Overwhelmed by Joy

This description of the church in Acts sounds too good to be true – utopian, everyone shared everything, no one needed for anything, Shangri la.

This passage typically garners one of two responses from Biblical scholars. Some point out that surely when he was writing Acts, Luke was looking back with nostalgia at the “good old days.” Others are quick to point out that this passage is not advocating communism. These are uncomfortable verses for American Christians. We don’t read them often. They appear in the lectionary after Easter during a few weeks when rather than an Old Testament lesson, there is a lesson from Acts. And the Gospel lesson is the story of Doubting Thomas touching the wounds of Jesus – surely that is a better story to tell post-Easter, evidence of Jesus’ resurrection.

I want to suggest that we need to take these verses for what they say to us. If we read this description of the early church community looking for all the reasons not to pattern our life similarly, we might just miss the message they have to share with us.

The writer of Acts may be looking back with nostalgia, but he isn’t wearing rose-colored glasses. In the very next verses, he will tell of the deception and fracturing of community and resulting deaths of Ananias and Sapphira. He knows that human beings will be sinful. We will not be able to sustain vulnerability. We will not be able to trust. We will be selfish, that nagging longing to establish a sense of security with overwhelm us. We will lie and cheat. The Kingdom of God cannot be established and maintained by human beings.

And that is what Luke is telling us. He is pointing back to the description of God’s vision for society in Deuteronomy 15. Moses has come down with the Ten Commandments after 40 days in God’s presence and is explaining how they are to govern themselves. Every 7 years, all debts are to be cancelled and all slaves released and, says Moses, “If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. 8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. 10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

Scholars who are focused on ensuring the reader understands that the early church community was not organized as a commune are quick to offer the “rules” of the community. At first, you were just invited to share. Then when you really committed, you signed everything over, some postulate. They point out other New Testament Scriptures that describe being in someone’s house to reassure that they didn’t sell their homes, saying that ownership was not renounced, but individual possessiveness was.

Here’s the thing, the details of their economic arrangement are not what is important for us today. We know that giving brings joy. We know that sacrifice strengthens our relationship with God. We know that tithing is a spiritual discipline that guards us from believing we are self-made, reminds us that everything we have is a blessing from God, and softens our hearts to respond to God’s desire for our lives. But that is not the point of this passage…for just a bit, after the resurrection, there was a community that embodied God’s dream for humanity, covenant community, the way things are in heaven here on earth. Here is some of the most powerful evidence we have of Jesus’ resurrection. It changed their lives!

What could have so overwhelmed these first believers with joy that they let go of their self-concern? When we hear they held all things in common, we start clutching our wallets a little closer and rationalizing our need to protect our assets, of course, for the sake of others. We wouldn’t want to be a burden to our family. We have children who will need support. Our parents might need us.

What would allow us to be just as concerned about the person who sits two pews over from us, or who has found us on YouTube during the pandemic and we have never met them in person, or who has maddeningly different political and social views than we do, or who comes from a completely different background – what would cause us to care about that person enough to sacrifice for them?

The early church community didn’t take care of each other and share whatever they had with whoever needed it because that was the rule or that was the way they were organized. They were united, made one, in heart and mind because of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

With all their different backgrounds – Gentiles and the Jews, some from Rome, others from Egypt, some born and raised in Jerusalem, some nomads from the desert wilderness, some were Temple authorities, some were quite wealthy, others were dirt poor – they were One in heart and mind. At the core, deep within them, what mattered was Jesus. Living the way he had taught them, following his example, serving like Jesus, loving like Jesus. They were so overwhelmed by the joy of resurrection that nothing else was more important.

They were one – no barriers, no facades, no hiding the hurt, no pretending everything was ok. Hard times were shared. They knew each other. They loved each other. When someone was struggling, they leaned in and strengthened each other. When someone was thriving, the whole community celebrated. It wasn’t natural then. It isn’t natural now. It was radical. It is radical. It wasn’t about rules then. It isn’t about rules now. It was and is about the heart. The resurrection was life-changing. And it can be life-changing today.

It would be great if I could give you a simple recipe for how to live your life, if I could give you an example of a person who wrote a big check and we could all feel good about how generous he or she is and declare that if we too were multi-billionaires we would be generous, if I could even tell you that you can decide for your life to be changed, but I can’t. We get so caught up in the first sentence of Luke’s description about how the community was living with everything in common that we can miss how their lives were being changed.

“With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all,” writes Luke. I was much older than I would like to admit before I knew what made a person an apostle – an apostle is someone who saw the risen Christ. Luke tells us that those who saw Jesus resurrected talked about it, and great grace was upon them all. All we can do to change our lives is to try to be apostles. Jesus said we would see him.

He might have been in front of you at the pharmacy, that woman trying to figure out which of her meds she could do without because she couldn’t pay for them all. Or maybe that was him on the news in Brazil, the lines for food have doubled. Maybe he was a member of the family in the line who were interviewed – both the husband and wife have lost their jobs, now with their five children they are about to lose their house. Holding their 9 month old, mom was crying as she said, “I was hoping for a good life. Sometimes I think I should give my children away to social services.” Perhaps at the pharmacy you noticed the pharmacist finding a coupon for some of the prescriptions so that the woman was able to fill them for another month, or was that you who slipped the $100 bill to the tech at the other window? Perhaps you saw the compassion in the eyes of the news reporter, or the conversations the volunteers helping pass out food were having with people in line about their needs beyond today’s portion of meat and rice, or was that you who prayed for them?

The resurrected Jesus is all around us. You just might see him today if you look. Then, you’ll be an apostle, too. Your life will never be the same, your heart and soul will morph into the heart and soul of a believer. We will tell the stories of where we have seen Jesus, and great grace will be upon us all.