My cynical and ungrateful thoughts began: “Great, what is this? Another DVD set that I’ll probably never watch? Sweetheart, do you think we can get the receipt and exchange it?” It was Christmas 2007 (my first Christmas married to Laura), and I had just entered the world of “gifts from people who you wish knew you better.” The wrapping paper had yet to hit the floor and I was already “writing off” one of the best Christmas gifts we got that year (Thanks, T & R!).
Aside from having issues of ingratitude that I need to deal with, I also had just never heard of this extremely fantastic DVD series: Planet Earth (If you’ve seen it, you now know how ignorant I truly was about its magnificence. If you haven’t seen it, quit reading this blog and go rent it…or call me and you can borrow it.). I digress. Planet Earth is an amazing series about our “little blue ball” and how delicate and stunning the various ecosystems therein (or is it thereon) truly are.
One of my favorite vignettes tells of the wild dogs of the African plains. These dogs are incredibly impressive. Eight or nine of them live together in a pack and they all work together to get their food. I was amazed by the way they “flesh out” (sorry for the gory pun) the need for one another. To survive, they depend on each other; and to live alone is sure death for any one of them. Modern day community theorists are not saying anything new.
Not only is it fascinating to watch the way they work together, but I was also stunned at how they pursue their prey. On the DVD there is an overhead shot of them in attack formation—they are all running in a straight line and then they “peel off” to attack their prey. It is a planned pursuit. It is an intentional pursuit. It is a communal pursuit.
What if these dogs teach us something about community? Now, some of you who have been burned by a “less-than-biblical” Christianity might be thinking, “Yeah, the church’s pursuit as wild, rabid dogs is incredibly fitting.” Touché. Sadly, this has been the case on more than one occasion. However, what I aim to address is what if the Christian community began to be marked by a resolve in its pursuit, not to the detriment of those whom we pursue, but for their good? It seems to me this is something of the way Jesus himself lived, so much so that at one point in his life he mentioned that his whole reason for coming was to “seek and to save the lost.” There is resolve. There is constancy.
At Riverside, we long to be a people characterized by the sort of pursuit that Jesus himself embodied. It seems to me that this will be quite costly of our hearts, resources, and time. It would mean that we do not choose passivity in our approach to fostering relationships. It would mean that the marginalized are celebrated and that we would not quit on people when they became difficult. Why would we choose to live like this? Because we would know that “alone-ness” would be tantamount to the vulnerability experienced by the dogs’ prey.
After all, the gospel—at its core—is that we, too, were these things…and Jesus doggedly (sorry, I couldn’t resist) came after us. It is my hope that Riverside Church would be a community that pursues. Would you join with me in dreaming about community? Something about it tells me it should not be done alone. --Ryan
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