Flourishing in Community

Scripture — Psalm 92:12-14 (NIV)

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the LORD,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green.

Devotion

Years ago, when I was the pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church, a man named Gary regularly worshiped with us on Sunday mornings. Gary was Jewish, raised in the Orthodox tradition. Though he was not a believer in Jesus, he nevertheless enjoyed our worship services and often had questions for me about my sermons. He started coming when his wife joined the church.

After several years of worship attendance, Gary put his faith in Jesus, whom he believed to be the true Messiah. As a new Christian, Gary was eager to grow. So, he started attending a weekly Bible study that I taught early on Thursday mornings.

One day in that study, we were looking at a passage from 1 Corinthians 12, where the church is described as the body of Christ. In that study, I emphasized the importance of Christian community for every aspect of our lives, including worship, mission, spiritual growth, etc. I’m quite sure everyone in that study got the point that the Christian life is to be lived in community with other believers.

After the study, Gary came up to talk. As usual, he had a question for me: “You made a big deal today about being faithful in community, right?” “Yes,” I said. “You were really emphasizing the importance of living our faith in relationship with other believers, right?” “Yes,” I repeated. “Well, I don’t understand why you were hammering away on that point. How else are we going to live our faith, other than in community? How else are we going to grow and serve, other than in relationship with others? Isn’t that pretty obvious?”

In that moment, I was struck by the fact that Gary was approaching Christian faith, not from the assumptions of American individualistic culture, but from his lifelong experience as a faithful Jew. Jewish people, especially in Gary’s Orthodox tradition, worship, study, grow, eat, rest, play, serve, marry, bury, celebrate, fast, dance, and live in community. That’s just how they do these things—intuitively, consistently, and essentially. They understand, based on their deep knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, that God calls us into community and as a community. We are God’s people, not as isolated individuals, but as members of the people of God, as brothers and sisters in the family of God.

I share this story of Gary with you because it is relevant to how we think about and experience flourishing. To the extent that we view life through the individualistic lens of American culture, we might tend to envision flourishing as mainly an individual experience. When we read in Psalm 92:12 that “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,” we might think of a solitary tree. Indeed, the word “righteous” in the Hebrew of this verse is a singular noun.

But the next verses move seamlessly into the plural. They could be translated literally as in the NRSV, “They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap” (92:13-14, emphasis added). Flourishing is something that happens, not just to individuals, but to the community of God’s people.

This truth is reflected in one of the prophecies of Hosea. In Hosea 14, God, speaking through Hosea, promised to heal the disloyalty of Israel and to love Israel freely (14:4). As Israel grows, the nation will be fruitful (14:6). But then the flourishing of the singular nation is expressed with plural language: “They shall again live beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom like the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon” (14:7).

I realize that some readers of this devotion might respond to what I’m saying here much as Gary once responded to my Bible study. “Of course, flourishing happens in community! How else could it be?” Unfortunately, many of us might naturally assume that flourishing is mainly about what we do as solitary “trees.” We say to ourselves, “I need to have my roots grow down deeply into God. I need to be in a right relationship with God.” Both of these statements are true, of course. But it’s also true that we won’t experience the fullness of spiritual growth by ourselves. And being righteous isn’t only a matter of our relationship with God. It’s being in a right relationship with God and people.

So, though flourishing certainly has to do with how we live our individual lives, it is also a result of living rightly in community with others. We will flourish when we share life with our sisters and brothers in Christ, when we receive their support, wisdom, and prayer. We need others to teach us, challenge us, and hold us accountable. And they need us to do the same for them. Only when we share life together as the people of God will we experience the flourishing offered to us in Christ.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Lyle Lovett on Collaboration.