Bible introduction
This is the Bible introduction that was held on Saturday morning during our weekend in Lund. We publish it here with permission from Taizé. You’ll find some questions for sharing if you scroll down a couple of entries. Everything is put online both in English and in Swedish. Feel free to use all this at home, alone or with friends!
Life in communion
The theme for our weekend is so rich. We’re all on a path towards a fullness of communion in Christ. Br Alois in the Letter from Kenya speaks about “Going beyond the compartmentalization of our societies”. We live in a time where so often our lives are fragmented and split into different sectors, which rarely interact. This word “communion” is something that is familiar to us today, but do we realise how new it was for believers in the time of the New Testament?
“We declare to you what we have seen and heard (from the beginning) so that you also may have communion with us; and truly our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from Christ and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have communion with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have communion with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 Jn 1.3-7)
St John, in his first Epistle, speaks not only of communion with the people he is writing to, but also communion with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Before, in the Jewish world, because God was seen almost purely as transcendent, it wasn’t possible to talk of communion with God. In the Greek world, there were all kinds of rites and rituals to try and become closer to the Divinity, but everything remained very unsure – the gods were too far off. For the first Christians, there was something entirely new. God came in the flesh, took on our human reality with all its frailty and weakness and wanted to be present within it. But he wants to become present by enabling us to be in communion with each other. And to be present truly – not in some kind of idealistic communion, a sort of out of body ecstasy, but in the concrete of everyday human existence.
We speak of the New Covenant concluded by the Jesus giving his life on the cross – the text refers to that – as a new life in which this communion is present. It’s not something which absorbs those who are marked by it. It does not away our identity. It is the communion of all human beings who are touched by the Holy Spirit, all those who are lived in by God, by Christ and who have made the choice of living their life in faith.
We can identify two notions of communion that meet together. Firstly; the realistic or “in the flesh” notion. The fact that God became human in Jesus means that we don’t need to seek an idealistic communion by means which would take us far away from our own reality. Our difficulties, our weakness and even our sinful nature can be touched by it. This notion meets together with what we can call a mystical notion. This takes place in the Church and in all communities that try to follow the example of Jerusalem that we find in Acts, where the “believers had one heart and one soul,” and are dwelt in by God. Such communion is mystery, because it contains within it the presence of the “Father and the Son”, as John writes. It’s important not to separate these two visions. If we just see the human side, then we fall automatically into criticism and the desire to analyse everything. If we just follow the mystical vision, then we can sometimes be blinded to reality. Keeping these two visions in tension is the beauty of our faith as it is shown in the New Testament.
Another important point is that this communion can never be a goal in itself. It must draw others in, it must lead others to discover to which point God loves us. It is the prayer of Jesus in John 17, that his disciples may be one so that the world might believe that the Father sent him. This communion becomes real first of all in prayer. Prayer is both the path and the expression of communion with God, but which opens us to others. The prayer of the Church is the prayer of one Body, of a Body which is one. It’s not a collection of individual prayers, but the prayer of humanity to God.
Secondly, communion becomes real in community. Br Roger wrote in 2004 in a letter called “To the wellsprings of joy”, that this communion is “a life and not a theory”. It’s not a sort of theory that I can take and use to tell others what they should do. A life is something that I have to commit myself to, it costs me. Again, Br Roger wrote, “only a heart that loves and forgives can sustain a life of communion.” And in that love, we’re confronted immediately with the mystery of the presence of God in our lives. Only in recognising that presence, can I experience this communion. And then we understand that communion is gift – gift for which we can only be thankful.
But I wanted also to use the beginning of the 2nd chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians to illustrate more about this life in communion.
“If there is any urgent call in Christ, if Love is capable of touching, if the Spirit is communion, if there is heart and compassion, make my joy complete by following the same direction : having the same love, forming one soul, following the unique direction …..that is in Christ Jesus.”
The translation that I give is from one of our brothers in Taizé and follows the Greek quite literally, putting across the great passion with which Paul writes to the community in Philippi. If in Christ, there is any urgent call, if the person of Christ has the right to call on our heart, if the love of God is capable of touching us, if the Spirit is communion….. Paul evokes the mystery of the Trinity, but then adds, if there is heart and compassion, which doesn’t just mean the links of heart and compassion between us, but also that heart and compassion exist in God and that what exists in God is also given to us. Everything is gift.
Then after insisting so strongly, Paul becomes almost shy. It’s as if he doesn’t want to impose what is to follow. He doesn’t say straight away: now, you should follow the same direction. He says, make my joy complete by following the same direction, having the same love, forming one soul, following the unique direction which is in Christ Jesus. Paul doesn’t want to impose a law on the Christians in Philippi. He wants them to try and discover how to live among themselves beginning with God’s gift.
Paul’s not saying: you’ve all got to do the same thing. He’s saying: have the same direction, remain together turned towards the same goal. Often the word I’ve put as direction has been translated as feeling or mind, but it’s stronger. There is only one direction that we have to follow and that is the one that is in Christ, the one Christ has revealed to us.
After that, Paul continues more mundanely about the risks of following our own interests or glory. What Paul wants us to grasp is that if we start with the greatness of God’s gift in our life, we may discover how much more preferable this life of communion is to simply following our own projects, our own desires or our personal needs. This communion has more substance than these because it flows out from the gift of God to us. And when he writes, “if there is heart and compassion”, we understand that he also wants the Philippians to experience what he is expressing, not to live it as a kind of theory.
So we are asked to prefer communion to our needs, our desires, our personal projects. We are asked to love communion. When we love, then of course, we hope for a response to our love from the other. But we love because we have decided to love. We need decision and perseverance, which carries us further than simple enthusiasm. Often we fear that the decisions we make when we commit ourselves to a life in communion might limit us and that we have to submit to the consequences whether we like it our not. Or else, we try to enlarge the limits as far as possible in order to maintains what we think is the degree of freedom we need. But when we do that, we risk being trapped by self-judgement – we put ourselves under the law again. When we choose a life in communion, then we also accept the responsibilities that come with that call. We need to discern what is the best for the whole. We need to be ready to give of ourselves for others.
A final thought: St John in his first letter writes: “I am writing to you, because you know him who is from the beginning” (1Jn 2.14). For John, the person of Christ is a first criterion for a life in communion. He insists on the fact of Christ who they knew from the beginning, when they were first called into Christian life. That is essential for us as well, to know this Christ who was there for us at the start, the one who called us, who opened the way for us, who met us in our poverty and imperfection and invited us to follow him. Today, we often make of Christ the one who enables us to find self-fulfilment. But Christ must remain as he was at the beginning for us; the one who calls us to set off and who leads us to go beyond ourselves. We have to constantly nourish that relation. Without that relation, communion is practically impossible.
A second criterion that John speaks about is sin. We don’t like speaking about sin today! But this communion that Christ offers is based upon victory over sin. Not saying that sin doesn’t exist, but a victory over sin through love. In John’s community, there was a problem with people saying “Sin doesn’t concern us any more,” or “It doesn’t matter too much if we sin.” And John reminds them that such attitudes can destroy communion. Sin remains and we are together because it has been overcome, not because we pretend it doesn’t exist. This helps us understand something very important: communion is based upon forgiveness. It doesn’t need perfect human relationships. It attracts others when forgiveness becomes visible. A forgiveness which comes from God to us, which enables us to forgive others and ourselves as well.
A third criterion for John comes in the use of the word “brother” (we can add “sister” today as well) to address those he writes to. He uses that term rather than some anonymous or formal title to describe the members of the community. Our communion, he writes, takes place in the light, and it takes into account the brother who is there. This brother or sister is the inescapable subject of this communion with God. We cannot say, “I love God,” if we do not love in a real manner the person we see before us. Darkness isolates us and tensions can always exist because we’re different from each other. It’s human to be jealous, but when jealousy and rivalry take the upper hand, darkness holds us in its thrall. Only love enables us to remain in the light. Love allows us to turn our differences into complementarity. Community finds its perfection in love. John says this very clearly: “No-one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God remains in us and we remain in him. And his love is perfected in us” (1Jn 4.12) We don’t need to look for any other sort of perfection than this. We’re not asked to be perfectionists or to seek a kind of super-efficiency. Those things will not give us the solutions to all our human problems. God gives us perfection in a real way through loving.
In both the Philippians text and in John’s first letter, what strikes is the joy that is linked intimately with a life in communion. Paul asks the Philippians to make his joy complete. And John in turn says: “I am writing this so that our joy may be complete.” (1Jn 1.4). Joy is linked to communion because in each person, the desire for communion is like the secret wish hidden in the depths of their being. And when that communion takes place, something opens within us, something is fulfilled and melts inside. And joy rises up. And sometimes tears.
