Committing to One Another in Community

• Lute and Special Guest Concert on May 5th at 3pm (all donations support Suicide Prevention).

Watch the Recording HERE.

The resurrection invites us on a journey of Transformation.  It invites us into new beginnings.  It asks us to be willing to begin anew and to allow ourselves to be surprised, awed, and transformed.  It is a reminder that every moment is an opportunity for hope.  Imagine a life continually celebrating the spirit of resurrection, rebuilding, and transformation.  Imagine our part to play in this new dawning.  

This time is an opportunity to unlock the doors we have locked, to stay beside the empty tomb to wait, to not shut out the light or the darkness because of our fears.  This might be something beautiful to consider as we watch and are awed by the eclipse this week.   Light and darkness and fear.  What we lock out when we shut ourselves away and entomb ourselves behind closed doors because we are afraid.  Jesus is sometimes the door opener and the light maker.  

Acts is an excellent read for new beginnings and possibility.  A book to guide us toward what kind of communities do we want to build?  Small, big, and bigger.  As families.  As churches.  As societies.  It sets the stage that in order to build communities, we must work together not as individuals.  We must tend to one another and care for one another.  Despair is lonely.  Hope is not and hope is a group effort.  

A little history on The Book of Acts.  Acts is the story of the Community of Christ forming and what kind of community that is to be.   It is a continuation of the Gospels or “Jesus, continued” as one of my teachers calls it.  Acts is the building of deeply committed and deeply loving communities.  Peoples united in one heart and mind.  Peoples united in one truth: Love and tending to one another.

That’s a lot of trust and faith asked in this little passage of Acts.  Our readings this week can be summed up as revolving around one central tenant: proof that we love God is that we love one another. 

We have in our readings this week that we are of one heart and mind (soul).  We are to be mindful of one another’s needs and to share what we have—all of it.  Where we forgive, God also forgives.  Peace is with all of us and to be shared with all of us.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.  

Proof that we love God is that we love one another.  

Acts helps us to discern how to love one another and how to build communities based on Love first.  Community united in one heart and mind. United in a deep trust of God.  Trust in Jesus.  Trust in the apostles.  Trust in one another.  

It’s hard to trust one another and easy to say: but it was different back then.  It wasn’t.  That’s a story we tell ourselves to excuse our lack of faith in one another. If we’re honest, we trust most people, but we don’t trust the collective society or the people we don’t know.  Mistrust breeds mistrust.  

Notice that without trust, this new community isn’t going to work.  If no one trusts the apostles, there won’t be any shared resources to support those in need.  If we don’t trust one another, or care about one another, we don’t share.  We hold on to what we need for fear that we won’t be taken care of because we don’t trust that others will love and tend to us in our times of need.  If we don’t trust God or Jesus, we have even bigger problems (we’ll see this next week). 

There are no exceptions.  Exceptions are when community falls apart.  If sharing is for the rest of the people, then who’s doing the sharing?  If we don’t have to do the work (for whatever the reason), then who is doing the work? If we can’t trust one another, then who can we trust?   These excuses and exceptions are when the community falls apart.  We see this in the next chapters when people try to make themselves the exceptions…there is death and there is destruction.  

We don’t have to always agree, but our core tenants must be in line.

What we believe and how do we act, together, on those beliefs must be in line.  To break faith is to be broken. To break trust is to be broken.  

One of the biggest questions Acts asks of us is what are we willing to give up for Jesus to create loving communities?  What are we willing to give up to walk the path of Love?  Are we willing to trust in one another, in our leaders, and in the bigger Grace?  Or are we afraid?  

Of course, we’re afraid.  What is it they say? Courage isn’t doing something because we aren’t afraid.  Courage is being afraid and doing the right thing anyway.  

What are we willing to risk to make the world, our world, a better place?  Yes, it takes deep courage and deep trust.  The best things in life usually do.  

Mistrust breeds mistrust.  Trust begets trust.  

These first communities are interesting to explore.  How are they like us?  How are they not like us?  How can we create communities more like these?  Because these people are people…just like us.  People who made it work.  People who put peace before everything else.  Communities who built on a foundation of peace first.  People who chose trusted leaders.  People who chose to trust in one another.  

Nothing asked of us is easy.  Communities are created not to judge, but to forgive.  Not to shame, but to support.  Judgment and shame breed more judgement and shame.  Forgiveness and support breed more forgiveness and support…the things of Love.  This Acts reading is both beautiful and scary.  We have to have trust and faith.  And we really don’t trust one another.  It might be argued that we don’t trust ourselves.  

Churches and religions get a lot of flack, but church and religions can be the holder of spirituality.  People make up communities of Love and Faith, that can go awry, but it can also be so lovely and so needed.  It can be the anchor in an anchor-less world.  We don’t need to walk alone in an isolated world.  It’s an opportunity to take a leap of faith and proclaim: this is what I believe. This is what I walk.  This is my Way.  This is my Path.  This is my Guide.    

These are the people I choose to follow and walk with.  

To put ourselves out there to be judged and criticized, but also to put ourselves out there to set an example and to show that a path of grace and peace together is…truly and actually…possible.  

It’s an opportunity to find like minded people and pool resources to do good together.  To do together what we cannot do alone.  Together, we can gently hold one another accountable to walk the walk, to challenge one another in our thoughts and ideas, not to change one another, but to grow together with one another.  We have a home to be supported when we get lost and we ALL get lost sometimes. 

It’s a place to listen. To help. To forgive.  To Love.  

First century Christians have a lot to tell us about community building. PAUSE.  It is a building and growing against all odds.  We are meant to be in community together…ideally as communities of love and communities of peace.  That is a legacy of Jesus that after the resurrection that transforms and changes everything.  And can and will continue to change and transform everything.  We know we are on the right path, the one of Jesus and Love, when it is a path of gentleness, peace, and grace…Always.