“So that our joy may be complete…”

(1 John 1:1-4    Acts 4:32-35)

How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!  It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion.  That’s where God commands the blessing, ordaining eternal life.

(from Ps. 133)

We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—what we have seen and heard we also declare to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.  We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.        (1 John 1:1-4)

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.  With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.  There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.  They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.                             (Acts 4:32-35)

               So, it looks like our scriptures are serious about this New Life in Christ business.  We are just one week past declaring that Christ has risen and, for us Christians, that ought to be life-changing.  We have been offered the opportunity to die to our old selves and rise to a new life with Christ. 

When I put the 3 Bible lessons together for today, I became aware that there really is a crucial message for us here.  First the Psalm tells us, “Isn’t it wonderful when brothers and sisters get along?  That’s when God grants God’s blessing forever.”

               Then there’s the lovely message from John’s Epistle that declares that God has created the possibility for peace and joy among God’s creatures from the beginning… so that we may have fellowship with one another and with God, Christ and the Spirit—AND so that our joy may be complete.

               Then, wouldn’t you know, as we’re told in the Book of Acts, the folks who were forming the Church in the first century were trying to live this amazing message?  They believed they were of one heart and soul.  So, as a result, they decided no one would own anything, but that they would hold everything in common.  No one said, “That’s mine.  You can’t have it!”  They shared everything.  Their decision to live like this came from the resurrection of Christ whose grace had turned them into new creatures.  And, listen to this: if they owned something, they sold it and gave the proceeds to the apostles who then made sure that every person in the community had their needs met….

               Back in 1978 I entered seminary in California at the School of Theology at Claremont.  It was an amazing, eye-opening time for me, little close-minded, naïve Ohio girl that I was.  I began to hear about members of our seminary community who had started a commune several years earlier.  I’m sure they formed it with all the absolute best intentions.  They would have modeled it after the Book of Acts, and it was, in fact, still functioning. 

…Though, by the time I became a student there, it had begun to fall apart and was kind of limping along.  Many had left because the beautiful intention of it, that is, to share all things, including money, possessions and the work of the house, had broken down for most of its members.  Romantic relationships had formed among those who were not married to each other.  There were squabbles about who had to do what and who was bringing in the money and who wasn’t. 

               They were still welcoming new housemates, and a young man in one of my classes had moved in and had fallen in love with the former spouse of one of my professors (who was a great teacher, a brilliant man from whom I learned a lot in theology class).  Scott, my classmate, asked if he could make a birthday cake at our apartment to surprise his new girlfriend.  So, I got as much of the scoop as he knew, and, of course, I was very curious….

               These communes, many of which grew up in the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s really were based on the Book of Acts.  But a lot of them began to fail for the very reasons that happened in Claremont.   You can imagine that folks (including me) said, “We knew that wasn’t going to work.  People can’t be that unselfish.  They will always have in the backs of their minds, ‘What’s in it for me?’  Consciously or unconsciously they may find themselves acting out of that very self-centered approach.  We may even think, “Oh, that sharing everything is all good, but human beings can’t pull it off.  Besides, isn’t that Communism or at least socialism?”

               And you know that those accusations still get leveled against any government program that suggests that we might want to give a hand up to anyone who is down.  Churches talk themselves out of helping people by being suspicious of poor folks or those in need wondering, “Are they going to use what we’re giving them for drugs or alcohol or some foolish spending?” 

And all of us continue to be very protective of what is ours.  This is what we humans in well-off cultures do.  I am quite aware of how my pension fund gets handled, and make very sure that I’m going to receive what’s mine.

               …So… how do we square the words of today’s lessons, the reality of the death and resurrection of Christ, the implications of those things for how Christ’s Church conducts itself—with what we know to be true about human nature? 

               First, I would say there have been experiments in which communities have lived together over periods of time using these sorts of guidelines.  Now, I am far from being a scholar of religious communities, but in spite of those horrible examples we have of clerics who abused young people, there are communities over the centuries who have managed to stand as examples for us as those who kept everything in common, as people who were not interested in accumulating wealth but, rather, in serving and caring for others.

               So, let’s say that the Acts model can be spoken of as the perfect way of doing community—though we know that it’s very hard to clone.  It seems to me that we can take aspects of this and use it in our 21^st century lives.  We can speak of it as ways we can form the Body of Christ, the Church, the Jesus House.  This, of course, is never going to be perfected, but we must never rest on our laurels and let ourselves off the hook by saying things like “Oh, it’s impossible.  Jesus didn’t really intend that.  Let’s just create the Body of Christ in our own image.”  Which means that we look out for our own selves and our nuclear family and the people who are like us and the people whom we like. 

               But my question to us today is, “Why can’t we take a stab at this?”  What prevents us from making it our mission to live, believe and win supporters of an approach to life in which every citizen has what they need, no one sits on billions of dollars but, rather, it is shared so that no child is hungry, so that no one lives in poverty.  You see, I believe this is possible if we have the will to do it.  And it’s not some crazy, impossible dream, but, doggonit, it’s Biblical!

I have watched the United Methodist Church change during my years of serving.  There are people who have always complained about paying apportionments, that is, the money each church is asked to give toward supporting the larger church and helping smaller, poorer churches continue to do ministry in their neighborhoods.  But that is one way of living out this passage from the Book of Acts. 

Of course, there have been times when budgets at the Annual Conference level need to be examined and adjusted so that there is a fair distribution, but, in concept, it is a way to share and be in ministry in all areas, not just the ones who are moneyed.

I say the 1990’s was a turning point in mission and ministry in our Annual Conference.  That’s when the body voted to discontinue sharing the health insurance and pension load, that each church would only be responsible for the cost of its own pastor’s health insurance and pension payment.  The larger, richer churches wanted to only take care of themselves.  The smaller, poorer churches, then, had to take care of their own costs without the help of the apportionment system.  There was no Acts 4 approach to any of this.  As a result, many inner city churches had to close as did many rural churches.

…Friends, this is not a political sermon.  I am simply preaching this morning’s scripture lessons.  After all, we did declare and celebrate last week the miracle of New Life in Christ. 

You see, we can start right here by believing this message ourselves, by continuing to support ministries like Heart 4 the City and OPEN-M which are based on making sure the needs of poor people are met.  We can even up our game a bit by being carriers of a message, both locally and nationally, that there should not be a privileged class and there should never be people who are destined to live in poverty in a nation as rich as ours. 

               I would like us to continue this conversation and to make some plans around this.  This is important.  The Book of Acts is no joke.  AND it is not to be ignored as folks in the church, in our world and in our culture have tended to do.  I challenge us to come to each other with ideas about how we can work toward being a community, a nation, in which no one’s needs are ignored.  Let us be “a whole group of those who believed and were of one heart and soul.”

               So, friends, feel free to send me thoughts and ideas via email or handwritten notes or conversations.  I’ll compile our thoughts and we can dream about how we can put our inspiration into action per the Book of Acts.  Let’s continue to collaborate and create because I believe there are ways for us to make a difference in our world!  So that our joy may be complete.  Amen.