Community III

Don: It’s very clear that in the narrative of the lost sheep, the consequences of isolation from the community are very great., The shepherd’s pursuit of the errant individual to bring him or her back to the fold, back to the community, gives one a sense of how much is at stake; of how great is the need to protect the isolated individual.

Individualism was sharpened by the Reformation. Martin Luther was the champion of “righteousness by faith,” which places the responsibility on the individual to approach god and contract with him in order to be saved. This concept competed against that of deterministic Calvinism and resulted in vigorous debate in the lead-up to to the Renaissance. Most Renaissance men would agree that virtually 100 percent of what happens to you in life is determined by your personal choices, volition, and will; as opposed to being predetermined.

That thinking spilled over especially strongly into the New World. Today, the concept of individualism is more strongly held by Americans, and Americans more than any other nation believe in the notion of free will. A recent international poll which asked: “To what extent is success in your life determined by forces outside your control?” found that only 36 percent of Americans thought it was so determined, while the other 64 percent thought it was not—that they themselves determined their success in life. In contrast, 72 percent of Germans thought their success in life was determined by outside forces. AT the same time, there are data that show overwhelmingly that Germans have amongst the best opportunities for success in life, of which the most important determinant is the education of the parents – it’s not by exercising good judgment, etc.

A study this year by the Institute of Medicine reported that young Americans die at a higher rate and live in a poorer condition than their peers in other developed countries. The choices that young Americans make in terms of guns, helmet wearing, and seatbelt wearing put them at higher risk than their peers in other countries, because they are given the right of choice in such matters and Americans tend to believe there is something sacred about that right.

Although one not infrequently hears an American say such things as “Well, it wasn’t meant to be” or “It wasn’t in the cards”—giving least a nod to fatalism—the ideology of individualism deeply affects our theological understandings. The question is: Is individualism the teaching of Jesus, or is it antithetical to that teaching?

Many eastern cultures have a much stronger belief in determinism. In Arabic, it’s called “kismet”—fate, destiny. Your fate is predetermined; you have no control over it. Something else is doing the control, and your individual free will is subservient to your community’s will, and what happens to your community influences in a very great way what happens to you personally.

In the Garden of Eden, God is in control. Man cannot bargain with God. He had no choice about being brought into existence, or whose image he was made in, or in what he may and may not eat. He had to name the animals, he had to have a wife (Adam didn’t ask for one),  he was put to sleep and had a rib removed without informed consent. In short, God laid down the rules. When Man did exercise his free will, God threw him out of the Garden.

“Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,” which justifies that judgment, is the core of the Lord’s Prayer. As Alice reminded us last week, subjection and submission to God’s will also appears in Matthew 26, where in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus accepts God’s will that must suffer.

But then, in Matthew 11:28 (“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest”) comes comfort: Jesus takes responsibility for you, so you don’t need to go it alone in life – Jesus is there to shoulder your burden.

Sigmund Freud wrote of the conflict between the individual’s conscious and unconscious wills. It puts into even sharper question the notion of whether we really have free will, or at least it challenges us to redefine our understanding of such terms.

Are we where we are today because of deliberate choices? How important is self-determination? Do we really have it? Should we redefine it? Don’t we understand it?

Harry: I go back and forth. I am naturally rebellious, though in certain circumstances I may find peace in conformity. On the one hand we have free will, and end up with global warming, or personal success; but it’s also destructive—you achieve it by hurting others. What strikes me about the Lord’s Prayer is that everybody and every church tries to define what God’s will is. To me, it’s a statement of fact: God’s kingdom will come, his will will be done. Your will doesn’t matter; at the end of the day, it’s his will, not yours, that will be done.

I see evidence of karma; I see situations change with karma. My place of employment has had bad karma for many years. It seemed we would never turn the corner. But when enough people applied positive thinking, we saw good things starting to happen. God lets us make our own decisions, but if we make them while sticking  to universal principles, things will happen for the positive.

Don: To some extent, we all seek community, because it contains comfort and peace, and ends loneliness. Especially in times of great crisis, of loss, discomfort, distress. In the story of the lost sheep, the shepherd is concerned that the individual (lost) sheep is in peril because it is separated from the community. Yet when one is with the community, one is always held back somewhat in expressing oneself. Something prevents me from getting ahead of the flock. The idea of getting ahead of the flock is a very strongly held individual privilege, right, and even responsibility. So there are conflicting poles. But what is Jesus teaching about this, and how should we respond in our community action?

Emma: Jesus is always there, if you will only knock on his door. I go to him with major decisions, but not with minor ones. I think he really does mean “Call me!” when he says it. Because nothing is impossible. There are so many lonely people. Some never leave their apartments. One doesn’t know whether to interrupt them – maybe they don’t want to be bothered.

Mr. Singh: A new religion has arisen called Chrislam, on the basis that Christians say Jesus is coming, and Islam says the Mehdi is coming, and they feel united in that. So they are saying we are all one community.

Francine: Community is important to everyone. It doesn’t have to be a church community. It can be a bowling club, or a soup kitchen. I knew a woman who started helping at a soup kitchen, and gave her tithes to it instead of to her church. She found much more gratification this way. Church may not be for everybody and there are other communities we can belong to.

Harry: Jesus did not ask for wholesale changes to [the community of] Judaism. He just addressed points where it had failed, and he focused on the poor and sick because they are out of community. He never said Judaism was bad, or called for revolution in theology. He addressed humanity, not theology. This would be just the same if he returned today and came to our SDA church. He’d be addressing how we treat one another in time of need, etc.

Theology tries to define god’s will, and ostracizes those who don’t approve the theologian’s interpretation. Jesus is trying to say that the kingdom comes and god’s will will be done regardless. If Chrislam creates peace, helps people survive, then it seems to have no negatives. In our deepest pride, we want to say that we know the truth and you have to see it my way. This is what leads to trouble – we judge, we don’t forgive. Jesus says not to judge one another because no-one knows the real Truth.

Robin: I am puzzled by 1 Corinthians 9:14-18:

So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

But I have used none of these things. And I am not writing these things so that it will be done so in my case; for it would be better for me to die than have any man make my boast an empty one. For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. What then is my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.

Don: Jesus is saying he can join any community. His utter lack of individualism means he can join any community, which allows him to be effective in that community.

Alice: The contrast in paragraph 17 is between duty and willingness.

Robin: It seems to say that even though he is free from all men, he has willingly made himself a servant, so that he can gain more.

Don: There’s no doubt Jesus is on the side of community versus individualism. But there is a form of radical individualism put into the service of the community.

Harry: Someone has said it is the will of god that women should not be ordained as preachers. We say that Jesus saves, but saves from what? People put their own interpretations on it.

Alice: The big and true community is the connection between god and his creatures, on a much bigger scale than church community, etc. It is one community, designed by god, embracing all his creatures. Jesus taught that he is the body and we are the organs. The organs have to be under one government. The big community is everyone who ever lived, with god’s Love as the unifying force. If one organ in my body goes bad, it affects the other organs. The absence of love has a bad effect on everyone else. So instead of belonging to different communities, when are we going to see that we are one global human community? We don’t need religions, preachers, books, authors, technologies. We just need to love one another, to heal one another from our hatreds, to see our fellow humans as brothers in god whom we must love. We need to see the big picture, but we are constantly distracted from it. The need is not to disperse, not to divide; it is, rather, to assemble, to unite. I belong to this global community. God has a thread to each and every one of us, linking each and every one of us. Yet we are drifting further apart, in the wrong direction.

Jay: Alice has articulated the great dilemma—coming back together. The problem is that getting together tends to require common-mindedness. But god has something different in mind, not like-mindedness.

David: As Jay has said, we are not good at building communities. An ordinary German—a  Nazi party member—in the 1930s probably thought Germany was a great place to be. But you cannot compare that community to the community of the kingdom of heaven, which as Alice has said is on a much greater scale and as Jay has said is all-inclusive. The book Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment argues that nobody is excluded from the kingdom. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, you’re admitted. Despite the judgment passages in the bible, other passages suggest that there is no judgment, or at least that the door is not shut after the judgment, that it is always open to all.

Don: We will discuss this more next week. Meantime let’s think about the class blog idea on WordPress.

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