In a world where everyone is a sinner there is no possible community, true, loving community, without dying to ourselves and laying our lives down for the good of the other.
There is no possible way to die to ourselves and lay our lives down for another without pain. Without loss. Without absorbing and being willing to absorb damage! Innocent as doves, yet being willing to be afflicted both for and BY another in order to gain them. In order to love them. In order to one day see them and the community healed, whole, shalom. To sometimes suffer long years in silent service for nothing more than the hope that God may use it to change their hearts or simply because we love them, and we would rather be hurt ourselves than stand by while they hurt themselves.
Are we willing to jump on a grenade for ...anyone? Who do we love enough to sacrifice for? Our family? Our church? Our neighbors? The kids down in Sunday School who need teachers? The "difficult" guy or girl that few people like? Our sibling who still just doesn't get it and keeps dropping grenades in their own lives?
Our society is largely rich enough to make many historic forms of suffering a choice now. If you have enough resources, you can quite often avoid wholesale many forms of pain and trouble and hard work that our ancestors took for granted and therefore learned how to live with! We lost a lot more than the ability to suffer when we became unwilling to. We may have even lost the ligaments of community.
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