Ac 2:42-47, 4:31-35

17 April 2005

4th Sunday of Easter

“There’s More Than Enough”

            Today’s reading in Acts picks up right where last week’s reading left off.  In the aftermath of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, great numbers of people in Jerusalem have responded to Peter’s sermon.  They have repented; they have been transformed.

            Our scripture text for this week presents evidence of all that.  We see that “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (v. 42).  (A quick note on that term, “the prayers”:  that’s talking about fixed-hour prayer.  At several points during the day, there are times when prayers are offered.  That’s a practice that continues today.)

            Because of their devotion to the Way (which is what Christianity was called before the word “Christianity” was invented), these first believers are marked by two words, in my opinion.  They are “power” and “property,” that is, abundant power and shared property.  The scripture says, “Awe [amazement] came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.  All who believed were together and had all things in common” (vv. 43-44).

            A similar point is made in chapter 4.  This comes after Peter and James, by the power of the Spirit, have healed a man who was born lame.  Actually, the point is made in even stronger language.  It seems that Jesus’ words about faith moving mountains is about to literally come true (Mt 17:20, 21:21)!

“When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness…[T]he 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” (vv. 31-32).

            Probably the early church’s experience with power and property is best summed up in chapter 3 when Peter tells the lame man—whose only hope is that he’ll donate some coins:  “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk” (v. 6).

            In case it’s not already clear, when I speak of power and property, I’m not talking about financial power, or the power of empire.  I’m talking about spiritual power, the inner power that comes from God.  If history is any teacher on the matter, there seems to be an inverse proportion between power and property.  The more the church has in power of wealth and empire, the less it seems to have in the dynamic power of spirit.

            Still, it’s not like the Jerusalem church invented the idea of pooling their resources.  Four centuries earlier, there was a well-known Greek proverb, quoted by guys like Plato and Aristotle, who said that “the belongings of friends are held in common.”[1]  Even the earth-shaking power of prayer had been mentioned in the century before Christ by the Roman poet Virgil, who wrote, “’Grant, father, an omen, and inspire our hearts!’  Scarcely had I thus spoken, when suddenly it seemed all things trembled.”[2]

            The first disciples may not have invented these ideas, but their lives are a demonstration of them.  The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, has filled them with a fearless joy.

            Many tend to dismiss the lifestyle of the early church as naïveté, as unrealistic.  How dare they be so cavalier toward private property?  This is serious business!  Actually, the early church was a key inspiration for both communes and communism, at least, in the west.  Unfortunately for communism, its methodology for sharing the wealth wound up being less a matter of love than of brute force.

            There are Christian groups today who, to a greater or lesser extent, also disavow private property.  That’s always been a hallmark of monastic life.  The same is true of the Bruderhof, which means “place of brothers.”  The book Discipleship, which we’ve been studying, comes from that community of faith.

            “Jesus showed what love meant,” says Eberhard Arnold, one of the Bruderhof.  “His word and life proved that love knows no bounds.  Love halts at no barrier.  It can never be silenced, no matter what circumstances make it seem impossible to practice it.  Nothing is impossible for the faith that springs from the fire of love.  For this reason, the call of Jesus does not stop at property…Those who want to keep goods and valuables for themselves in spite of the need around them must do violence to their own hearts.”[3]

            The truth is, Jesus speaks in the Gospels about money as much as, if not more than, any other single topic.  He recognizes both its power to do good and its power to enslave—the tendency of money to become an idol.  We cross that line much more easily than we think.

            Nevertheless, having said all that, I’m not advocating that we adopt a communal lifestyle!  Even if we were so inclined, that still wouldn’t guarantee that we grasp the principle involved.  We can imitate certain outward structures, but without the Spirit, it won’t make the necessary difference.  Psalm 127 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (v. 1).

            As I said, there are those who dismiss our scripture text in Acts as describing people who are unrealistic.  Others take a slightly different angle.  For them, this is a museum piece.  It may have applied way back then, but it’s irrelevant for us today.

            A writer that I’ve praised in the past, Jürgen Moltmann, addresses today’s reading in some detail.  “We are not being told some story about ‘the golden age’ of the first Christians long ago,” he tells us.  “This is the announcement to us today about real, possible ways of living in the [overabundance] of the creative Spirit.  It is a message through which we ourselves can arrive at a new experience:  the experience of the community of the Spirit.”[4]

            It is in this community of the Spirit in which the reality dawns on us that there is more than enough.  There’s more than enough, even if it doesn’t seem like it.  It doesn’t seem like it, because we’re so used to not believing it.  We’re used to a world in which there is not enough.  We’re used to a world in which nations invade each other…in which groups of people turn on each other…in which we pit ourselves against each other.

            We do all that because we do not want to suffer want.  We do not long to lack!  “To be in want means to be shut out from the pleasures of life.  To be in want means not to have enough to eat and drink.  To be in want means to be sick and lonely.  In the ultimate resort, to suffer want means to lose life itself.”[5]

            “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Ps 23:1).  The psalm reading for this Sunday, number 23, is read and recited so often that its truly powerful imagery is lost on us.  In that respect, it’s a lot like the Lord’s Prayer.

            Moltmann continues, “Our modern economy based on want, our modern ideology of growth and the compulsion to expand are [deals] with death.  They are deadly games with human anxiety.  They are bets placed on the craving for life, and they are sucking people dry.”[6]  And on that note about our economy based on want, I would say that’s both “want” as in “desire,” and “want” as in “lack.”

Still, I must confess my own feelings of nervousness and vulnerability, including financial uncertainty.  As I mentioned earlier, Jesus warns us about the dangers of wealth—about its propensity to become a god.  And like any false god, it cannot give life.  I can’t claim that I haven’t been infected by it.  I’m an American.  I’ve grown up, living in and breathing an atmosphere in which the worship of money has been achieved like never before.

So, I have to ask myself:  do I serve God or mammon?  Jesus says in Matthew 6:24 that we can’t serve both.  If I think I’ve already made the choice to serve God—and if I don’t actively discipline myself to notice the trust in wealth rising up within me—then I am self-deceived.

            One very effective way of fighting the worship of money is by simply giving it away.  Here’s where those two words “power” and “property” come back into play.  It’s hard to imagine a more forceful way of driving a stake into the heart of riches.

            This past week, I finally got around to watching “Hotel Rwanda.”  It stars Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, manager of a four-star hotel in the Rwandan capital of Kigali.  In 1994, during the genocide in which ethnic Hutus killed about a million Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers, he saved about 1200 Rwandans by providing refuge at his hotel.

It really is a good movie.  A film with the backdrop of genocide could easily become morbid or overly judgmental, but I think it strikes the right balance.  “Hotel Rwanda” is about Paul Rusesabagina and the evolution he undergoes.  There are even some moments of humor in the movie!

I want to mention something that happens at the very end.  During the chaos, the two youngest daughters of Paul and his wife, Tatiana, go missing.  Like so many others, they fear that they’ve been killed.  Pat Archer, a Red Cross worker, tells them that she saw the girls at a refugee camp.  So they get off the bus that would take them across the border into Tanzania.

The family is reunited, and we see them walking down the road, after the bus has already left.  Pat says to Paul, “They said that there wasn’t any room.”  Paul replies to her, “There’s always room.”

There’s always room.  There’s more than enough.  That’s our response when we allow the Spirit to direct our best thinking and our best energies into making it happen.

            That’s the vision I have for me and for all of us.  Again, Acts 4:31—“When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.”  I want that love of Christ and that courage.

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