Fellowship


As Joyce points out in his daring Finnegans Wake, “They lived and laughed and loved and left.” Many prefer to be amiable without actually embellishing their cordiality with commitment: they are happy to meet occasionally, eat something and even travel together, but then each to his own, unconcerned.

This can refer to the remembrance of a long-loved person who refuses to wake up from its slumber: lost friendships that never flowered into love. Shakespeare points out, “Most friendship is feigning, most loving folly” (As You Like It, II.7). Most don’t seem to notice or prefer not to and yet, beyond our misplaced feelings, fellowship embellishes our commitment to Christ. 


This comprehension is accentuated because fellowship in a brave new cosmic order, subjected to social media, simulates instant coffee: press a button and a friendship is born! Neither love nor commitment is envisaged: we neither walk with each other nor suffer with or for each other, so that fellowship is a word we use but is not necessarily intended.

 

Lacking an evangelical comprehension hinders fellowship, so that we are prone to condemn rather than to understand; to enforce rather than to allow a deepening maturity to take its course. Fellowship is confined to our shadows. The Magister does things differently:  accepting Peter, not judging him, he enriches his discipleship (John 21.1-19). 


To embrace someone without judging entails hope, highlighting personal formation, even when it’s not necessarily understood or promoted as such. And yet the Magister insists: “Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15,13).

 

This insight permeates discipleship because fellowship integrates our aspirations despite the many failures we encounter. Yes, “may your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you” (Psalm 33,22).

 

Martin

 

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