Easter 2B, April 15, 2012
Acts 4:32-35 Everything they owned was held in common.
1 John 1:1-2:2 We are writing these things so that our [or your] joy may be complete.
John 20:19-31 Peace be with you.
O God of life, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Of all the Gospel lessons that get read in church on Sundays, the only one that gets read every year without fail in the 3 year lectionary cycle, is this one that we just heard. There are 5 written accounts of Jesus resurrection that made it into our canon of scripture – accounts that have significant “factual” discrepancies — and within those five separate narratives, there are about a dozen Risen Lord appearance stories. But it’s this story that gets repeated over and over — read every year on the Sunday after Easter, no matter what. The effect is that this appearance story becomes THE appearance story – and too often, the heavy-handed moral made of this story is that somehow a faithful Christian does not have doubts. Nonsense. Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is essential to faith.[1]
This morning, instead of imagining with you what might or might not have really happened to Jesus’ terrified friends after he was crucified while they hid in that locked room, I’m much more interested in the four short verses that John Hsia read from Acts of the Apostles this morning. It’s a passage which goes by so quickly. So I’m going to read it again in my own rough translation: And the multitude of those who trusted was one heart and soul (or life). Nor did anyone say possessions were one’s own, but were all in common to them. And with great power the envoys (or apostles) gave the testimony of the uprising of the Lord Jesus so mega grace (or kindness or gratitude or blessing) was on them all. Neither was anyone poverty-stricken among them, for owners of land or houses sold them and brought the price received (the word also means the honor, the reverence, the respect, the value) from the sales and put it at the disposal of the envoys and it was distributed then each as if ever someone had need.
Now here is a resurrection story that is truly unbelievable. It seems to me that the most eloquent testimony to the uprising of Jesus, also known as “the resurrection,” is not an empty tomb or a story of a bodily appearance of the Risen Lord, but rather a group of people whose life together is so radically different from and better than the way that the rest of the world operates, that there can be no explanation other than the love of God.[2] And I really can’t think of a better day to talk about radically different ways to build community, by pooling our resources, than April 15!
What I want to know is what got them so charged up that they were willing to figure out what they could sell so that they could contribute the proceeds to the community? What made it possible for them to imagine together that everyone’s needs could be met in the community – that everyone could have the necessary food and shelter and clothing and companionship? What made them imagine that they could live as if God’s steadfast love really does endure forever?[3] Which comes first? The experience of receiving compassion that leads to generous giving? Or experiencing the thrill of giving that leads to an awareness of receiving grace and blessing? Or is it such a blur that a sense of mega grace and mega generosity can’t really be teased apart any more than we can separate heart and soul, or body and mind?
Let’s say that this story is probably an overly rosy description of the early Church. Let’s say that it’s metaphorical, not literal. Let’s say that the Bible is not a book of rules covering every possible scenario, but a library of possibilities, a collection of stories that tells us things about our people, which is a way of saying, this is who (and Whose) we are. Let’s say that — humans being humans — it would be impossible to do this completely – you know, to hold all property in common and eliminate poverty. And because I’ve such a strong contrarian streak, as soon as we say something is impossible, I want to figure out how to do it – even if it’s only in a small way.
It was the rector, George Chapman, at St. Paul’s in Brookline who showed me how it’s done when it comes to this passage from Acts of the Apostles. St. Paul’s started imagining what it would be like to do an international mission trip – and settled on a building mission in rural Honduras shortly after Hurricane Mitch wreaked so much havoc there. On a scouting trip, George learned about a community of 50 or so families, subsistence farmers, who were eking out a living in the mountains near the Nicaraguan border. In a meeting with the village leaders, it became clear that before access to running water, before clean water, before electricity or refrigeration, or even access to a market, what they wanted most of all was a school building for their children. Our scouting team came back to Brookline and reported that for one week in the summer, a group from St. Paul’s was going to go to Honduras to build a school. They estimated that $25K would be needed to buy building materials, pay local engineers, and provide transportation and meals for the church volunteers. Anyone in the parish of any age could sign up to go on the trip; the only requirement was participating in fundraising. Everyone had to participate in fundraising. Each according to her ability, each according to his need, what we owned would be held in common.
I have to tell you that $25K was a big stretch for a small parish with a lot of young families struggling to pay their annual pledges. Immediately folks began to wonder, “what was the cost of travel per person?” “Nothing,” said George. “No, how much is it per person?” “It’s nothing per person,” said George. “If everyone contributes what they can and participates in raising funds then we will have enough.” At the end of a very short time, the funds raised were counted up and about $27,000 had been raised. I chalked it up to beginner’s luck – you know, the enthusiasm of starting something new and exciting.
The next year, the mission team decided to go back to the same village, expand the mission to build a dam, lay 2 kilometers of pipe to bring running water to the village, send a medical education team to teach about clean water, build latrines and install household water filtration systems. $50K would be needed. I thought, “well, it’s good to have a goal even if we won’t make it, because there’s no way we are going to be able to raise that.” That year, in fairly short order, St. Paul’s raised $55K, and that year I chalked it up to God. Each according to her ability, each according to his need, what we owned was held in common.
Some of you will remember the first year of Emmanuel Church’s “Chapel Camp” summer programming, in which we created a full roster of fun community-building activities on a budget of $0. In my first year as your priest, we were trying to figure out how to stop what seemed like hemorrhaging when it came to our expenses which were greatly exceeding our income as a parish. To say that we didn’t have money for programs in that first year is a considerable understatement. A parish field trip to get Dim Sum for brunch was proposed as a Chapel Camp activity, and folks immediately (and rightly) worried about members of the parish who would want to participate but who would not go because they would not be able to afford to pay for their food. Could we offer financial assistance? I thought of George Chapman. “Let’s try something different,” I said.
We invited everyone who wanted to participate in our Dim Sum outing to put whatever they could into an envelope that we passed around the group before we left the church to head over to Chinatown. “How much is it per person,” folks asked me. “It’s nothing per person,” I replied. “Do you have enough?” they asked over and over. “If you put in what you could, then I do,” I replied. Each according to her ability, each according to his need, what we owned was held in common. I did not count the money in the envelope until everyone was stuffed with food and I went to pay the bill. The bill was $100. The envelope contained $300. I left a hundred dollar tip for a very surprised waiter, and brought $100 back to put in the bankrupt coffee hour fund. There was no way to calculate refunds because I had no idea what anyone had put in, and I had no idea how much anyone had eaten, but everyone reported having eaten their fill.
Can you imagine that I am confident that any number of impossible things are actually possible when each gives according to his ability and each receives according to her need, and what we own is held in common? Whether it is the impossibility of planting Emmanuel Church in the barely filled Back Bay on the eve of the Civil War, or the impossibility of being a legally married lesbian Episcopal priest serving as Emmanuel Church’s twelfth rector. Whether it is the impossibility of anyone these days being willing to attend a nearly two-hour worship service, or the impossibility of teaching the most vulnerable and unmanageable public school children in the city of Boston to play chamber music in string quartets. Whether it is the impossibility of approximately 1500 people who rely on the hospitality of this magnificent building in a typical week, or the impossibility of raising the money needed to repair and repoint the bricks in the back alley wall – the wall that holds these stained glass windows, the altar screen of the Lindsey Chapel, and the offices and meeting rooms of the parish house, the wall that stands for what we do here. It reminds me of what Alice says to the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland: “Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” And the Hatter replies, “That is an excellent practice.”
Whether it is the experience of receiving compassion that leads to generous giving, or experiencing the thrill of generous giving that leads to an awareness of receiving abundant grace and blessing, I’m eager to continue to work of each giving according to his or her ability and each receiving according to her or his need, and of holding what we own in common. If you have doubts about what is possible, let me remind you that doubts are essential to our ability to accomplish the impossible. Doubts are essential to experiences of resurrection. And I’m eager to get started again!
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