Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Experience of Unity in the Early Church
Commentary
for the November 3, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“All the believers
were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was
their own, but they shared everything they had.” Acts 4:32,
NIV
The experience of the early Christian Church is hard for
us to envision today, especially in Western culture where emphasis is often
placed on independent self-sufficiency and those who are in need are often
looked down upon as leeching resources from hard-working individuals. The
feeling may be that I went to school to prepare for a career, now I work long
hours every week to provide for my family, so why should I support someone who
has done none of those things? Don’t I deserve the fruits of my labor? Besides
we all know what Paul said to the Thessalonians about not feeding someone who
is too lazy to work.[i]
Shouldn’t we demand productive work from everyone?
But then what about the person who cannot work due to mental
or physical defect? Should they at least do what they can? Should we expect
from each according to their ability and provide for each according to need?[ii] Wait a minute. Isn’t that
Socialism? Are Christians then Socialists? Is it possible that Socialism was
not invented by Marx, but instead was merely a resurfacing of something long
understood by pre-industrial societies, something biblical because it was intrinsic
to the culture the Bible grew out of? Even if we only accept the Genesis record
for the beginning of all things as metaphor, it still reveals that mankind was
created classless. No human had dominion over another human. It wasn’t until
selfishness came in after the fall that people began to see things differently.
When two selfish people live together, there has to be some compromise or their
greed will destroy them as they fight one another to possess all they can.
Compromise requires submission of one to the other. The Bible tells us that this
would result in the woman being submissive to the man,[iii] perhaps because his
greater physical strength would allow him to dominate her physically. But things
did not stop there, for men began to dominate one another as well. The most
egregious initial example of this was Cain murdering Abel. From there, over
time, bloodshed and selfish evil filled the earth with violence, pain and
heartache. Eventually that selfishness destroyed much of mankind.
Through Noah,[iv] God provided an
opportunity for man to repent and come together again to build a vessel that
would deliver whoever might be saved from a coming deluge Although Noah, and probably
his father Lamech also, warned the people for decades as the ark was built.
Such a large construction project naturally would draw a curious crowd of “sidewalk
superintendents,” providing Noah and his family opportunity to invite the
people to join with them in preparing for the flood to come. But they were too
far gone from the ability to work together harmoniously and failed to take
advantage of the chance for salvation. Even when they saw the animals gathering
to enter the ark, it was great entertainment, but the people remained obdurate.
As a result, Noah, his wife, their sons and their sons’ wives were the only
humans to enter the ark, Lamech having recently died.
Those who survived did not soon forget the lessons about
cooperating with one another, and they turned it into a project to save
themselves from another flood with the building of the Tower of Babel. But that
cow had already left the barn. There was not to be another flood. However,
mankind did not trust God. In effect they intended to use cooperation as a
means to usurp God’s control of the earth, or at least his control of the
people living there. The Bible tells us that the language was confounded there
to hinder mankind’s ability to work together for improper ends.[v] While this brought the
project to a halt, and some today may question the validity of the story, the
idea of building towers heavenward is amply attested to in the archaeological
record by the presence of large ziggurats on the Mesopotamian plain. It is a
theme that is even echoed in ancient Aztec temples in the Americas, implying the
possibility of a common cultural memory. But why is all of this important?
Maybe through these examples we can see that as mankind
walks in God’s will, he shares profitably for all, but as he wanders from that relationship,
sharing diminishes and may even disappear entirely. Coupled with this is the
understanding that mankind is endowed with worth by virtue of his creation by
God and that intrinsic worth brings with it certain rights and
responsibilities. Being a creature of worth, everyone’s needs have value and
should be cared for lest the value of the individual be diminished. This is necessary
because the diminishing of the value of individuals also produces a reduced
value for the total collective of all mankind. Preserving that value of each of
us preserves the value of all of us. When we diminish the value of someone else
we also create a false construct that is harmful to the entire group, for we
are establishing a precedent that allows that same devaluation to be applied to
us. For instance, if disability, race, or gender are seen as reasons to devalue
someone, what is likely to be the outcome if we become disabled or our race or gender
is not looked upon as having value? We become marginalized and neglected,
breeding resentment, hostility and perhaps worse. Unity is destroyed, and like
at the Tower of Babel, people separate into subgroups that share commonalities.
Those subgroups then seek to self-reference value within the group as an
alternative to the value lost in the larger culture. We see this today in movements
like “Black Lives Matter” and the “#metoo” movement.
Tragically there is another spin to this kind of devaluation.
If a person tires to straddle both worlds, they can end up with value in
neither. Even though it may be impossible for them to re-establish value in the
larger group, they may denigrate the smaller one in an effort to demonstrate to
the larger that they are not “one of those without value.” When they do this,
they make themselves available for manipulation by those who devalued the smaller
group in the first place. The Quisling who does this must continuously strive
to make himself relevant for this purpose to the larger group or be returned to
the same ignominy they experienced before, only because of their activities,
they will no longer be able to find worth in either group. The end of such individuals
is too often seen in the fate of Judas, Christ’s lost
apostle, who betrayed the smaller group of Christ’s followers in an attempt to define
his worth with the money of the high priest.
When someone is thirsty, hungry, cold, naked or without
shelter and we refuse to help them secure those things according to their need
and our ability, we are teaching them that they don’t need to value others
either. But every drink we give them says, “You have value, we cannot allow
that value to be lost to thirst.” That same message is sent no matter what the
need is when we value someone to the point of satisfying any of their needs.
This is perhaps why Jesus said helping others was helping him, because in
helping others we are restoring the value to them that he gave them through his
death on the cross. In effect, he said the life of each person on the face of
the earth is equal in value to his life. The devil knows and understands this
and perhaps that is why he works so hard to concentrate more and more of this
world’s resources in fewer and fewer hands, to stymie our efforts to insert
value into other peoples’ lives. Like the wolf in the corn crib of Aesop’s
fable, some are eager to sit on wealth they do not need, not because it
benefits them in any way, but because it perversely allows them to indicate that
they alone have value and no one else does. However, in the end, they may find
that bed of riches that they held onto for a few short years on this mortal
coil was purchased at a very steep price. As we draw near to the holiday season
once again, Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” will be there to remind us of
that most important of all lessons.
We may do well to contemplate unity and its possibility
by asking ourselves what words, what actions or even what thoughts of ours
serve to devalue the role others play within our culture, our church, our
community, our families, our work or our marriages. Unlike Judas, it is not too
late for us to begin adding value to the lives of others. When we do, we will find
our value enhanced as well, and unity will flow like fragrant oil throughout the
earth.
