April 13, 2008

Being Together in Community

by Julianne Stokstad

Being together in community, in a community of believers, is one of the strongest reasons why I am in church. I don't know all of your stories, but for me, to have a safe place among fellow Christians where I belong is very important. It helps to counter the rampant individualism and selfishness of our culture. It helps me remember what I hold to be important and to live accordingly to what I believe. It helps me to work with others so that together we can accomplish much more than I could by myself. The community inspires and strengthens my faith. Here in Marin, it is a VERY counter-cultural behavior. Today I want to take a look at being together in community in the UCC.

Our scripture reading from the book of Acts describes an idyllic early Christian community. In this brief passage characteristics of the community are listed. They spent much time together learning, worshiping and enjoying each other's company. There were no books, no internet, no television---they must have had to sit together, listening and discussing honestly, learning in the best most ancient of ways. As they worshiped with the breaking of bread and prayers, they must have reverently told the great story of Jesus and of the coming of the Holy Spirit to them at Pentecost. Their belief must have been fervent, as they experienced awe at all the good works being performed. And they believed in radical generosity---in the sharing of all their possessions. And all of these things led to the most important characteristic of all, they were truly joyful in their Christian life. They were a community of people with glad and generous hearts and in that, they are a model for us.

How did they do this? Was it that their culture was so much more corrupt than ours? Going back to the text for clues, I read before and after our passage to get the context and a larger sense of the story. Before our passage, Peter told the apostles to go out and preach repentance and baptize in the name of Jesus Christ. And the apostles went out testified and discussed and debated with the people saying "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." Those who welcomed his message were baptized and joined the community. The culture these early Christians lived in was corrupt. The early Christians lived in opposition to the culture, yet apart with joy, worship and sharing. Can any of you imagine such a community?

How did they do this? Were these early Christians different in their basic human nature than us? How could they share all things? Can you imagine selling all you had to be member here? If we read just after today's scripture, we come upon two early Christians you have probably never heard of-Ananias and Sapphira. This couple decided not to share all their possessions, but to keep back a little bit, just in case. When they were called in to account for this, and told they had lied to God, one after the other, they fell down dead! Scary!

For Luke, author of the book of Acts, how we share and use our possessions is a kind of barometer of our spiritual condition and our relationship with God. Greed and fear are very powerful indeed. Powerful enough to have been a major contributing factor to the downfall of Soviet communism, powerful enough to have caused the economic crisis in this country and beyond. This story of the early church tells of a community that meant everything to its members.

In the early church, they were to repent of their sins before even becoming baptized and members of the community. But as we just heard, some fell back into their former ways. Alas, it has always been so. While I don't know what the early church had for rules, I do know that over the centuries as it grew the Church has found it necessary to centralize acceptable beliefs and behaviors, hence various creeds were written. Moral guidelines were codified and for most obscured God's radical and forever love for each of us as we were controlled by fear of the lack of that unconditional love.

We don't talk much about sin here. Well, every Sunday we say in the Lord's Prayer, "forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." I don't' know exactly why this change was made, but I presume it speaks more of moral failures than do "debts" or "trespasses." I understand sin as any behavior that keeps us away from God and God's love. Sin is such a confusing term. It is mainly a religious term used to describe an action that violates a moral rule. Perhaps it is one reason why so many people in Marin describe themselves as spiritual, but do not belong to any religious community. Nobody likes to be judged! But with rules, is there anything to which we, as Christians, are accountable besides not breaking the laws of our city, state and country? I think so, but what is it to which we are accountable?

According to the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to give the rebellious Israelites some rules for behavior in their community. Jews have an abundance of religious rules written down in the Torah and these are explicated in the writings of the Rabbis over the centuries in the Mishnah. Buddhists don't speak of sin, but of right actions and right living in the Four-fold Way and the Eight-fold Path. Buddhists believe in karma, which is to say cause-and-effect or what goes around, comes around. If you do harmful actions, you will suffer consequences if not in this life, then in the next. Nevertheless if you read about the growth of the early Buddhist community, you will read that as the community grew, so did the rules.

The New Testament, written in Greek, translated "sin" as missing the mark. The Catholic Church encoded moral behavior centuries ago naming the big sins and little sins and until recently requiring Catholics confess their sins each week in church. Progressive Christians have more fluid understanding of sins, based mostly on Jesus' words from Jewish tradition to love God and to love one's neighbor as oneself. But also we have become increasingly aware of structural sins of the community and culture. Sins are also those actions that harm groups of individuals or the earth, such as, racism, sexism, genocide, and pollution. I think personal confession of wrongdoing is good as it reminds us to be humble given our proclivity as humans for wrongdoing.

Are there rules and expectations of us? Does God's love come with responsibility? Our increasing scientific knowledge only makes definition harder. For example, if someone carries the gene for alcoholism, is it a sin to drink because over time it is a real possibility to become an alcoholic? Is it a sin or a tragedy to be addicted? Who is responsible for such a tragedy? In a community such as ours, where openness and tolerance is so important, where do we draw the line? What kinds of expectations, responsibilities do we have here of each other?

Is it enough to say, as we do, we love God and our neighbor as ourselves and leave moral development up to each individual? If we say we love God, how does that affect what we do? I am always saying God loves you, but when we really understand and accept that, then what is required of you, of me, of us?

What does it mean to love oneself? Is it even possible to do that without being self-centered and selfish? Can we love ourselves when we know all the things we have done and still do that are wrong? What does it mean to be human?

It is great to say we love our neighbor, but who is our neighbor? Is it only the people who live next door to us, the ones with the same amount of money we have, the ones likely in the same class? Or is our neighbor the person in the pew next to you or those who live in Pilgrim Park or do neighbors include the Baptists across the street and the Jews down the road? Or is our neighbor also the person in jail, the person who is so rude to you on the highway? And what about all God's children as neighbors, do you see the children in Cuernavaca as your neighbors----no matter what you think about their father's illegal immigration?

All this leads me to what we need to do here in the UCC. Our national leadership has recently put two full-page ads in national newspaper, taking advantage of the unflattering attention Jeremiah T. Wright has brought to the UCC. We are being invited into an honest and open conversation about our differences, about all those things that separate us, all those things we never speak about. I wonder if we are brave enough here to engage in conversation? I believe our true salvation will be found in honestly telling our own stories. I mean stories of the hard things, we usually don't tell about, stories about race and class. Is it possible for us to learn to listen, openly, without trying to justify ourselves or judge the person taking? Are we willing simply to listen intently, trying to understand another person's sacred story?

Different experiences, different parents, different traumas, and different joys have formed us all and yet here we are, brothers and sisters in Christ, joyfully sharing our worship, gratefully being community together. As we confront and share our differences, not expecting others to be changed, I believe we will become spiritually more like the early church.

Jesus' prayer for the church is that all believers may be one in God and express their unity in love. Our unity is not dependent upon uniform agreement, but on shared allegiance to love in Jesus Christ. Silence does not show our unity, but an unwillingness to address differences. Let us be courageous, as our forefathers and mothers in faith in the UCC have been and begin a dialogue. I believe our community will become more vital, our appreciation for each other much greater and the spirit in our community will become vital and dynamic, alive and on fire! May it be so!

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