To All, As Any Have Need

Acts 2:42-47

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Rev Michael Vanacore | Fort Washington Collegiate Church | 5/3/2020

This morning, we celebrate the fourth Sunday after Easter. Throughout the Easter Season, we follow the course of the disciples as they build the Jesus movement in the wake of the crucifixion. Through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, we bore witness to the empty tomb. And together with Thomas, we began to integrate the reality of the resurrection. And in the past few Sundays, our lectionary passages recounted how the disciples transformed: from a fractured band of frightened followers into a massive movement that both proclaimed the risen Christ and carried on Jesus’s mission in a new and powerful way. A movement--it is crucial to remember--that rose up in the face of continued persecution from both Roman and Jewish authorities.

Our passage for this morning offers a snapshot of that transformation. For just a little context, it comes in the Book of Acts just after the event of the Pentecost, in which the Holy Spirit descends upon a mass gathering of Jesus’s followers. And, on that same day, following an inspiring sermon from the Apostle Peter, about three thousand are baptized and added to their number.

And so, rather than some anachronistic snapshot--it is not just another impressionistic depiction of some idyllic scene--our text is a vivid depiction of a community in transition. It is a concise description of a people who came together and of how they functioned--what their basic practices were, how they operated, and what their fundamental values were.

And what were those basic practices? Our text says that they devoted themselves daily to studying the teachings of the apostles, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. These are Practices that I believe can help us survive this pandemic. We should take time to study our sacred texts, and we should pay heed to the words of our leaders--both those who are alive now and the saints who went before us. We should strive for fellowship--both formally here in church and informally as we check in on and care for one another. And we should break bread--both nourishing our bodies and embracing our liturgical practices, like that of Communion. And we should pray. I confess that I myself, in this time, have been remiss in my practice of prayer. But when I return to it, as I did this morning as the rain fell softly yet insistently around my apartment, I feel God’s comfort and God’s healing.

But the central practice that we need to return to is the one that experts recognize as the central and defining feature of this nascent community: That all who believed were together and held all things in common; that they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute their proceeds to all, as any had need.

Now, I want to pause here and underscore just how essential this practice was. Now, some have attempted to diminish this example of solidarity as a brief or fleeting phenomenon. But the truth is that this practice was the defining characteristic of the early Christian community. Roman Montero, author of “All Things In Common: the Economic Practices of the Early Christians,” documents that both the early leaders of the Christian church, such as Tertullian of Carthage, and the enemies of the Christian faith, such as Lucian of Samosata, all agreed on one fact: that the early Christians shared all things in common, and that they made sure to meet the needs of the poorest among them.

This defining characteristic stood out to advocates and detractors alike precisely because it undercut the prevailing social and cultural norms of the day. In the early days of the first millenium, under the Roman empire and in the context of Greco-Roman culture, there existed strict divisions between the rich and the poor, the upper and the lower classes, and between the haves and the have-nots. Yes, the rich were encouraged to give to those less fortunate than themselves. But this was always done through the system of benefaction, whereby those who received became the clients of those who gave and remained always in their debt.

In fact, true friendship, which Aristotle elevated to the highest virtue, was forbidden between members of different classes. And those of the lowest strata of Greco-Roman society--the “ptokoi” in Greek--the poor, the destitute, or the “subhuman” as it has been translated, were not even allowed to participate in this system of benefaction.

In contrast, the Jesus movement placed at its center the concerns of the “ptokoi”. Jesus, as well as many of the apostles who followed him, were members of the lower classes themselves. In fact, in our passage today from the Book of Acts, it was at the feet of some of those same humble peasants, and not into the hands of the rich, that everyone had to lay all of their worldly possessions to be redistributed to all those who had need.

It is crucial to view this text, then, in light of the central teaching and objective of Jesus himself: the pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven. In that Kingdom, which, according to Jesus, was already at hand, the “ptokoi”, the poor and the destitute, were the ones who were destined to “inherit the earth.”

And so, when we reflect on the early community established by the Apostles, we see it for what it really was: their attempt to realize the Kingdom of God.

So, if they embraced this central principle: that all things should be held in common and, and that all possessions should be given “to all, as any had need,” what does it say to us that in our world today, a world riven by a global pandemic, so many have such great need, and yet so much wealth and power is being hoarded away in the hands the few?

Is this what it means to be a “Christian nation?” that on this first day of May, this International Workers Day, some of the biggest companies in the world--Amazon, and Target, FedEx and Whole Foods, are reporting record profits and hiring hundreds of thousands of employees? And yet, somehow they cannot afford to give their workers PPE, sick time, and hazard pay?

Is this what it means to be Christian, that in Illinois on May First, workers in forty nursing homes went out on strike? Workers who are literally on the front lines of caring for those who are dying in the greatest numbers from COVID-19?

Is this what it means to be a Christian, when in the midst of a global pandemic, the poorest and blackest and brownest and most vulnerable amongst us must choose every day whether they stay home and starve, or whether they go in to work and risk death?

Is this what it means to be Christian, that in the first week of April, fully one third of the American population was unable to pay rent, and God only knows how much that number has increased by today, this third of May?

Is this what it means to be Christian, that over 26 million Americans have joined the ranks of the unemployed, and have no way to earn their daily bread?

Is this what it means to be Christian?

Or might it be the Christian response to recapture some, if not all, of the wealth of the few, and to redistribute it to meet the needs of the many?

To enact not only rent suspension, but full forgiveness of rents, and utilities, mortgages, and student debt, so that all of our people could shelter in place from this pandemic?

To pass laws that not only protect our workers and guarantee their right to collectively bargain, but that also transforms the economic system that continues to exploit us all?

To radically reshape our community around principles of mutuality and dignity, solidarity and respect, and above all that erase the material conditions that hold in bondage the wretched of the earth?

In short, to do as the early Christians did, which was to lay all that we have at the foot of the Apostles, and to hold all things in common, to distribute everything that we have to any who have need, so that there are no longer any needy among us?

Perhaps, if we did all those things, we might then begin to be able to say, as the disciples of old, “we are followers of Jesus.” Perhaps we might come closer to realizing in our own time, as in the days of old, the Kingdom of God. Perhaps then we might be able to proclaim, with all the power of the Easter season, Hallelujah, Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed! Amen.