Koinonia isn’t a fish

Posted on May 31, 2018 by DOLPHINSLivingSprings

Koi fish

What a strange word : Koinonia

This Greek word has no direct parallel in English. Often people will translate it as fellowship, but that’s like saying the earth is a big blue marble.

God calls us saying, “Abide in my love, agape.” The One who created us also appointed us to bear fruit. Jesus told his disciples, us, that we are not his servants, rather we are his friends, his beloved. We are called to love one another.

I don’t know about you but, WOW. Life is so very hard. People can be just plain mean and scary. How do we love someone like that? What is this love God calls us to live out? What is the nature of this intimacy we are to live in with others? I’ll be happy to give anyone an orange, but I don’t think that’s the fruit God’s talking about. The Divine must be talking about spiritual fruit: love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Ok, I can do that on a good day with those I love. But wow, on a bad day or with a mean person. UGH

Our salvation doesn’t depend on our behavior. Thanks be to God. However, when we claim this incredibly gracious gift offered to us how can we do any less than respond with joy. While life is hard and people are so often downright mean, we can daily do our best to be who God created us to be. Yes, we will fail from time to time, but the more we try to live as who God created us to be and the more we support and encourage one another to do the same the better life will be.

Living as the Koinonia means that we live focused, on the hope God not only promises but has won for us, as if we are in that ‘kindom’ now, already but not yet. Living continually in solidarity of suffering and sharing these spiritual fruits and gifts with everyone. The more we strive to live this way, the more our lives are led toward a reconciling character that is able to confront conflict and even violence, within our relationships and circumstances around us. The love that we would choose to live in is not a stagnant love, rather it is a transforming and powerful love. AND we would not be alone ever.

Koinonia can only be lived out in relationship with God, self and all others. This does not mean we would have to be all the same (what a terrible thought). This means that we would strive to continually live respecting our differences as enhancements of one another sort of like a team. Each team member has different skill sets, different personalities, different looks in fact most everything is different; however, they choose to work together toward a common purpose. Wouldn’t that be an amazing way to live?