union avenue christian church |
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Territorial Rights John 20:19 – 31; Acts 4:32 – 35 Summer church camp is one of the most formative religious experiences possible. I have seen and taken many children and youth (including my own) kicking and screaming to a camp — where ‘I won’t know anyone…no one will like me…and we will do boring and dumb stuff’ — only to pick them up one week later and not be able to get them into the car because they are hugging and crying tears of separation from their newest best friends. And inevitably any prized possession that had been taken to camp by one person was going home with another person — shirts, pillows, books, jewelry, hats — all seem to filter through those groups. It is probably not the high-grade religious information that does the transforming in those weeks. It is not the particular beauty of the campsite …because I have seen this transformation at wondrous and not so wondrous sites. And even though I believe good leadership is essential, it is not always the counselors or directors who get to take responsibility for what happens. It is, I believe, that there is one purpose for church camp — allowing children and youth to experience community 24 hours a day for several consecutive days and all they were able to take with them fit in one small suitcase and a bedroll. Eight years ago I resigned from my ministry, sold my house, rid myself of 3/4 of my possessions, put the rest in storage and went back to school. It was like summer church camp. We were thrust together in community — we ate together, we studied together, we listened to lectures together, and we were supposed to worship together (although the Orthodox didn’t think it was worship when the Protestants led it, the Roman Catholics certainly didn’t like the Pentecostals’ style or the Indian’s concepts and the Methodist had a very difficult time with the Swiss Reformed). At the end of our months together, however, friendships abounded, worship held diverse threads in its unity, and there was much weeping as we left to go home to various spots around the globe. The experiment in community had worked. Those who had been there were of one heart and soul, and the most precious treasures each person took home were those that had belonged to and had been given away by others. This morning’s passage from the Acts of the Apostles has given rise to experiments in Christian community through the centuries. It has given fodder to the concept that Christianity should be socialistic. It is used for proof-texting why Christians should not own personal property. It is a wonderfully descriptive passage about a particular group of Christians in a specific time. Our work with it and hopefully the message we might receive from it dare not be to merely transpose it somehow into our own setting and time. We might, in fact, lose its vitality by doing so. The early Christians whose activities are being reported in these chapters of Acts are in Jerusalem. Almost all of them are Jewish. They have known and grown up in a faith community. What is new and at the core of their community is the good news — the ministry that Jesus had shared and led AND the reality of this resurrection. That miracle, that power, that amazing reality brought new life and was the focus for this congregation in Jerusalem. And although the congregational members undoubtedly had known each other in the city, i.e., in business dealings and in the temple activities, those who now were gathering as Christians had an identity that was specific and clear and different from their relational identities of before. The power of their belief…the basis of their faith…the unanimity of their convictions created a spirit among and within them so tight that it seemed they were of one heart and soul. And out of that unity, and out of that oneness of heart and soul the people of the community opened their hands for they had no need of owning what they had possessed. They shared all that they had and made sure every one of the community had whatever was needed. It was like a summer church camp high! An attribute of true love — in marriage or partnership — is that the oneness of heart and soul brings absolute sharing of all that each partner has. Relationships begin to break down as soon as individuals need to possess and claim something of their very own to the exclusion of the other or as a secret from the other. This breakdown involves not just having ‘things’ that one enjoys and the other doesn’t but, rather, having ‘things’ that take a part of the heart that cannot be shared. Evidently this newly formed Christian community of the Acts of the Apostles had no secrets. They had no needs that couldn’t be shared with the whole community. They had no desires to be outside the purview of community members. What a glorious, incredible time! A time that did not last long for them and hasn’t been able to be sustained for many others. Quickly, oh, so quickly, we (humans) move into a neediness, an attitude of rights and territory, a possessiveness/ownership of goods, property and ideas. This is neither good nor bad it is merely human reality. The task we have, I believe, is twofold:
God creates life from God’s self. God gives all in the act of that creating. The basis of the Christian faith is that God loves every portion of this universe, every child of this universe, every possible and intricate piece of this universe. God is, in fact, integrated with every cell and atom of this universe. There is unity in life because God is in it all. Within and out of that unity God gave everything, including the one we call the Christ — the son, the beloved, the dearest portion. And so it is because of God’s teaching — God’s example — that we can, will, are able to give all that we have when we are integrated with those to whom we are engaged, those to whom we are in relationship. In the fleeting moments (if/whenever we might have them) when we are as God, in the protected and glorious days or weeks of the height of Christian community (whether in church camp or retreat or holy celebration days in the congregation, when we respond to disasters and other service opportunities) when there is that oneness of heart and soul with the universe, we may expect to be able to open our hands and share all that we have. In those moments, we do not stop to figure out what we can afford to give of our resources or ourselves, but, rather, we merely give what is needed in the situation. In those moments, we rid ourselves of possessions, needs, secrets, opinions, territorial rights because when we think and feel and act like God we will know there is an abundance within all of life. There is no need that cannot be cared for. And there is no reason to hoard or keep anything unto oneself. But, alas, we come down from those mountain peaks and rejoin a world — and especially a country — that is based on ownership of goods, property, and opinions. It is then that the unity of heart and soul within any community is compromised and will not last. Even as children we begin to claim things and people and space as ours. We begin and continue to define the world in ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ terms. We make boundaries, set territories and have created the concept of getting what is mine before things run out. It is only when we are able to love this world as God loves it that we will know how to live out of abundance rather than scarcity. IT is only when we are able to love this world as God loves it that we will have no need to cling, to hold, to possess. It is only when we are able to love this world as God loves it that we will be able to have open hands with all that is and all that comes our way. In this life we have the opportunity only for a foretaste. We are not going to break the human character needs. We will (in this earthly existence) be grounded in property, our bodies, goods, and possessions. But as Christians — as ones who have opportunity to touch and feel and live the very essence of God — we may know moments (days, weeks, extended times, opportune times in community – in this faith community!) when we are so attuned to God’s giftedness in this life — God’s concept of abundance — that we are able to also give out of that great reservoir of life within us, holding back nothing. At our very best, Christian friends, we have a message and story to live and to tell. When we are most attuned to the purposes of God, when we are showered with the greatest grace possible, we know that all we have, all that we are, all that we could ever be is enough — in fact, it is more than enough for all. In those times, fleeting as they may be, we have opportunity to give all, to open our hands from all that we claim and to give away territorial rights to anything. |
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