By the grace of God, we are growing into a genuine community. This means that we must deal with far more than the simple issues that attend membership in a religious club that meets once a week.
We are learning to live together. This means shared meals. It means watching one another’s children. It means helping with births, helping with weddings, giving ourselves to the education of our children, learning what it means to die well. We do not want to isolate any aspect of the human experience, and then exclude that aspect from our shared lives together. We are the people of God.
Learning to live together also means striving together for like-mindedness, and learning how to disagree in the meantime. It means learning the hard lessons of repenting, and the sometimes harder lessons of forgiving.
Life in community means facing our problems, and rejoicing in what God has given to us despite all those problems. As we continue on this pilgrimage together, avoid slipping into the disregard of high duty that is frequently camouflaged with the high words—love, charity, sacrifice, and so forth. These are obviously good—if we understand them. It is too easy to assume that of course we love someone, in a vague, nebulous, undefined sense. So sometimes a good understanding comes when we turn down the volume and look at it more simply.
And so, brethren, a new commandment I give unto you. Like one another.