Current Culture
Part of what we have to overcome in the culture and society in which we currently live. Over the past 50 years, western culture [America specifically] has seen a decline in community and an increase in individualism.
Robert Putnam wrote a book 15 years ago called – Bowling Alone.
For the younger generation, that title has no real meaning. But for those 45 and older, you remember bowling, and the leagues associated with it, as something that people did, not simply for recreation, but for community. It was an opportunity for people to spend time with people, on purpose.
In his book, Putnam recognizes the move away from these types of community activities and the need to return to a sense of meaningful relationships with one another.
Americans are some of the loneliest people on the planet, saying that in most societies, people don’t experience loneliness as acutely as Americans do.
In other culture people are rarely alone, physically or emotionally. Relatives, neighbors, and even strangers are a normal part of everyone’s life. Not so in America.
Pastor Robert Stone
Our individualism and our wealth have allowed us to minimize our contact with others – to our detriment. This problem of friendlessness exists even in our churches.
In church we sit together and sign together and greet one another cheerily as we leave at the end of a service. We do all of these things, sometimes for years, without forming any real personalChristian relationships. Our words often seem superficial. The church, therefore, becomes a place where Christians live alone together.
The Friendless Male – Larry Richards
Attending church may enable us to hear a great sermon and sign rousing songs, but we are missing out if we are not also befriending and relating to each other in deeper ways.
Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus – Ann Spangler & Lois Tverberg
Jewish Culture
Learning in the Jewish context is completely different, as it revolved around doing life together. In the synagogue and in the family. It happened everywhere. They make the point that our image of Jesus is usually of Him sitting by Himself in prayer, but the reality was that he spent the vast majority of his time living with His disciples and traveling together. Young students who were studying from a particular Rabbi would literally live with the Rabbi sometimes and become like a son. Wanting to know not just information from him but modeling his life after him. That idea seems totally alien to us.
Our culture is just so far from the family and together culture of the ancient world and many other cultures even today. The western American culture of individualism leaves very little room for life together. One hour on Sunday and one hour on a Wednesday and we feel like we have gotten our church in for the week.
Haverim
Friends or Companions
Context of Community and Meaningful Relationships
It is often used in the context of community and fellowship, emphasizing the importance of relationships and connections among individuals, and often used around the idea of creating meaningful relationships.
In Jewish tradition, haverim is associated with the idea of a supportive community where individuals come together for mutual encouragement, spiritual growth, and shared experiences. This concept highlights the value of deep, meaningful relationships that go beyond mere acquaintanceship, fostering a sense of belonging and support within a group.
Be With
We see it in the life and ministry of Jesus with His disciples. Jesus had just performed a miracle, and a great crowd had gathered around Him and began following Him. After they distanced themselves from the crowd, Jesus did something so subtle that it often gets missed.
And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.
Mark 3:13-15 (ESV)
So that they might be with Him.
They were being taught and trained to teach what Jesus taught and to do as Jesus did. Jesus called these men to experience life with Him. Not just individually, but within relationship with one another as well, as they learned to walk in His ways and live by His life. This cannot be done from a distance. The exact reason Jesus called them close; to be with Him, together.
Taxes & Tithes
One of these encounters, in Mark 12, involved the paying of taxes. Whether or not someone of faith should have to pay taxes to an earthly government. Jesus, as He always did, gave a perfect answer – which was filled with grace and truth. It wasn’t just what He said, but how He said it. The disciples learned as much from the response as they did from the answer.
And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Mark 12:41-44 (ESV)
Don’t be so concerned about what you are required to render to Caesar, for which you aren’t even willing to surrender to God.
While everyone else was worried about how much they had to pay in taxes, while at the same time withholding from the Lord, this woman gave all she had.
Jesus could have told them that story and principle during a lecture, but they would have missed the impact on their hearts. And since they experienced this moment with Jesus and with one another, they would never see their money and their possession the same way ever again.
It was these apostles, in the closeness of relationship; not only with Jesus, but with one another, who began to understand the true meaning of the Scriptures and their purpose as a people.
And as the church began to explode in the book of Acts, you see these apostles calling the new believers and disciples into this type of biblical community with one another. One of them, a former tax collector, leading the people of God to live in community in such a way that none had need.
The more connected we are to our communities, the better we function as individuals. Genuine community fosters a sense of belonging and purpose.
Bowling Alone – Robert Putnam
Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!
Psalm 133:1 (ESV)