“All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.”
Luke 1:65 (NIV)

The last few nights, Wendy and I have visited one of our local eating establishments. It’s always enjoyable to eat out, but living in a small town makes it a bit different experience. You tend to know people. You not only know people but you tend to know their stories. People stop and have conversation. It’s a communal experience.

I get that small town life isn’t for every one. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Community has become one of the things I have grown to value most on this earthly journey. People walking life’s journey together, sharing experiences and sharing tragedies. I have found there to be a psychological, social, and spiritual strength in being an active part of healthy community.

One of the reasons Wendy and I went out to eat last night is that every Wednesday night we allow our house to be used by four small groups of high schoolers and their youth program. Twenty or thirty kids and their adult leaders invade our home for two hours, while we have a date (see featured photo of our front door on Wednesday evenings). As Wendy and I drove home last night from our very sociable dinner and entered the house filled with a cacophony of teen voices, we were filled once again with gratitude for living in community.

As the holidays approach, I thought I’d go back to Luke’s version of Jesus’ story on our chapter-a-day journey. Luke was a doctor, and he was one of the many believers who became a follower of Jesus based on the witness and stories of those who’d been with Jesus and testified to Jesus’ message, miracles, death, and resurrection. Luke decided to thoroughly investigate all of these stories, interview those who were part of the story, and write them down for his friend Theophilus and other believers back in his own home community. Luke became a companion of Paul on his missionary journeys and documented those experiences, as well.

I love Luke’s version of the story because of the fullness he brings. In his opening chapter, it is Luke who fills in the stories of the miraculous birth of John the Baptist, Mary’s account of her angelic visitation and subsequent visit to John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth who was a relative. A woman who had been childless suddenly gets pregnant in her old age. Her husband, a respected priest in the community, is struck dumb yet claims an angel appeared to him in the Temple and told him this would happen. Mary arrives to add her own angelic experiences and miraculous conception to an already miraculous story.

I found it interesting when Luke the investigator adds, “All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.” That’s what happens in a small, close-knit community. Word travels. Stories get shared. People both know and care about other people in their community. Personal events are communally felt. As an investigator and chronicler of these events, Luke is saying that people in that small Judean hill country were still talking about it: Zac and Liz’s miracle boy who became the famous Baptizer. Local boy makes good, then tragically loses his head because of Herod.

Our small town here in Iowa has produced a well-known professional athlete and a rock-star. Everyone in our town knows it. We know their parents and their siblings. People feel a communal connection. They feel part of the story. It was no different for the community in the Judean hill country where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on living in community. Yes, I’ve known and experienced some of the unhealthy and annoying things that living in a small community of other flawed human beings brings with it. I have, nevertheless, found the positives to far outweigh the negatives. In our post-covid world, I continue to read about the negative consequences created by forced isolation. The psychological affects were felt by everyone from children who couldn’t be with their classmates to elderly individuals who were virtually shut off from any physical contact with their loved ones. It takes a mental and spiritual toll.

I need community. Jesus modeled with his disciples and the entourage of men and women who accompanied Him on His ministry. Luke experienced it as the followers of Jesus in his day met regularly in people’s homes to share meals and share lives. I’m convinced I would find community no matter where I lived. I’d seek it out. I need it for my own mental and spiritual health. But I’m here in a small Iowa town where I’m blessed to have it in abundance.

Today, I’m going to bask in the sheer joy of it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.