Acts 2.14a, 42-end, John 10.1-10
The Fourth Sunday of Easter, 3 May 2020 - churches closed
“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.”
In times of crisis, communities strengthen; as people respond to new and urgent challenges, the common life grows. We see it now, in this time of the coronavirus, where neighbourliness has blossomed not only here, where it was already quite well-practiced, but in the unlikeliest places. It’s happened before when our national wellbeing has been threatened, like around the two world wars. And it’s said that this commitment to the well-being of all often continues on after the crisis has passed - hence the consensus following World War Two to establish a comprehensive welfare system including the NHS which we so applaud today.
It applied to those early Christians too, as we know through their stories recounted in the Acts of the Apostles. The favourite activity of Jesus in his ministry was to bring strangers together around meal tables to forge fellowship across the social groups. And the early followers of his way continued to meet to eat together, and pray, and to be taught and to grow in fellowship. The authorities wanted to end this new cult - and the Christians’ resistance nurtured a resilient common life in which they supported each other practically and financially, without constraint, having all things in common: pooling their resources, to meet each other’s needs.
Now, critics sometimes dismiss this (and others celebrate it) as ‘communism’ - but it’s not; it is the earliest form of Christianity, modelled on Jesus’ own practices, a way of life with mutual prayer and humble service at its heart. It spilled out through the centuries into Christian practices such as monasticism and the secular religious life, like today’s Third Order Secular Franciscans who live and work in the everyday world, not wearing habits or taking vows, and regularly gather together in community, professing to live out the Gospel life in the way of St Francis. [1]
The turbulent middle years of the twentieth century in Europe birthed some of today’s influential Christian communities - notably Taizé, an ecumenical Christian monastic fraternity in Burgundy, founded in 1940 by Brother Roger Schütz, a Reformed Protestant, and today composed of more than a hundred brothers from Catholic and Protestant traditions, from about thirty countries across the world. Over 100,000 young people from around the world make pilgrimages to Taizé each year for prayer, Bible study, sharing, and communal work, encouraged to live in a spirit of kindness, simplicity and reconciliation; and Taizé’s distinctive style of musical worship has been a blessing to the worldwide church… [2]
… as has the music of the Iona Community, which has been massively influential in renewing Christian worship worldwide over the past 30 years or so. The Iona Community was forged in the depressed inter-war years in the docklands of Govan, Glasgow, whose Church of Scotland minister George MacLeod sought to close the gap he perceived between the church and working people. Starting in 1938 each summer MacLeod took a group of ministers and working men to Iona to rebuild the ruined medieval Abbey together. Today it is a dispersed community with a strong commitment to ecumenism and to peace and justice issues. Its three-and-a-half thousand members, associates and friends live and work throughout the world. [3]
The common life still has a strong appeal today - not least to younger people seeking a different path than the way of life demanded by consumer capitalism. Based at Lambeth Palace, at the very heart of the Anglican Communion, is the Community of Saint Anselm, an Anglican religious order of young people, who spend a year together devoted to prayer, study and service to the poor. With sixteen residential members from around the world, and around 20 non-residential members who live and work in the London area, all aged between 20 and 35, this ecumenical community abides by a Benedictine-inspired Rule of Life. [4] The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, serves as the abbot, having stated his intention ‘that Lambeth Palace be not so much a historic place of power and authority, but a place from which blessing and service reach to the ends of the earth.’ [5]
One thing which binds together the many different ancient and contemporary expressions of Christian community is that each has some form of rule, an intentional, disciplined approach to walking with God in humble service in mutual, prayerful and practical support. I was a member of the Iona Community for a number of years and our rule involved each of us in our own way and our own places, to commit to daily prayer and bible reading, to work for justice and peace, wholeness and reconciliation in the world, to support one another in prayer, by meeting together regularly and accounting with one another for the use of our gifts, money and time, our use of the earth’s resources and our keeping of all aspects of the rule. [6]
It was a demanding way of expressing our Christian faith - not least the call to account to each other for the way we used our time and money, something which reaches right back to the discipline of those first disciples of Jesus but does not come easily to we twenty-first century western Anglicans with the locked-in sense of individual entitlement we’ve absorbed from the world around us. Demanding - but ultimately a very fulfilling, nurturing, and supportive way of being Christians together.
From the very beginning, the Christian instinct has been to come together: the flock of the gentle Shepherd, the sheep of His fold, gathered for worship, prayer and mutual support. Which is why, in this time of the coronavirus, there is so much sadness for the closure of churches and the enforced social distancing between those who would normally regularly gather - be gathered - to Him.
The message of the Acts of the Apostles, though, and the stories of Christian community throughout the centuries, is that fractured times can bring renewal to our common life and worship. How might we Christians find renewal in these times? Is there anything in the traditions of the Christian communities, from the earliest to those still active and springing up today, which we could bring into our own practices?
In isolation right now, maybe we can find affinity with those communities which are dispersed, whose members mostly live their lives at a distance from each other but who are each day sustained by knowing that the others are praying for them as they pray for the others.
We sheep are scattered - but we can continue to seek each other’s welfare: in the knowledge that the Good Shepherd continues, always, searching and caring for us.
Notes
[1] Wikipedia: Third Order of Saint Francis
[2] Wikipedia: Taizé Community
[3] The Iona Community: Our History; The Wild Goose Resource Group
[4] The Community of St Anselm; Rule of Life Booklet [pdf]
[5] Wikipedia: Community of Saint Anselm; Young Christians prepare to spend ‘a year in God’s time’ at Lambeth Palace, Archbishop of Canterbury website, 24 August 2015
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