Planning today’s worship services was a lot like trying to dock a boat. If you’ve ever docked a boat you know it isn’t exactly hard but it can take some practice. Unlike parking a car where you have a solid object connected to the solid earth, docking a boat is trying to control a solid object that is moving on a liquid. The current in the water affects what you’re trying to do. The current may be variable. Similarly there may be wind you have to compensate for, and that may be variable too. Plus there’s the fact that the slower a boat goes the less maneuverable it is. And add in that when you’re docking the water is probably shallow so you raise the boat propeller up, which gives you even less control! Still though,
with a bit of
practice it isn’t hard. You just have to
be ready to respond to the unknown.
I say that’s what
planning this worship service was like because, while our Sunday morning
worship services are usually in development about a month or two out, the exact
details of the service come together the Wednesday before. You’ll remember well that last Tuesday was
the election. Results were coming in on
Wednesday. People’s reactions were all
over the place. Some were happy and
excited. Some were angry, scared, or
confused. As the dean of our conference
I was also in touch with people from other congregations and the pastors. Then there’s also that ever present dynamic
of American society where people’s feelings change, and fast. They feel strongly one day. They feel different the next. Usually about the third day they’ve forgotten
all about it and are on to something else.
So, on a Wednesday
how do you know what it will be like on a Sunday? Like docking a boat where you have a solid
object moving on top of a liquid, the solid form of the worship service is
moving on an ever changing liquid.
There’s also the
stewardship drive on generosity and the Acts 2 text chosen for today. We want to stay on track for that too. Fortunately it all comes together fairly
well.
In Acts 2 the
earliest followers of Jesus sell their possessions and hold all things in
common. Many people have interpreted
that to mean that Jesus and the early church promoted communism. While that interpretation is popular, I do
not think that is what is intended.
Despite the fact that Jesus talked about money more than any other
topic, he never promoted communism or any economic system we would recognize
today. What we do find in Jesus’
teachings and throughout the New Testament can be summed up in four things:
work hard, be generous, don’t be exploitative, and don’t be lazy.
If there is any
economic system at work at all it is an ancient Jewish one. The ancient Jews believed that all things
were God’s property and they were to use them accordingly. As best I can interpret, that’s the only
economic policy promoted in the Bible.
There is an
important and powerful thing at work underlying the text in Acts where the
disciples are living with common things.
It’s powerful, but subtle.
Even though I
don’t think it is a fair interpretation of the Acts text, for the sake of understanding
that powerful thing, let’s look at how communism always ends up working.
Since we’ve talked about boats in
water, I have here a big basin with water in it. Water is unstable. It will take the shape of whatever container
you put it in. If I try to pick some up
with my hand it will pretty quickly trickle away. Water will seep through every tiny hole and
crack. If I take my hand and press down
upon the surface of the water, what will happen? Will the water resist? Not really.
It will give way to my hand. I’ll
get a bit of buoyancy since my hand is less dense than the water, but that is
it. The water is a liquid and it will
swirl around. My hand will easily press
through the water until I hit the solid bottom of the bowl.
I believe that anyone who tries to
construct a communist nation, or even a small community, is facing the problem
like the instability of water. Communist
ideologies rest on the idea that there is some sort of overarching virtue in
people that can be counted upon to become dominant. While indeed, there are many good things that
will come to the surface, they never actually dominate. Some people in any society will work
hard. You can count on them. They are conscientious and dependable. Other people are lazy and exploitative. They’re also clever. They’ll invent aches, pains, complications,
and all sorts of excuses so they don’t have to work. Good luck trying to stay ahead of them! Ultimately a sizeable portion of the
population will try to find ways to extract value from others without providing
the same value from themselves.
Plus, most people
are very skilled liars. Polite society
relies on a lot of people lying. Oh,
these aren’t conniving evil lies, but they are lots of times you pretend to
like someone you don’t like. Or you
pretend to be interested in what someone is saying even though that person is
boring. Or you compliment someone on
something even though they didn’t do a very good job. It’s all part of civil, polite society. But of course it can be darker.
Last week I was
reading an article by 20th century theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He wrote about the way many people who are
idealists, and think humanity is improving, are kidding themselves. He said that many people will put on the
façade of niceness, or inclusivity, or equality, or political correctness, or
whatever social expectations the segment of society they are in expects, but
it’s not real. They’re still driven by
selfish ambitions and they’ve found that the best way to get their selfish ends
met is to embrace whatever it is that is socially acceptable. They’ll even appear selfless for selfish ends
if selflessness is considered a virtue.
Many people continue to believe that
somehow with proper education, and emotional responsiveness, and safety that a
virtuousness will rise up within most people.
They say that if we can empower that, then human society will be:
better, kinder, and gentler.
Not so. These people need to read some things from
St. Augustine, who over 1600 years ago was writing about the way people are
always driven by their needs and desires – not about altruism or some sort of reliable
inherent goodness. Augustine was not
saying that people are always bad. But
he was saying that society is driven by complex factors and you can’t expect
people to know and do the right and loving thing if it’s against their own self
interest.
Common ownership of all things based
on virtuousness and sense that people within themselves will just have this
upwelling of selfless love within them just won’t work.
So, what is going on with the Acts
text? Is it a myth? Is it a lie?
No. There is a strong uniting
force holding them together.
Let’s do a middle school science
demonstration on hydraulics. I got the
idea after helping Tom Urbanic last week with the church’s snow plow
truck. We’ve been having trouble with
the hydraulic system that controls the plow.
A liquid in a bowl will always just
squish around to accommodate whatever you put in it. It’s like human society based on
goodness. But liquids don’t always just
squish all over the place. Contain them
and they can do forceful things. That is
the principle behind hydraulics.
I have here two syringes connected
by a plastic tube. In the tube is water
and there are no air bubbles. If I press
down on the one syringe the water cannot compress and it cannot squish out
anywhere. The only thing it can do is
travel down the tube and push the other syringe up. Similarly, if I pull back the other syringe
will be sucked back down. I can go fast,
or slow, or however I want. The water is
contained in the tube and it has to respond.
This is only cheap plastic tube and plastic syringes. On the church’s plow truck the components are
steel and reinforced hosing. Thousands
of pounds can be lifted. If you contain
liquids you can control them very well.
There was a powerful controlling,
limiting, and unifying force among the early converts to Christianity. They weren’t joined together by having a
sharing spirit. They weren’t a happy
little utopian community where virtues reign.
It wasn’t goodness that unified them.
In fact, it was the recognition of the opposite! The powerful unifying container around them was
sinfulness. If there was any virtue at
all it was a common need for repentance.
I don’t mean the type of repentance where they all feel bad about
themselves before God. I mean the sort
of repentance where they know of God’s generosity towards them. They knew that the great and powerful creator
of the universe loved them and chose them to do His work. They didn’t deserve that honor. Their community was no great collection of
virtue. It was a collection of people
united in their knowledge that they needed God.
Trying to be good on your own or as
a community will result in water squishing all over the place. United by a common recognition that they are
sinners who don’t deserve it, and if left to their own would become manipulative
and exploitative, they are powerfully held together.
Gathered here today, we are not
united in political party, or immigration policy, or economic strategy, or a
common view of war or virtue. We are not
united in finances, race, gender, age, or anything like that. We are united in our common recognition that
if left to ourselves we would turn away from God. But God calls us back and holds onto us
tightly.
Would it work for us to all sell our
possessions and live communally? I doubt
it. Would virtue reign? I doubt that even more! But the common bond of our need for God’s
grace is a powerful uniter. It makes us
a solid and effective force. We do share
common ownership of this space. We do
generously share of our earnings to support this property, which is used by
many in the community, and to support our staff salaries, and to create worship
services, and support missionaries and all sorts of projects and ministries
which are happening all the time. Some
are local. Some are global. It is powerful stuff that God provides for
us. We pray that God would always unite
us and make us capable of doing all that needs to be done.
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