You should know there's a new slj site! Check it out

 
 
Welcoming the Different
A call to loving community

Hans Schenk

Derek sat down across from me at the table in the restaurant. Carefully, he took each item off of his tray and set them neatly in front of him. After sliding the tray to another table, he turned and dived into his Mexican fast food with relish. The other chapter members in our group were talking and laughing all around us. Derek was new to our chapter, and I was curious to see how some of the other students would respond to him. Unlike most of the other men in our group, Derek wasn’t very athletic, but he was extremely bright and intelligent when it came to computers. Seeing that no one else was talking to him, I initiated a conversation. Our dialog was great! I learned about all sorts of computer paraphernalia and where he worked. I also built some rapport and trust with him since I was truly interested in what he had to say. Every so often, I would let the natural conversational lulls linger a bit longer than normal, just to see who else at the table would initiate with him. No one did.

Does this scenario sound familiar? How many times have you or your friends shied away from talking to someone because they seemed different? We talk endlessly in our chapters and campus groups about how we are different from the world. We throw around a ton of nice sounding words like community, accountability, and even love. We plan events to attract new students, but somehow we only end up with folks like ourselves. The ironic thing is that we like it. We like to be comfortable, and we like to hang around people of our own interests, social standings and ethnic groups. In fact, most of us would be distraught if we were the ones who were different! Who will I hang out with? Who can understand me and the troubles I’m going through? Why doesn’t anyone pay attention to me?

The world has plenty of communities. Just attend some of the different clubs on campus and you’ll see what I mean. You can go to the Rock Climbers’ Club, the Wildlife Society, the Disc Golf Club, or even the Chess Club. You’ll find a group of people all interested in one main thing. You’ll find that they even accept new members and welcome those people heartily if they are interested in what the group is interested in. Most of the time our fellowships are not any different from these groups. So what’s the big deal about Christian community?

Radically Different
The big deal with Christian community is real love. Jesus tells his disciples in John 13:34–35, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This verse is extremely simple in content, but difficult to practice. All we have to do is love each other, but what does that look like? It means that we care about others as we would want to be cared for ourselves—we treat them as people made in the image of God, we accept them as part of our community, and we show interest in them and their ideas. The hard part is actually doing it! When I’m faced with a person that I don’t really understand, my first instinct is to pack up the conversation and move on to someone I get along with better. And please don’t tell me that I actually have to be in community with this person and care for them in their times of need! But that is exactly what Jesus calls us to—a radical love of people, even those who are not like us.

A Place for Everyone
One of my favorite examples of loving in community is in the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a retro seventies look at the life of St. Francis of Assisi. After being in a crusade, St. Francis decides to devote his life to helping the poor, the people who everyone in town shuns. As part of his call, he starts to rebuild an old dilapidated mission to serve as the poor people’s church. In one scene, an old friend comes to visit him and tries to talk him out of doing this. As the friend approaches the mission in the snow, he observes an interesting sight. St. Francis is building the mission by hand. Each time he carries a stone to the broken down wall and sets it in place, he turns around and looks at a crippled woman who smiles when he gets the stone in the best position. He then packs the stone in place and repeats the process. The woman is drawn into the community by having the say of where the stone goes even if she can’t work. The mission would not stand properly if not for her. St. Francis’s friend eventually joins the mission because he cannot deny the power of a community that has a place for a seemingly useless crippled woman.

The Benefits Package
One of the best parts of loving each other is the benefit in community we receive. Jesus himself lets us know in the verse above that everyone will know that we are his disciples if we love each other. Think what our chapters would look like if we embraced each other and made places for everyone! What if we embraced even those who are unlovable: people who are hurting, dirty, poor, socially inept, those with different interests? We would be different from other “communities” on campus. Just imagine who would be swayed toward the gospel by our love and care of each other. Think of the impact God would have on our campuses if we truly acted out the love of Christ.

Lessons to Learn
After our dinner was over, another male student came up to me in private and thanked me for talking to Derek. “You know, I just don’t understand him and find it hard to talk to him about stuff. But I learned a ton by just watching you do it. I felt convicted that I need to be better at welcoming people that are not quite like me. Thanks.”

Accept the challenge of loving each other and being a true community. Ask yourself these questions: Are there unlovable people in my chapter? How am I a barrier to their full acceptance? How can I love people more fully and incorporate them into the community of Christ? When we start to understand and see how the ungodliness in our lives keeps people from knowing Jesus, then we will want the Holy Spirit to come in and change our hearts. Pray that he will change you and give you his heart for the people created in God’s image.