Building up the Beloved Community – by Cynthia Holder Rich

Look who gathers at Christ’s table!
Hear the stories that they bring.
Some are weeping, some are laughing;
Some have songs they want to sing.
Others ask why they’re invited,
Burdened by the wrong they’ve done.
Christ insists they all are welcome.
There is room for everyone.
Thomas Troeger, from Look who gathers at Christ’s table!, 2000

The relationships we have within the community in Christ are, with the relationship we have with God, the foundation on which all we do are built. They lead out of and are born in the heart of God and the love God has for us – the sole reason we know how to love and understand what love is (I John 4:7-8). When there is growth in the community, it grows from being fed by the nurturing, generous love of God, which is demonstrated in the love people have for each other in the beloved community.

In this short essay, I explore briefly three ways in which the love people have for each other in the community which is Christ’s body, which gathers at Christ’s table, is made manifest. Relationships marked by love and grace are essential to the work of building up the beloved community – and relationships not so marked can do so much damage. Here, I explore the power of relationship in our sharing of the good news, our evangelism; in becoming closer to God through spiritual practices and prayer; and in sharing the opportunity to invest in our ministries, our stewardship.

Relationships are crucial to the sharing of the good news. Evangelism is essentially relational. Everyone who has ever heard the good news heard it from someone else – even Jesus’ original followers heard the news from Jesus. We live in a time when many people have difficulty finding places and spaces in which they feel they belong. Belonging to a faith community, and the relationships available there, have been found by researchers to decrease risk for young people; to increase a sense of resilience among at-risk youth; and to help people of all ages to weather the storms of life. Relationships marked by love and grace within the community are compelling and powerful – they are attractive. In a time when compassion, reliability and trust between people are scarce, where people search for relationships online because it is so hard to find places and spaces to make true friendships, the church has a real opportunity to reach out – if we can build relationships between those in the church that move us in love and grace to invite others to join us.

Compassion for others is at the heart of the relationships we are called into by Christ. To become truly compassionate, we must draw closer to God through any of a great number of spiritual practices (check out the options on this Tree of Contemplative Practices, or draw some of your own on this blank tree). God calls us, invites us, draws us into greater compassion as we draw closer to God. One sure result of entering deeper into communion with God is that our capacities for compassion with our fellow creatures will increase. As we grow more adept at compassion, our inclination to be judgmental will, as a side effect, decrease. We just don’t have enough room in our souls to be deeply compassionate with others, to understand that all are suffering and it is our job to be in solidarity with them, and to at the same time spend time and energy judging what others have done. Thus, deepening our relationship with God leads to deepened relationships with others, which in turn leads to our having more capacity to love and feel compassion for them.

Finally, a pragmatic reality of ministry is that we must find ways to fund it. It turns out that the making of relationships marked by love and grace is foundational to the work of finding these funds, just like it is to all else in ministry. Nurturing relationships among those in the body can lead us to discern what interests people – where their passion lies – what makes them excited, what calls to them. I am intrigued and impressed by the work of The Lake Institute, which offers some of the best training anywhere on the ways in which religious fundraising happens today. Much of what they offer is based in their belief that relationships and relationship-building is crucial to the raising of funds in the faith community. This is long-term, committed work that cannot be hurried. It can, and has, proven transformational to communities of faith. It can change the way we look at our ministries – what we plan to do in Christ’s name – how we reach out and what we offer. Building up the beloved community is a required part of finding the funds to make ministry happen.

I close this set of essays with a prayer. The term “the beloved community” was made popular by Martin Luther King Jr., who, while he did not coin the term, used it often to refer to communities built on and marked by love and grace, and lived out in nonviolence. I pray as I write this that you will find and lead communities marked by relationships of love and grace, that build up the body of Christ where you are.

Pray to whomever you kneel in awe before.
Pray to Being, to Sacred Mystery, to the Breath of Life.
Pray to Divine Love, to Ultimate Meaning, to the Author of Peace.
Pray so as to open your humanity to the humanity in others.
Pray through tears dripping with the world’s suffering.
Pray without forgetting
that we are bound together
on a path that touches all of our lives,
all of our worlds,
whether we live in Haiti or Iraq or China
or Afghanistan or Yemen or Palestine
or on the central coast of California.
On this day we thank you, Holy One, for Martin Luther King Jr.
We thank you for all who have the vision and the courage
to build the beloved community
where everyone is valued,
power is shared,
privilege is set aside,
and all creation knows your healing Presence and Peace.
In your many names we pray. Amen.
Words (c) 2013 Mark Lloyd Richardson