A Community of Love
John 14:15-31
Illustration
by Carl Jech

In a sermon titled "A New Vision," Dr. E. Howard Satterwhite of Trinity United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, compared the ideal of a Christian community of love, with a marriage in which the romance has faded, the honeymoon is over, and the relationship has become a labor of love requiring simple tenacity, "hanging in there." Describing his vision of Christian love at close quarters he said, "We should lose the illusions of perfection ... if we are looking for perfection here, we had better go somewhere else. But no one else has it either. We need to deal with the fact that we are imperfect and yet are in love as community. The community cannot save us from anything and we cannot save anyone else, not on our own skills and not on our charms. But trusting in God we become more trustworthy to each other, and more available for the authentic community that is grounded in God's power and not our own."

CSS Publishing Company, Inc, Channeling Grace, by Carl Jech