"There's No Need"

April 15, 2012

New Testament Reading: Acts 4:32-37

32 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.

³³With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

³⁴There 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. ³⁵They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

³⁶There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). ³⁷He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

SERMON

“I went into church and sat on the velvet pew. I watched as the sun came shining through the stained glass windows. The minister, dressed in a velvet robe, opened the golden gilded Bible, marked it with a silk bookmark and said, ‘If any man will be my disciple, said Jesus, let him deny himself, take up his cross, sell what he has, give it to the poor, and follow me.’”

These words from Soren Kierkegaard illustrate the church's often-complicated relationship with money. From Aaron's golden calf to Jesus overturning market tables in the synagogue to the sorrowful rich young man told to sell all he owns and give his money to the poor, the church has always struggled with wealth. Fast forward several decades and our dysfunctional relationship with money took the form of indulgences, where people paid priests to absolve their sins. Saved by grace...and the just-for-you, two-payment deal of $20!

In our own time, we see staggering amounts of money given to promote a “Christian” agenda in the political arena – but one that is often more concerned with re-election and partisanship than compassion and God. Mega churches broadcast on our televisions with shiny-haired attractive men promising through artificially whitened teeth – like those indulgences of old – salvation, if only we will trust God with our wallets as well as our hearts. We're told that financial success is the result of God's favor, with the often unspoken counterpart being that poverty is the result of laziness or God's displeasure.

And then comes this passage from Acts to make us really uncomfortable. Sounding like a page out of Karl Marx's Das Kapital manifesto, it echoes more of communism than the Christianity we're comfortable with. Despite the fact that financial stewardship and generosity is mentioned more in scripture than any other issue, it is almost never talked about in Presbyterian churches, unless of course it's time for a new building.

Our reading this morning has the same effect of Jesus turning over those tables so long ago: our understanding of how the world should and does work is toppled and we're left with a jumble on the floor trying to pick up the pieces while still holding on to the Bible.

We're understandably concerned that if we pick up the pieces “everything they owned was held in common” and “no one claimed private ownership of anything” we will wind up with an impossible economic model that, time and time again has failed in so many countries because greed and corruption quickly overshadow the common good.

But if we first pick up the most important piece – “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” – We discover the heart of the early church, where a diverse community was of one heart and one soul.

But if we only hold this piece, we miss the second half what is meant to be one sentence in the Greek: “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all, FOR there was not a needy person among them.”

The resurrection was both a physical and a communal event: it was a physical raising from death, not a metaphysical one. Christ was truly dead. And he was truly raised to new life, a point that is made several times in scripture when he eats with his disciples, showing human hunger.

The resurrection was also a communal event: Jesus did not raise himself. He was raised by God. Once that tomb was empty, Jesus used people to spread the word of his resurrection, that through the witness of the women and men who followed him, person-to-person, that miraculous news would fill all the world like water flowing through parched soil.

And so the newly-formed community of the church, guided by the Holy Spirit as we are, spread the good news of their Risen Lord. The power of their resurrection testimony was not found in flowery words or fancy buildings but was a testimony of full bellies and clothed children.

This text is not advocating communism, it is advocating generous unity. It is not a perfect model: the next chapter brings the death penalty for those who withhold their wealth. It will never be able to be exactly replicated, nor should it.

But this text should guide us in how we deal with that most-uncomfortable of topics in the church: money. It reminds us that the resurrection was physical and communal and so if we make Easter about our individual comfort at the expense of the least of these, we miss the point of it all. Where consumerism reigns and capitalism is god, this passage speaks of another way: a way in which the power of the resurrection is most clearly revealed in caring for those in need, even if this means we have to change our way of living.

There are cultures for whom this concept is not a foreign one.

In Africa, particularly Southern Africa, they sum up the spirit of our Acts reading in one word: ubuntu. A rough translation is “I am because we are” but it's best understood through the words of South Africans (instead of mine).

Nelson Mandela describes it like this: A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?

Desmond Tutu speaks of ubuntu as the essence of being human. He says, “Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.

Perhaps ubuntu is what the early church was all about. They did not always get it right – and we won't either – but they strived for that kind of unity and generosity, for a community where there was no need for need, where the concerns of any became the concerns of all until they were met.

I earlier said that, illustrated by Soren Kierkegaard, the church has had a rough relationship with wealth. Perhaps this will always be. But if we believe that Jesus is risen, that our God is alive, then we are called to bring that kind of physical, communal life to all.

When we're tempted to spend money we don't really have on what we don't really need, that word of community reminds us of those who go without: ubuntu. When we're lulled into a consumeristic coma that isolates us from any who are suffering, the Spirit speaks that word to us: ubuntu. When we in the church buy into the idea that we are defined by what we look like, sound like or how many fill our velvet pews, that word reminds us of communities all across the world worshipping our same Risen Lord in dilapidated homes and disease-ridden villages: ubuntu.

I am...because you are. We are...because God is. Halleluiah! Amen.