Wednesday, May 18, 2022
The Rev. Rob Stevens
Koinonia
Koinonia=Community
A friend of mine shared the following quote from an email from the Society of St. John’s the Evangelist in Cambridge, MA and I thought that it very accurately described what we are trying to do and be here at St. John’s.
“Koinonia
When the New Testament talks about coming to faith in Christ, it is always in terms of community. The way to grow into our full stature as children of God is not through competitive individualism, but being made part of a new family, a fellowship, or what the New Testament calls a "koinonia" of love. It is in this community, the Church, the Body of Christ, that we become who we most truly are meant to be, and gain our true identity.” -Br. Geoffrey Tristram
I see this in action just about everyday that I spend in and around St. John’s. Community is not just a place, but also a practice. Whether it is on a Sunday morning listening to our children’s choirs sing that brings a majority of the congregation to tears, or the simple care of a friend acquiring and delivering a Book of Common Prayer to a friend who can no longer make it to church. There are examples all around us…if we slow down and pay attention. It is this practice of Community or Koinonia that is at the heart of the phrase that I say when the teenagers have a Service Sunday. I say, “They are skipping church to BE the church.” The world needs churches to be more than simply a place. The world needs the church to BE about action. To Practice what we preach and as the General Thanksgiving from the service of Morning Prayers so clearly and beautifully states, “that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives.” (BCP pg. 59)
In this season of Easter I will be giving thanks that I am a part of a wonderfully imperfect community that seeks to find God not only in the transcendent, but also in the normal, ordinary everyday that is most of our existence. That we do not set ourselves above or even apart, but rather that we seek to find God, meaning and goodness together in a holy practice of Koinonia.
“Church is a crazy concept” a friend of mine said recently…”Yes it is” I replied “and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” Thank you for being Church, being Community, being Koinonia with and for me.