The Communty of Believers

Readings:
ACTS 4:32-37;
JN 3:7B-15

As we said at Easter, we’re going to try to keep sending some reflections your way on an occasional basis and figured, “Why not today?”

Today’s reading from Acts is, perhaps, one of the most foundational (and aspirational) texts from the Christian scriptures. I remember being in my 20’s studying theology and justice and starting to “experiment” in intentional community. These lines from Acts 4 were inspirational: The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of [their] possessions was [their] own, but they had everything in common.

That was the kind of community I wanted to live in, and I am guessing that these lines from Acts were a pretty accurate picture of what the early Christians lived out. We know this because they were known to be counter-cultural and made an impression wherever they went, in part, because of this collective economics that they practiced.

During these times of COVID-19, I wonder a lot about what kind of world we could have if we were to focus more on the common good. We heard the NY governor yesterday say clearly that as we move forward, we should not be in a rush to recreate what we had. Instead, we would do well to re-imagine how things might be.

What kind of economic systems do we want?

Whose needs to we want to prioritize?

What practices help us develop a unity of mind and heart?

Clearly there are so many more questions that we could generate that would move us towards this re-imagination, but re-imagine we must.

In the gospel, Jesus speaks to Nicodemus of being reborn and Nicodemus gets confused because he thinks of this literally. But Jesus persists and invites him to re-think his paradigm and and engage in metanoia (a change of heart).

Clearly, we as a collective need to be reborn and need a change of heart. We need to reimagine what our world can look like and how we will treat each other and our world in that reimagined space. So much more is possible if we can develop the courage, patience and grit to let it be birthed in and though us.

What kind of would would you want to live in? What we decide today will have a lot with what we live into tomorrow.