In our cultural context, faith can often be turned into a self-help journey. It regularly gets over-individualized to the point that a lot of people’s understanding is now about faith in their own ability to have faith. Self-centered spirituality is rampant and largely unhelpful. But in the Bible, faith is like a group project. We’re called to a communal faith, a communal trust in Jesus. The Bible's word for this is covenant. The context of our faith is the covenant people of God. That’s the space where our faith is supposed to take root and be challenged and grow. So, we have to ask, what does a communal faith look like?
READ James 5:19-20
For the 20th and last time, James calls his friends “brothers and sisters.” Why? Well, because Jesus is the true Son of God when he welcomes people into God’s family because of what he has done, we become Jesus’ brothers and sisters. We become family. This was the dominant way that the early church thought about themselves in relation to one another. But healthy families not only know each other’s business but leave space for one another to own up to their business. That’s vulnerability. It’s entrusting your soul to people that you have to believe aren’t going anywhere, who also have your highest good in mind, even if it gets messy. It’s just what a healthy family does. A communal faith is familial and vulnerable.
Yes, we’re Jesus’ family, but we’re his family in a broken world. The presence and pain of sin are still very real. Knowing this, James starts talking about temptation and perseverance in his opening words of the whole letter. He pleads with them, “Do not be deceived, my brothers and sisters” (1:16). And here, to close, he similarly says, “If anybody wanders from the truth, go get them” (5:19).The picture here is that we’re all on a road together, and then we realize that another brother or sister is off the road. They’re off the path. And this is not about whether they’re a Christian, but about whether or not they’re acting like it (just like the workless faith in James 2 that exists, but it’s useless; it’s like living in death). A communal faith will be distracted and tempted.
The process of 5:19-20 is not quick, and it’s not tidy. It mandates a messy with-ness that will most assuredly get in the way of your individual pursuit of happiness. And the goal of this is that our brother or sister would be restored and get back on the path. The final step in this is repentance. Repentance is a U-turn. A communal faith should be restorative and repentant.
When a brother or sister is brought back, a multitude of interconnected sins start to be seen and repented of. And this is all a small reminder of the eternal forgiveness and salvation we have in Jesus. He’s our big brother who forgives perfectly, and he wants us to experience that now in his family. A communal faith is like Jesus because of Jesus.
In this, Jesus is our ultimate example. From Luke 15, Jesus is like the shepherd who leaves the 99 to go after the lost sheep. He’s like the woman who ardently seeks and finds her lost coin. He’s like the father of the prodigal, pursuing in order to restore. He came after us to save and rescue us, to give us a place in his family forever. So, why should we count it all joy, brothers and sisters, when we face trials of various kinds? Because for the joy set before him endured the cross, the ultimate trial. Why are we blessed if we remain steadfast under the test? Because he stayed the course all the way to Calvary and wore a crown of thorns so that we could wear a crown of life. Why should we be patient in suffering? Because love is patient, and Jesus’ long-suffering love towards us can give us grace to endure. Why do we leave the path to go after a wanderer? Because he left his throne in heaven to come after us and bring us back. Why is it messy and self-emptying when we pursue others? Because it was messy when he emptied himself and became flesh and dwelt among us. And we will rightly follow Jesus and live as his family if we are rightly depending on him and not ourselves.