the newcomer. An openness to others, the alien, the outcast, those who are just different.

This is a Vineyard value – come as you are (don’t stay as you are) – whoever you are (as soon as a group describes itself as closed I get nervous). However, it all starts with silence & contemplation in the community and with ourselves. We are not in the right place to welcome the visitor or to minister with the poor until we have dealt with God in our own lives first.

Conclusion

We create sanctuary with the floor of silence and prayer, we build walls of obedience and humility and then we place a cover and protection over the sanctuary by living out our faith in community. A community of faith.

David Flowers, 25/10/2007