Forming a Community of the Spirit: Hospitality, Fellowship, and Nurture, Part 1
In essence, this description of the divisions within the Corinthian church is a kind of testimony, too. Their testimony (by their behavior) was not one of Spirit-enabled fellowship but one of division and class distinction. In such an atmosphere, poor believers’ stories were silenced. The wealthy believers were not listening.
If there is to be Spirit-enabled fellowship through testimony—interacting with the biblical story and believers’ life stories—more than a speaker is required. Also required are people who are willing to listen to what the Spirit might be saying and willing to listen to what fellow believers are trying to say—sometimes the Spirit is speaking through what fellow believers are trying to say. Brueggemann has eloquently expressed the importance of listening:
We are created for listening. It is our proper business. We are made for communion, but the communion for which we are formed is not that of mindless camaraderie. It is a communion with the One who has hoped us and made us and summoned us and who waits for us … Our life consists in coming to terms with that One. We yearn to come to terms by listening. In the Bible, obedience takes the form of listening. The obedient life is one in which Israel listens, attends to, and responds to the voice of God … Listening of any serious kind is difficult. Listening is more difficult if the substance is [God’s] command, for such listening is the end of our self-control and our self-sufficiency. We are schooled in self-control and self-sufficiency and now God’s powerful voice of command sounds, which destabilizes our favorite posture in the world. Listening is difficult for us because the modern world is organized against serious speech, against authoritative speech, against listening, against passionate discourse that binds one to another and causes one to yield to another. The notions of self-sufficiency and autonomy that govern our consciousness make listening difficult and obedience nearly impossible.31
It is possible for God’s powerful voice to speak clearly through the testimonies of all believers. As the Body of Christ, believers need one another in many ways, but perhaps need each other most fundamentally by their careful attention to each other. By attentive listening to the testimonies of fellow Christians, all believers just might hear the voice of the Spirit. They might hear of ways they can be helped, or they might hear of ways they can help others.
Careful attention to people who are telling their stories—testifying—creates a true bond of respect and integrity. There is great power in hearing and being heard, but that can come only in a community where all are given a chance to speak and where all testimony is taken very seriously.
In the faith community it is also possible to have “voices” that are unable to speak. Those whose disabilities or social awkwardness might prevent their voices from being heard in testimony may be encouraged to find other ways to testify. Some may express themselves through drama, music, or just their personality; others “testify” by their kind and caring attitude, thus conveying their intrinsic value to the Body of Christ. Those who cannot speak may require other believers to be their voice so that their “testimony” is also included in the community’s story.
My son is afflicted on the severe side of the autism spectrum. He is nonverbal and profoundly mentally handicapped. However, when he was twenty, his teacher in his special education class wrote a note to us one day that read:
I wanted you to know how wonderful your son is. Today I had some bad news and I was crying. I went into the bathroom to wipe my tears and Phillip came to the door and said, “You okay?” He was the only one to take notice and I truly appreciate that!
Who will verbalize such testimonies in church? Here is a nonverbal person who somehow found just enough of a voice to express his concern to a hurting person. It is both a miracle that he spoke spontaneously and appropriately and that his simple speech was directed to assisting someone in need. How many stories or testimonies like this from nonverbal people remain untold?
Category: Ministry, Winter 2012
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