Feb 8, 2015
Text: Acts 4:32-37
This teaching is about our community here at Eighth Day. The scripture I chose from Acts is a description of an early Christian community. I’ll get to the passages about economic sharing a little later, but for now I want to notice that—sandwiched as it is between descriptions of radical sharing—is one verse that seems incongruous. “With great power the disciples gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them.” (v 33)
I’ve always avoided passages like this because they bring me up against the claim of the Resurrection, which I’ve always interpreted as the resuscitation of the dead body of Jesus, which I just can’t believe. I’ve learned a lot, though, from Fred Taylor in our years of weekly meetings about faith. After I sent him an earlier version of this teaching, he emailed me:
The theological issue in the early church was not whether a dead man returned to life per se but whether the ministry of Jesus was and would be continuing through his followers and his community. What that verse in Acts is about is the community’s testifying to the activity of the invisible, risen Jesus who continues his ministry through his followers and his community.
A number of years ago, as most of you know, my mental abilities started to diminish. I got lost in familiar places, I had some startling failures in memory, and I was sometimes confused. In September 2012, my neurologist told me I probably had Alzheimer’s disease. Then, almost a year later the decline in my cognitive abilities evened out. Eventually, further testing indicated that I did not, in fact, have Alzheimer’s. The reason for my mental decline is even now unknown. Although my memory seems still to be gradually worsening, everything else seems stable.
Among several great gifts I’ve received from my diminishment, I’d like to mention two. The first is a degree of emotional openness unlike anything I’ve ever known before. I feel joy more intensely, I have a deeper appreciation for music and beauty, and I experience a deeper sense of connection with others. I’m more viscerally aware of the arc of my life and feel much less need to prove myself by accomplishing things and more permission just to be. Right from the beginning, the joy I felt made up for any fear and most of the sadness I experienced. That openness continues, for which I am amazed and grateful.
Now, by nature and by training, I’m a scientist, and I have usually rattled off a psychological, scientific explanation for experiencing as a blessing and gift what should have felt like a tragedy. But that psychological explanation is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t change the reality that it was and continues to be a miracle, a testimony to the resurrection of Christ among us.
But it doesn’t stop with me. The second gift is a much deeper gratitude, affection, and trust in you, who are my community here at Eighth Day. Part of this is certainly my greater emotional openness. But when we all thought I had Alzheimer’s and would soon lose most of my intellectual capacities, your positive responses to me were a deep comfort to me. For instance, I made a couple of serious mistakes in bookkeeping (one of which caused our budget committee to commit ourselves to expenses $24,000 greater than the income we projected). But the response from the rest of the budget committee was not judgmental but, “Hmm … okay … what are we going to do about that?” There was no sense of judgment, only acceptance … and the confidence that we’d work our way through. Nobody seemed pissed off, nobody demanded I give up the bookkeeping (although I did shortly thereafter give it up on my own initiative). Several of you who were very familiar with the difficult and painful end-stages of Alzheimer’s specifically committed yourselves to stay with me—and with Marja—throughout … something I’m sure I couldn’t have done if our positions had been reversed. My deepest fear at the time was what Marja would be facing as I diminished, but you gave me confidence that she would receive the support she needed.
I can also explain psychologically, scientifically both my sharing with you and your incredible response to me. But both were also testimony to the resurrection of Jesus and his presence among us.
Since I don’t believe that faith and science are contradictory, let me examine that presence of Jesus and how it makes this community possible. What is it that binds us together and offers the deep relationships we experience? I’d like to suggest three that are most meaningful to me.
First, the most obvious is the love we hold for one another. Given the love that I had for you, there was no doubt I’d be as open as I could with you, sharing everything about my mental decline. And it’s been your love that made possible your miraculous response to me.
Another perhaps more painful example of the bond of love that holds us together is how we’ve responded to our conflict over the issue of racial injustice. Beginning over a year ago, our Racial Justice and Healing mission group began pushing the community toward a particular understanding of racism that we feel is important. There were emails, sermons, and discussions. Some of you were angry with us; some in the mission group were angry with some of you; some very committed people even considered leaving the community. But the tension and anger were not allowed to fester. The presence of Christ gathered us together so that we could listen to one another and seek to see the best in one another. We still don’t all agree; the conflict and tension are still there. I’m sure our mission group will continue to rub some people the wrong way. But, ultimately, we trust one another, care for one another, and recognize that each of us is doing the best we can. That doesn’t mean we won’t get angry with each other again, but it does enable us live in the creeaeetive tension together. It’s another testimony.
A third thing that binds us together is a common faith. Oh, the beliefs, the words we use, may be quite different. But faith is the willingness to act upon the Gospel testimony in the face of uncertain results, and that faith we share.
In the book of Romans, Paul writes to a community about the fundamental conflict between faith in the Empire and the faith of Jesus. Only a shared, theological understanding of what they were up against could give them the individual and collective power to stand against the might of the Roman Empire.
We, too, live within a powerful dominant culture that’s lost its way. Only with a shared understanding can we support one another in living out our faith on the basis of values very different from the society around us. The Powers try continuously to snuff those values out, not usually by physical force, but by insidious invitations that can lead us step-by-tiny step away from the Kindom. The Powers whisper
- that sacrifice for others is naïve,
- that loyalty goes only so far,
- that love for everyone is unrealistic,
- that justice is really impossible,
- that inequality is inevitable, and so on.
Just like the early Christians, we strive to live by a faith different from the dominant culture. None of us does it perfectly, so we need not only the community’s support in resisting but also the community’s understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness when we stumble or won’t even see what the problem is. It’s difficult enough for a community of support to resist those social, political and economic forces; it’s virtually impossible for the individual. It’s only the community through which the Kindom of God becomes possible.
Let me tell you a story. Thirty years ago I came to the Church of the Saviour, hoping that I’d find the face of Jesus in the poor I served as a physician. I soon found myself, however, face-to-face with the brokenness in my patients.
- So many didn’t return for follow-up visits
- They wouldn’t bring their kids in for routine checks,
- The didn’t take their medication,
- They came in drunk or high,
- For shame or fear they didn’t tell me the whole story;
- And so on.
It took a real emotional toll on me. Intellectually, I knew that people who live in oppression can internalize it and act it out. Emotionally, however, I felt angry, almost betrayed.
But if I would have tried to process my feelings with most people, the response I would have gotten would have been: “Well, what do you expect?” “You’re crazy to stay there, anyway.” But here I found that lots of other people here were doing the same thing on the basis of their faith. What I was going through, they’d gone through. More than empathy, they reminded me that we lived according to an alternative consciousness where giving ourselves sacrificially is not impractically saint-like but a richer way to live: It was testimony to the risen Christ among us.
I stay here in community because I’m not sure I could continue striving for the Kindom without you.
A third testimony that deepens my faith is that we recognize and value each other’s gifts.
While we often repeat it verbally, I’m not sure we pay enough attention to our theology of gifts and call. Shortly after I’d given my first teaching here, someone said something about appreciating my prophetic voice. Others have since said similar things. Even more, I’ve been encouraged by you to name and accept that gift that I’ve been given. How unlike our dominant culture.
“The Biblical definition of prophet,” says Fred, “is one who tells what is - a truth teller [who] includes how God is working in and behind the scenes” to promote the Kindom. In my case, the Church of the Saviour has made it possible for me to write openly about my medical mistakes, my depression and my Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I’ve been able to write clearly both about the brokenness of the poor but also the causative social reality behind it. Here at Eighth Day, you’ve received my challenges around climate change, militarism, our political future, and most recently racism … and you’ve continued to listen. This gift certainly doesn’t mean I’m always right or that I’m the only prophetic voice in the community, but still you name my gift.
Now, my naming my prophetic voice in public, claiming that God speaks through me, makes me uncomfortable. Admonitions drilled into me since childhood have been: Don’t think too much of yourself; don’t boast; be humble; hold back. And here I am claiming a prophetic voice. Can you imagine saying to any other group, “Listen to me because I have a prophetic voice”? But here, this community recognizes the gift as given by God in grace, to be grateful for but hardly to boast about, no greater or more integral to the community than the capacity to visit the shut-in, offer her voice or his music in worship, put the songbooks out, arrange the sound system, provide us with audio and video, offer warm welcome at the door, stay afterwards to talk with guests and, many others. Every one of us has gifts to exercise that testify to the risen Christ among us.
The gifts we offer to the community are not—at their core—”sacrificial.” As Kent has written, they’re a grace given to us, and, in giving them away, we become who we truly are. As my emotional sensitivity has deepened over the past couple of years, I realize that when I can truly give, I’m not giving away anything but finding my true identity. I don’t want to exaggerate, be too mystical or speak too abstractly, but when my gifts are recognized, the belonging I feel here is too deep for words.
It came as no surprise to many of you, I’m sure, that I chose a scripture for this morning about economic sharing and redistribution. There are other testimonies that the early church gave to the power of the risen Jesus among them, but economic sharing was obviously central … and apparently widely noted by others living in the culture. Economic redistribution is not just something that the community does because of Jesus’ commands. It’s testimony to Jesus’ living presence.
Early Christian community was marked by its diversity from slave to wealthy, yet they sought to level the economic playing field. We moderns—afraid of taking it seriously—try to explain this away as best we can, often by pointing out that the early Christians expected the imminent end of the world or by suggesting that this practice of economic redistribution didn’t last very long in church history. Another way we try to dismiss the uncomfortable testimony is to make it into an all-or-nothing: Either the unrealistic—in which everything is redistributed and held in common; or the minimal—little gifts here and there, a small compassion fund for special needs.
Don’t get me wrong. We place a high value on financial sharing here. We give over 60% of church income in one way or another to those in need. A discipline of covenant membership is proportional giving, beginning with 10%, with the percentage rising as income rises … 15%, 20%, 25%, depending on how much you make. That level of sharing is already a powerful factor identifying us as a community. We also volunteer, take people into our homes, give money individually directly to people who need it, take up special collections, and work in nonprofits serving the community.
But the testimony in the early church was to a deeper grace:
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. … [T]here were no needy persons among them. … For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, [and] … and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
I don’t want to insist that the complete redistribution of wealth is required for a Christian community. But, we, too, are marked by diversity: quite literally from homeless to wealthy. Yet we have not really sought to level the economic playing field. Again, don’t get me wrong. As we all know, giving money to other people is very complicated. Do they really need it? Will they use it well? Won’t we just enable them? Won’t we be swamped by those in need? Those are all reasonable and important questions. But I’m not sure we’ve even set a goal of having no needy persons among us.
What’s the next step? How might we start? What kind of testimony would that be?
I’m extraordinarily grateful to this community. I have for many years longed for a sense of mutual love and belonging like this. I have worked trying to make it happen, but in the end it has been given to me as a free gift by God’s grace through you and through Jesus’ presence among us.