Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 21, 2002
Acts 2: 42-47
This past week, as I was reflecting on our text for today, I was reminded of a story told by Parker Palmer, a story I have shared with some of you before. Says Palmer, “For ten years I lived in an intentional community that was often graced by residents from abroad. One of them was a highly placed official in the government of the People’s Republic of China and a man whose inner light was as strong and steady as any I have ever known.
“One day this man offered to cook a Chinese dinner for eight of us and we quickly accepted. I drove him to the grocery store and, though I already had money in my wallet, I stopped at the bank on the way. Unconsciously I assumed that we would need to purchase the carload of groceries that is customary say, for a middle-class American Thanksgiving. Once inside the store, my Chinese friend purchased only enough vegetables, eggs, rice, and a few other items to fill a small bag. We paid ten dollars or so and headed home.
“He gathered us in the kitchen and showed us how to help prepare the meal. We found spices, brought out pots and pans, made sauces, separated eggs, and chopped those vegetables so fine that I thought they would disappear. Instead, they multiplied, and so did our joy. We spent the better part of the afternoon in that kitchen, talking and laughing and learning.
“The actual cooking took hardly any time. Six or eight dishes were prepared and set on the table before an astonished group. From that small bag of groceries had emerged a dinner large enough to satisfy all of us – a satisfaction that was laced with the joy that we took in our Chinese friend, the wonder of sharing in his rich and ancient culture, the delight of each other’s company, and the sense that we had somehow stepped closer to peace. The alchemy of love had turned scarcity into abundance.”
That certainly is one way to view the world, the world as a community – as a place to share together and through the act of sharing turn scarcity into abundance. But it is not the only way to view life in the world. There are others. There is Calvin’s way, from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip, which I still greatly miss.
Calvin says to Hobbes, “It’s an outrage that six-year-olds can’t vote. Here I am, a U.S. citizen, with no voice in our representative government.” Hobbes asks, “You’re concerned about the direction the country is headed?” “No,” says Calvin, “I just want a bigger piece of the pie.”
Another way to view the world, a view often supported by the market economy and the advertising industry. There is only so much to go around, so you had better get yours – get as big a piece of the pie as fast as you can and hold on to it, add to it. Don’t let it go. No such thing as too much. Sort of the Enron point of view, a point of view that a lot of Americans have bought into. The one who dies with the most toys wins. Keep it and don’t share it.
As I said, in our text today we have a snapshot of life in the first Christian community. “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 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, praising God...” Sound like a bunch of 1st century Communists…having all things in common, selling their possessions and goods…pooling their resources so that no one was in need. I’m not sure young Calvin would understand…or approve. It’s not the Enron way! Imagine everyone with a piece of the pie that was similar in size as the piece held by everyone else… no one over-consuming, no one in need, enough to go around. The advertising industry in this country would crash and burn if such a thing happened!
Vietnamese Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, likes to speak of life on this planet as a vast web of “inter-being.” He says that we “inter-are,” and the world we live in “inter-is.” All “inter-being.” There is no escape he says, from this central fact. When we take a look at something as simple as a piece of bread, for instance, we see that it cannot exist in and for itself. Rather, it is part of this vast web. In the bread there are people: farmers, bakers, and truck drivers with their families, their friends and relations. In a small piece of bread are seeds, sunshine, rain, and the bees as they work the flowers and make honey, the chickens and the eggs, the cows and the milk. There are even tiny beings, the yeast, that give the bread its lightness. For something as seemingly simple as a piece of bread, we find that the interconnections are endless and vast. And when we take the bread into our mouths, we too participate in this “inter-being,” the on-going communion that is life in this world.
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need…they broke bread at home and ate their food, with glad and generous hearts, praising God…” Inter-being…connection. All of us, Catholics and Protestants, Muslim and Christian, Muslim and Jew, all of us in this church – all of us connected, part of a human story that binds us together. Even if we wanted to, we could not exist apart from that story. We really are brothers and sisters. Yet, so often we act as if we had never met…as if we have nothing in common, indeed as if we are threats to one another. I had better be careful; you might want some of my piece of the pie. I better buy some more insurance to defend myself, defend my stuff.
I find myself thinking back to our Ash Wednesday service at the beginning of Lent. As I placed ashes on the forehead of each person who came forward and received ashes from Tara, I think I might have had a religious experience. It is as if I began to see each person who came forward like I had never seen them before. I began to feel a deeper connection. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Dust…all of us dust. We are all connected because we are of the same stuff – “the dust contemplating itself,” a theologian once said – outcroppings of earth destined by God to become living beings. That night it occurred to me how differently we might treat each other, care for each other, look out for each other, if we could just recognize each person in that way, could see the miracle of his or her being and of our own. How humbling to be aware of our common origin and our shared dependence on God for life. And how outrageously wonderful of God to do such things with just a little dust.
Getting an ever-expanding piece of the pie just isn’t going to make it. Those early Christians knew something we have forgotten. What finally matters most is not me and my comfort and my security – sorry Calvin; it is not me feeling good about myself. What matters most, is increasing love of God and neighbor, deepening this vast web of inter-being, turning scarcity into abundance through the alchemy of love, sharing God’s blessings, the blessings of God’s good creation, with all the other creatures on the earth; all God’s children got a place in the choir.
Preacher and teacher Fred Craddock, someone I greatly admire, tells a story about a church he once visited, a very big, downtown, prestigious church. It was the status church in town, or at least it had been. But the town began to change, as towns do. Different people began showing up in that church, different faces. The Elders of the church were not too sure about these changes. Believe it or not, they passed a by-law, which stated that from that time forward, only property owners could be members of the church. Well, as you can guess, this eliminated a few people. Think of young people, new families who couldn’t afford property yet. And indeed, the church began to decline. Craddock says he went back to that church several years later and it had in fact closed it’s doors and gone out of business. It was now a restaurant. There was a salad bar where the Lord’s Table used to be. Interesting thing is, says Craddock, “ Now everyone is welcome at that table.”
Just seems that in this broken, hurting old world of ours, we spend so much time arguing and fighting over who is not welcome. What we need is a larger table, not a smaller one. And right here, in this community of faith, is where the construction of such a table can begin and must begin.
Lila Wilson is an aboriginal woman of the Australian outback who challenged arriving Christian missionaries with words something like these: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your transformation – your wholeness and well-being – are somehow bound up with mine, then stay awhile and let us work together.” Well friends, let that be our message, let us stay awhile and work together. Let us recognize each other as creatures from the same dust…together. And let us trust in the spirit of Christ and Christ’s love, which will see us through together.