The short-lived age of remote work, Zoom-only meetings, and online church is trailing behind us like the fat kid on the all-school hike. Trends will do what they always do. You can make a quick buck investing in a hype. But the one who’s interested in deeper satisfaction will be attentive to innate principles handed down by our grandparents. One of these principles has to do with a human being’s need for community.
Now, when I point out our need for community, I realize I’m stating that grass is green. And that’s no fun to read. The people want something clever! Well, I didn’t finish my Bachelor’s Degree, and I own more books than I’ve read. I’m not sure about clever. All I have are the elementary thoughts in my head and the neurons between them. So, what I can offer are a few rudimentary points wrapped up in an unoriginal conclusion.
But not to worry. We will not be wasting our time here. Not if I can help it. For is not the elementary also the elemental? Is not the rudimentary at the root? As a matter of fact, for those uneducated primitives like myself, the alliteration of the words gives it away. Just ask a good seminary student. The trick I’ve learned is to pay attention to the individual letters composing the words. Elementary principles are, in fact, the fundamental culinary elements that the modern kitchen can’t escape. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Everything else is spin. To be like the men of Issachar in our day, “men who had understanding of the times,” means that perhaps what we can do, what we must do, is not just declare that grass is green, but plant those rudimentary roots deep in that green grass.
And now, to address the elementary point I introduced. Human beings have an inescapable, innate need for community. “It is not good for man to be alone.” So spoke our Triune Creator, in whose Triune Image we were made. Our communal need comes forth from our Imago Dei. God is love. He was love before the first sunrise colored the heavens with its radiance. God was love before ever walking in the garden with His creation. God was love when all there was, was God. God, within is own Triune nature is love. Yes, Christianity is a religion. But it’s a religion that worships a Relationship. The Trinity is community.
Whatever your Myers-Briggs palm-readings reveal, the Triune God created you in His image. Which means, isolation is a thief – a cruel thief if you’re a so-called introvert. Seeking out fellowship is natural. If an individual doesn’t find community within his family, he’ll look to the church, to his co-workers, to his kids’ baseball league. We want to be “in”, to belong, to be among those who accept us. A teenage son perceives constant disappointment from his father, so he finds friendship in a crowd of hooligans. A daughter is derived of loving attention from her parents, so she finds it in men whom she can attract.
Not only is it not wrong that we want to be on the inside, our longing for love is by design. That part is good. And yet, so few people experience satisfaction in community. Like an addict desperate for a hit, people are parched for fellowship. I don’t need to veer off into the circles of unbelievers. There are plenty of people panting in the pews. Some go from church to church, looking to fit in. They don’t find the acceptance they’re looking for. There’s no clicking clique. Others give up on their pursuit, and stagnant Sunday to Sunday. They smile, play polite, and go home to their seclusion. They’ll try to have people for dinner to cultivate friendship. But the wick burns out quick. There’s something wrong about everybody. Churches are bags of isolated BBs, members of the flock living secluded lives. It’s the paradox of communal isolation. We long for community, while remaining isolated.
Because I believe our need for community is rooted in our Trinitarian design, I believe the solution to our paradox is found there as well. The Trinity is the perfect community. Love contained and overflowing. Joy full and filling. Exclusivity that includes. Our unrefined palates cannot comprehend that sort of fellowship. Not because the Trinity is complex. No. We are the ones who are complex. The fullness of the Trinity is simple. Divine Simplicity means Divine Completion. God is all in all. He is the well-spring, and He is the river-mouth. The Beginning and the End. The Alpha and the Omega.
The Trinity is not hungry for community. The Triune God is not parched and panting for fellowship. God did not create mankind because he was lacking. God created mankind out of the fullness of His fellowship. He is its definition. He does not struggle with isolation. The paradox of communal isolation applies not to the Maker of mankind, because the Trinity itself is a paradox. The Trinity is simultaneously perfect unity and differentiated distinction. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are Three. One God. Three Persons.
The Paradox of the Trinity shows us that unity and distinctiveness are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the distinct nature of the Members of the Trinity reinforces the unity and oneness of God. The trinitarian elements of our God are not competing aspects that we have to keep in a strict balance. The paradox of the Trinity reinforces itself. Fellowship cannot exist apart from distinction. The Father sends. The Son submits. The Holy Spirit supports. There is distinction and differentiation, which allows for unity and fellowship. And God is worshipped as One.
By nature and longing, we image our Maker. Like the Trinity, our fellowship is sweetest and our community strongest – let me say that with more vigor – our fellowship is only possible when it is made up of distinct individuals.
One can search for community the way a newborn infant desperately vies for his mother’s breast. The clingy sobs will not find the community they’re looking for, because they lack differentiation. They have no identity in themselves, so they grasp and cling to suck it out of others. Like a parasite, they can’t live apart from their host, and they won’t allow their host to live. The more they grasp, the less they have. In his book, The Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman does a marvelous job connecting differentiation with togetherness. Friedman demonstrates that if members of a community have their emotions fused with one another, lacking proper differentiation, the entire community implodes. Ironically, it’s the lack of individuality that leads to more isolation. Where there is a lack of distinction, there is no room for fellowship.
But in an environment of differentiation and emotional independence, a Trinitarian community can flourish. Resembling the Triune God, our thirst for community is quenched when we long for it not with grasping, but with giving. As distinct individuals, we give to the body of Christ out of our individuality. It’s the paradox of a Trinitarian community. The more each member remains a distinct individual, the more the fellowship flourishes within the community. When the organs of the body are each doing their part, the body remains healthy and strong. But when a member behaves like a viral parasite, having no distinction within himself, and depends on other organs for the security of his identity and sustainment of his emotions, the community is threatened and the fellowship suffers.
We are made in the image of the Triune God – Three and One. Distinct and Unified. That is how we were meant to live. Either we live within the paradox of a Trinitarian community – giving out of our individuality, or we live within the paradox of communal isolation – grasping into our isolation.
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