A Love That Hates Disparity

     Last October, our church embark on a small local mission project. I had big plans for it the year prior, but due to the pandemic, the week long 10 home mission week was whittled down to 4 projects and 4 days. I am not complaining, we still had a heck of a time, and got to spend some time with our neighbors. During that time, since it was a youth mission, although we had almost our entire church participating, I had the privelege carry the message throughout the week and speak on scripture as we met at the end of each day, ate together, and debriefed the day. The passage that God directed me to use was that of Acts 2:42-47, "² And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³ And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ⁴⁴ And all who believed were together and had all things in common. ⁴⁵ And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved." (NIV) We focused throughout the week on attempting to flesh out the idea of fellowship or as it is said in the Greek "Koinonia" through the context of this scripture. At first I talked about what separated us from any other social justice programs outside the church, our devotion, prayer, and common belief. We then talked about the communion we had together as the church and what it meant to eat together and meet each other's needs. Finally we discussed the worship of our God and the growth that came as a result of the "koinonia." 

    Currently we live in a time, when the koinonia of the church at large appears to be broken. As a favorite Christian Punk Band of mine As Cities Burn once crooned, "If we are the body, how'd a pretty man get so ugly. How'd he get all these spaces between each limb." We see brokenness not only across denominational lines, but also from church to church in each denomination. Policy, theology, politics, and division serve to break the fellowship of the church, and all to often at the micro level of each community. We talk about love, but all to often struggle to practice this at home or even at our home churches. How do we heal this break? How do assemble the body of Christ back into a community that truly represents him? These are certainly imperative questions to answer for the church today. While I do not have the answer specifically to each of your communities or even completely for my own, there is something I believe we have lost, and gaining it back will most certainly be a step toward unity of heart, purpose, and mission.

    The love described in the fellowship in Acts 2:42-47 was not protective of the status quo. It did not seek to continue establishing community standards as they have always been. It was not a love that focused on status or importance of the individual, but recognized the value of every person, to the extreme that it began to hate the separation that naturally divided the church. Today we are desperately worried about being disenfranchised. Entire political ideologies are devoted to the idea that "they" whoever they are, are taking "our" rights. This undercurrent to the ideologies as best is slowly eroding our values system, and at worst is directly flying in the face of who we are representing. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He gave up his rights, authority, power, and position to live the life of a builder from Nazareth, who then became a teacher for a few rag tag souls. Jesus exemplifies a love that does not seek to self protect, but hates the divisions that keep people apart and serve to place others as lower or lesser. 

    As His church, we are called to not only exemplify that love to each other in our "koinonia" fellowship, but also to extend this to those outside of our fellowship. To love our enemies, to give up our rights to the "them"; to understand that Christianity is not a cultural phenomenon, but is a radical counter-cultural experiment, that even out does our very own constitution in its view of humanity. In our constitution it says that all men are created equal, and that we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The law of love exampled by Christ shows that we should consider all men, women, and children as more important and more than ourselves, we should fight for their freedom from sin and oppression and understands that happiness is not a pursuit, but joy is received from obedience to an omnibenevolent God. What the world gives, the world can take away, but what God gives... no one can take it away. That kind of love hates disparity of love, fairness, and self determination. It is the kind of love that sees an injustice and seeks to fix it even when the action makes zero since to self preservation. When the early church saw economic disparity it gave from those that could to level it out. When it saw a disparity of family people were invited to stay. When the early church saw a disparity of needs being met, they didn't call a board meeting or simply pray, they met those needs in the midst of their meeting and praying.

    Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. MLK dreamed of a world with the love exemplified by the most devoted Christ followers in this world. The truth is that this dream is not a worldly one, but a realization of the Kingdom of God. He saw it as our duty as Christians to take every inch of our world for that ideal. Today in the midst of our disagreements, our many continuing arguments, I would wish that kind of love for our church today. One that welcomes judgment from God, one that seeks to bring together, and one that hates disparity.