Community

And afterward he read all the words of the law, blessings and curses, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the aliens who resided among them. -Joshua 8:34-35

Can you even remember when there wasn't an internet available to answer some stray question that crossed your mind? Whatever it is we want to know is available to us with a few key strokes, and for many of us, we don't even have to be home. We just whip out our smart phones. It is kind of funny how frustrated I can get when I want to know something and can't get a good internet connection. I have to wait. I used to have to wait until I got home and could use my computer on my dial-up modem.  Before that I used to have to wait until I could look it up in an encyclopedia at home or go to a library.

Can you imagine what it must have been like with no books anywhere and no one knew how to read anyway? Back before television or radio or even books, the only way to get important information out to the community was to gather them together and tell them. It had to have been a very special event to gather to hear God's word read to them. 

Wow! How spoiled we are! We hear God's word read to us every Sunday and we treat it so casually. But we have it available to us absolutely everywhere and in every version from King James to The Message and in any language you can think of. It is a very good thing. People need access to it and they need to read it for themselves instead of someone else telling them what it says, but we have also lost a lot in the process. We have lost the specialness of gathering as a community to hear it.

Some at Holy Cross are discouraged with the low turn out of adults for Sunday school.  I think this is a big part of the problem. It's not special to us anymore. We can get it anywhere and we can get it when we prefer to get it. I think things will turn again.  Not that we will feel we the need to hear God's word in Sunday school so much as feeling the need to be in community when we hear it.  I think we will circle back to that need eventually.

God of Community,

Help us to treasure the gift of our greater family you have given us... community. Amen.