by Douglas P Brauner

Baptized into God’s Community

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.”
Proverbs 18:1 English Standard Version

When you’re a pastor you have a ready made community. I served four congregations over nearly forty years and each time I arrived at a church, people welcomed me, people made me feel a part of their community.

Things are different for me now that I’m retired. Yes, I still belong to a Christian community, a different community, but there wasn’t any greeting party waiting for me, there weren’t any “Welcome to Our Community” signs out front of the church for me. No one came up to me and ask to sit down and get to know me better since I was their new pastor.

And I didn’t expect that to happen. I’m in a new phase of my life where I need to find community. It feels quite different.

God created us to be in fellowship with other people. Sometimes we find people who like the same things that we do like photography (surprise! surprise!). It’s good to do things you like that with other people, but are shared interests the heart of community? Is community about doing things with other people?

What we need more than anything is the deeper community of bonded spirits. Where do we find that community? If we are in Christ, we don’t need to find it, that community found us. Through our baptism into Jesus, we are baptized into community, and not merely a community where we have similar likes.

We are baptized into a community that grieves with each other, rejoices with each other, and prays for each other. We are baptized into a community where we share each other’s burdens and encourage each other to use the gifts we received in our baptism.

Instead of finding a community to be a part of, we are called to discover the community to which we already belong. “Sound judgment” says that I need you and you need me because we share the same rebirth in Christ.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado