Rethink Community
“Rethink Community” Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.”
By our standards, the earliest Christians in Jerusalem described in our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles were a pretty strange lot. They didn’t just tithe 10 percent of their income; they put 100 percent of all their possessions into the common purse. They sold their property and gave all the money to the apostles to distribute as they saw fit. Karl Marx may have coined the phrase “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” but apparently he didn’t invent the concept – the first Christians of Jerusalem beat him to it by about 1800 years.
Christians have debated for centuries whether the complete sharing of goods among the first century believers in Jerusalem is an ideal we as Christians should be striving for or not. There have always been communities that have tried it in one form or another, with varying levels of success. But the experience of these communities – including the first community in Jerusalem, as later stories in Acts point out – highlights the practical problems of making something like this actually work.
I think the key question for us, as we come together in worship this morning, is not “Well, what are we supposed to do? What are the rules for how we are supposed to live in a church community together with our own individual possessions?” But rather, “Why did the first Christians think that this was something that they needed, at least, to try doing?” Not how we can make it work, or should we even try, but what inspired them to think that this was a good idea, that it somehow reflected the gospel.
I think they were operating in the context of something that was very common in ancient societies, and still is among us today in some ways. Roman society had a concept of a “benefactor.” A person of means was expected to engage in public and conspicuous generosity toward their community. They were expected to do this precisely because they were noble, wealthy, important, socially significant people. They used money to provide “bread and circuses” to the masses, in order to reinforce and highlight their difference in social status. I have the power to give this to you, and you only have the power to receive it. I give out of my surplus to you in your need, so that you will be indebted to me, and as I continue to climb the social ladder, I know that I can count on your support.
Christian practice in Jerusalem, however, was the opposite of this. The disciples of means were not trying to reinforce their central importance within the community by giving financial gifts. Rather, by giving everything that they had and turning it over, they gave up their status, their privilege, their security. It was less about their concern for the needy among them and more about their shared identity. We are all fellow children of God. We are all forgiven sinners. We are all partakers by God’s grace in the new life that is given to us at Easter.
We know from our experience – and the first Christians knew from their experience – that money, even money that purports to be given in order to help the needy, can divide people. Money can reinforce who’s got it and who doesn’t. Who’s important and who’s not. The revolution of values that Jesus brings, however, means that we can’t use money in that way. So the first Christians tried to use money in a way that would destroy social distance and boundaries between people.
This is how the first Christians tried to rethink what it means to live together as a community in the light of Easter. If community means overcoming divisions and conflicts in the light of the gift of grace and new life that is given to all of us through faith without distinction. If God raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus who set aside divinity, lived a fully human life, accepted death even on a cross, death as a criminal, death as one abandoned and humiliated for the sake of others, and now God has raised up him, of all people, to live among us with forgiveness and new chances for everybody. Then we need to find different ways of living together.
I think that’s what the first Christians were trying to work towards in our first reading from Acts today. But we can see this exact same dynamic playing out in the familiar text we read today from John’s gospel.
It begins on Easter night, with ten disciples. Judas is not there, for obvious reasons, and Thomas is there, for unknown reasons. These ten disciples are locked in a room, because of their fear. Because of their shame and their guilt over what’s happened to Jesus and how they treated him at the end. They are afraid – afraid that the authorities will do to them what they did to Jesus, but also afraid of going out and facing others who followed Jesus and having to explain their behavior on the night Jesus was arrested. Afraid that the wild stories they heard from the women who went to the tomb that morning might actually be right, because if Jesus really is risen, that just highlights how badly they messed up.
They were afraid. Afraid of what might happen to them. Afraid people might think they were cowards for what they had done. Put ten men who feel a lot of shame and guilt together in a locked room, and there’s a lot of tension in that room. If nothing had intervened, it’s the sort of situation that can lead to violence.
And in the midst of their tension, Jesus appears in their midst and says: Peace be with you. He shows them his wounds, and again he says: Peace be with you. He has returned. He is not angry. He has come bringing forgiveness, the gift of the Holy Spirit, a new mission to spread forgiveness throughout the world. It’s then that the fear leaves them and is replaced with joy.
Then, the next Sunday, the Sunday after Easter – which is why we always read this text today – they are still in the room, and this time we are told Thomas was with them. The week before they were all feeling the same thing – shame, anger, fear. This week, they have different experiences from Thomas. They’ve seen the risen Christ, Thomas has not. They believe that Jesus is risen; Thomas does not yet believe. But last time, Thomas was not there, and this time Thomas is.
Somehow, their community with Thomas is stronger than it was the week before. They are more able to walk with Thomas, more able to be with Thomas, to include him, even though they are more different from him than they were the week before. That’s what Easter does. And that’s how Thomas eventually comes to Easter faith himself. By first being welcomed into this community that is breaking down divisions that had kept people away from one another.
So what does this mean for us, for our communities – our congregation, our communion with other Christian believers, our participation in our neighborhoods and the communities around us. In some ways, we are more distant from one another than we were even a year ago, because we don’t meet together in person. But in other ways, I think that as a congregation we have in some ways become more connected because we’ve not been able to take seeing one another for granted. We’ve had to find ways to reach out and include others – and in doing so we fulfill the mission of Easter.
In our wider community, we don’t run into random people as much as we used to. We share space with people who are very different from us, and yet even the occasional contact we used to have with one another at the grocery store or in line at the post office or the gas station – these contacts don’t happen the way they used to. And yet I think we’re even more aware today how dependent we are on one another, how we are all vulnerable, how we are all connected. During this pandemic, some people in material terms have done reasonably well, while others have struggled. And the difference between these is mostly dumb luck. Yet even as we have grown further apart as a society, we have also grown more conscious of our mutual dependence on one another.
Like the first Christians, we search for ways to use the things that we have – including, but not limited to, our material goods – in ways that bring people together and that don’t reinforce differences. How to do it? That’s a hard question to answer. None of us have been through a pandemic like this before. Nobody explained it to us; we’re all trying to figure it out. Well, nobody gave the disciples a course on what Easter means either. They were working through it in real time, trying to figure it out.
We might make different choices that the first disciples in Jerusalem did about how, practically, we might build community that brings people together despite differences. But the task and the call are the same. So, I think it’s worth us taking time together, individually and as a congregation, to think. What will our community look like, as things hopefully start to open up again? What will our congregation look like? What will our neighborhoods look like?
Easter led the first Christians to try to find ways of living out the grace that changes us together, not just individuals. As Jesus promised those disciples, the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to us with Easter, and the Holy Spirit will lead us to forgiveness and new life, if we will listen to the Spirit’s promptings.