Christian Community

If you could change just a few thing in this world what would they be? And why? Wherever you are right now I want you to close your eyes and think about it.

Here are two things that I would change and why.

I would want everyone to see the humanity in one another and in all people before they see anything else. Why?

Because in my experience once I see the humanity in a person I can’t hate them.

I can still disagree with them and get frustrated with them.

But with a humanity first lens I now have compassion and empathy for them on a personal level, and I can seek to understand where they are coming from.

Annoyingly this is the way it is for me even when I don’t necessarily like a person. And INCREDIBLY this has led to some of my most meaningful friendships.

I would want Christian Churches, specifically here in the United States, to focus on establishing, ensuring, and protecting the human rights of all people regardless of location, race, gender identity, nationality, citizenship, age, immigration status, sexual orientation, class, ability, criminal record, political party, education, or any other defining marker. Why?

Because this is what we do for those we love, those we value.

Because in Matthew when a “[Pharisee, who was also] a lawyer, asked [Jesus this] question to test him.  “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” [Jesus] said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (add endnote)

But who exactly is our neighbor? The Biblical greek word for neighbor is πλησιον. As with many words there are various similar meanings. But in this passage from Matthew and in the similar passages found in Mark and Luke the meaning of πλησιον or neighbor is fellow human being.

I chose these two things to change because when I see people suffering I get a physical ache in my chest and a pull in my stomach to do something about it. And I’ve learned that this is one of the ways the Holy Spirit moves me towards taking action on something.

When I sat down last week to look up the Scriptures for this morning you can’t imagine how excited I was to see our reading from Acts, because it is one of my favorite scripture passages. It’s such a beautiful and holistic picture of Christian community; learning together, enjoying fellowship, taking care of one other, all members contributing to the common good so that each members needs were met, and praising God together. Such bliss…if only we could get back to that.

With what I would change in the world and my love of this Acts passage in mind, you can’t even imagine the extent of my disappointment last spring when I took New Testament Narratives and found out the truth. Guess What?!? There is no evidence that this type of Christian communal economy ever existed in the first century. What a letdown! Instead scholars believe that Luke, the writer of Acts, used the description to suggest what the goal of a Christian community can look like. Once I thought about this and took into consideration the socio-historical context of that time period this made a lot for sense.

You see the world that the first century church found itself in looked a lot more like our world today than beautiful description that Luke gave us. There were Jews and Gentiles from all over the region who spoke different languages, had different backgrounds, different political views, different economic backgrounds. First century Christians hailed from a vast variety of backgrounds including elite and powerful gentiles and Jews, common citizens, slaves, and foreigners. They differed in every possible way, just as we do today. And they often gathered into groups with those who were most like themselves, probably because they didn’t understand those so different from themselves. Which also sounds a lot like today. But I wonder if that is truly what God wants for us?

(The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Mt 22:35–40). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.)