16. December: Fellowship

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

1.john 1:7

To be a church, I think is a bit about playing together, being a team. The last week I have been watching the handball world championship at the television and now they are in the final! That must be a good team that stands together. I think the church is like the handball team. A handball team will not be a handball team without the players and the Church will not be a Church without people being in the Church. So I think in a sense to show that it is we who are the church. The Church is us. It is the people inside the building that really is the Church, not the building itself. Because we get together with your eyes towards Christ, the Church is us. The priest cannot be the church alone. The norwegian team in handball can’t just be one player playing against France in tomorrow’s final.  But together as a team, they will play against France. The church is the fellowship of believers. The church is us who are gathered with the focus on Christ.

Inside the Noah's ark it must have been a totally chaos. Imagine all the animals together. There is a bear who steals honey from the bees while the two of them are buzzed around by themselves in a corner. Squirrels that again and again chew holes in the goat oat bags, much to the annoyance of both Noah and the goats, I can imagine. It must have been quite a ride, with lions and sheep in the same boat, with the wolf and the hare - wonder how Noah got everything to go so smooth? And in the midst of it all then it rained and blew it for many long days. What a life and loud sound it must have been; burly rhino and smelly pigs, thousands of insects that slithered around and got both animals and humans to scratch one side. If you were the goat I guess it could easy feel the irritation or a little confused pubertal sheep with a huge lion in the next stall, I think it would be easy to get a little scared! Maybe sparrow envied the swans’ graceful appearance, or the tiger and the lion's beautiful mane?

In the Bible with pictures or children's books we see the ark of Noah, and it seems quite idyllic - but let's think a little about it. I do not think necessarily it was quite like that.

These thoughts about Noah’s ark lead me to a thought: Our community will never be perfect, we will always be human. And as a church we always encounter challenges, and as a church are we doing wrong. We forget the focus UP toward God, toward each other and we forget to use our sights OUT towards others. We irritate each other, are jealous of each other and we can scare each other. But I still think that the church community is different from other communities.

A concrete example is the Eucharist, I think. When Jesus invites us to celebrate the Eucharist, and he is present then I think something happens to us, with our community and our church. When we - bear bee, lion sheep, sparrow swan goes together, and we look up to Christ - then I think that we as a church, as a team, with all our differences, errors and omissions - the courage, strength and strength to meet challenges and mistakes. And most importantly, we get help, to love one another as God has loved us, He who does not love us because of, but in spite of. We see that when we go to the Eucharist as we move both communities and individuals - UP towards Christ, towards each other and ourselves, and towards those who have not yet seen or heard, although our eyes were to falter from time to time.

"Consequently, 

you are no longer foreigners and aliens, 

but fellow-citizens with God's people 

and members of God's household, 

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 

with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 

In him the whole building is joined together 

and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord."

Eph.2:19-21