The Grace of Disillusionment

One of the best and worst gifts to my spiritual growth came early in my faith journey in the form of a small group of friends. For a few years, we met regularly to pray together, read books together, be honest with one another, and seek to encourage one another in our experience of God and faithfulness. We were an experiment in community, believing we somehow needed the support and accountability of others if we wanted to deepen our life with the Living Christ and learn how to walk in Jesus’ way.

We practiced different spiritual disciplines throughout our time together, pooled small amounts of money to give away, and navigated the tender times when one of us needed to be pushed and those times when another needed to be held. We laughed a lot, shed our share of tears, found time to play together, minister together, and experienced an uncommon depth and bond as brothers in Christ.

On the whole, it was an amazing experience to be part of this group and a transformational gift for someone like me, who was still a novice in the faith and a newcomer to a spiritual community.

It was extraordinary, and that, of course, was the problem.

In the 35+ years since then, none of my experiences of community have quite lived up to that early example. As Elton Trueblood described, it was an incendiary fellowship in which we shared in the work of kindling one another’s faith and faithfulness into life. There was a sense of being yoked together in a common cause and concern for one another. We were more than a collection of individuals. Instead, we were knit together through our shared experience in Christ’s Spirit.

The New Testament offers a consistent vision of this kind of fellowship throughout its pages. A familiar Greek word to many of us is koinonia, which can mean “communion,” or “partnership” and include holding things in common and being united in mind and spirit. In the koinonia, there is an experience of being gathered together in God and made partners in the work and witness of Christ’s kingdom come. Somehow, despite our differences in culture, race, gender, or class, we come to know a unity that transcends and transforms our diversity, though not eradicating it. Though we are many parts, we make up one Body, with Christ as our head, teacher, guide, and Lord.  

In our little group of fellow sinners seeking to become saints,  we experienced the mystery and power of koinonia. To be clear, it was not all glorious. We had our times that were less than ideal and bumped into one another’s egos, immaturity, and idiosyncrasies. After all–I was part of the group! Even so—it was an experience in authentic community that remains an integral part of my spiritual journey.

But as it always does, happily ever after fails. One of us moved away, and two took new ministry positions in new locations. There was another marriage, and children began to crown and crowd our lives.

It took a while for me to get over the loss of that group. I wanted to find something just like it, or that would at least rival its import and impact on my life because it seemed so ideal for who I was and who I hoped to become.

At about that same time, I ran across Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wonderful little book, Life Together. The author is telling the story of a small, underground learning community formed during the dark and dangerous years of Nazi Germany. And possibly of even greater importance, Bonhoeffer also sketches a theology and praxis of community that is real, resilient, and rooted firmly in the biblical tradition.

Bonhoeffer says many troubling things in the text, at least to idealists like me. “The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams…Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that it is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and a community, the better for both.”

Though Life Together was a bit of a gut punch to my dreams, it also awakened me to the fullness of Christian community. Instead of always being a joy-filled walk in the park with those we most love and admire, community is just as often a slog through rocky, hilly terrain. It happens with people we barely know, who can be irritating, ask too many questions, walk too slow or fast, and are hard to love (and maybe even like). Sometimes we disagree on the direction we should go, who should lead, how to share provisions, and what to do with those who wander off.

Community is a challenge that can quickly leave us disillusioned—if we are lucky.

No one is served when our expectation for community is only an illusion, a dream never intended. In truth, the Bible is relentless in offering an intensely honest and challenging portrait of our life together. Yes, we are called to live into the aspirational vision of koinonia, embracing all of its fullness and wonder. At the same time, the less glorious means to get there are as essential as the end goal and remind us the journey will never be easy. And so, we read that the practice of confession, forgiveness, patience, gentleness, mutual submission, putting others ahead of ourselves, taking up our crosses (daily, by the way), servanthood, and sacrificial love are not occasional things we have to do. They are not exceptions to the rule that governs our life together—they are, in fact, the rule that makes our life together possible. We know this not only by reading about it in our Bibles; we know it is true in our experience.

While I still hope to fall into another small group as rich and transforming as my earlier experience, I am at peace with what I have now. An illusion no longer haunts and hounds me, so I am less apt to miss the gift and grace of the community I do have. These communities deepen my faith and reshape my life in just as crucial a manner, even if it is not always as pleasant as I might wish.

And–I continue to believe it is possible to work toward a koinonia where a deeper sharing of life, joy, burdens, mission, resources, prayer, service, and the experience of Christ present in our midst is still possible. Are others looking for something similar? Finding it?

(An earlier version of this was published in Quaker Life, Summer 2021)