When it comes to Christian community, I want the best of both worlds. I want the intimacy that community promises --- to be known, and to be cared for when I need it. But I also want to be completely free to do as I please. I don't like the idea of any individual or group having a claim on my time, money or possessions. Of course, community involves a set of mutual expectations --- expectations that the community is there for me, and I am there for the community.

Resistance to the mutual expectations of genuine community seems to be the norm rather than the exception. While people like me might desire the commitment of a community, it seems that we are more concerned about being left alone. We are a world of people insisting on their independence rather than a world of people insisting on fulfilling their obligation to others. The result is an increasingly fragmented world --- fragmented along religious, cultural, social and economic criteria.

We are probably more aware than ever before of the fragmentation of the world. Thanks to events like war in Iraq, we are aware of conflicts not just between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, but also conflicts within these religions. Of course, we know plenty about conflicts within Christianity. Most of us have experienced on some level the mild to violent disagreements between Christian denominations or even within Christian denominations. The Catholic Church, sadly, is not immune to division and disagreement within our communities.

Pentecost Sunday marks the launch of the first Christian community and reminds us that the church is meant to be inclusive. The Holy Spirit is unleashed as "tongues as of fire" on the disciples, they were emboldened to preach to a crowd that had gathered from all parts of the known world, or "every nation under heaven." The disciples spoke, and "each one heard them speaking in his own language," and the crowd is stunned to find "we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God."

The miracle of Pentecost is not the appearance of tongues of fire, but that people could understand the gospel message unfiltered by language or cultural barriers. In other words, the Pentecost event reveals that God is interested in both respecting and transcending culture, finding ways to include people rather than exclude them.

We are called to do the same. Rather than accept the differences that divide us we are called to look for ways to communicate in terms that others can understand and appreciate. It is not easy, and it requires a commitment to community that is real and is costly. It won't work if people like me continue to prefer the isolation of independence to the security of interdependence.

Certainly community involves being open to having some restrictions on our choices and behavior. But of course, Christianity calls us to say "no" to many false saviors. We are called to say "no" to the materialism that suggests that money and possessions give us life. We are called to say "no" to the narcissism that says fitness and beauty give us life. We are called to say "no" to the careerism that says that vocational success gives us life.

And we are called to say "no" to individualism, which says that independence gives us life. In the end, we are simply called to say "yes" to Jesus who calls to lives of generosity, hospitality, service and community.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.