English in Sermon Aug 8 2020

Acts 4: 32-37 Sharing is a wonderful thing! Amazing. Really great. I love to share. I always have. And it really comes easily to me. This was the case even when I was only a child. I loved for example to share with my three siblings.

If you know the stories I might usually share about my siblings and myself.

Where we were more like cats and dogs than one heart and one soul, then you might be surprised about me saying this. But really, sharing has always been easy for me.

Just imagine when we as four children together got a gift of 10 boxes of chocolate. Then I as the oldest female was surely responsible to distribute those fairly and equitable amongst us four. And that looked in my tremendous generosity as follows: I got seven boxes and my three siblings got each one box. Sounds unfair? No, no, really not, for they also received all my boxes and in my unending generosity I also gave them all my golden wrapping papers with which the chocolates had been individually wrapped.

That meant that factually I only had gotten seven naked chocolate amounts, minus the boxes and minus all the golden papers. While my siblings received their three boxes of chocolate including the boxes and golden wrapping paper plus all of mine! I could never understand why there were always, I kid you not always tears when I shared this generously with my siblings. Unbelievable! They should have been grateful and touched by my endless generosity and thoughtfulness…

A story of early sibling experiences that makes one smile, if it was not so sad. Isn’t it true? Even early on we learn to deny our advantages and privileges. Could this story about unfair and unequal sibling sharing possibly become a symbol for our current society, where the injustice of the rich suddenly is being portrait as justice and where greed is suddenly sold as a form of selfless sharing.

The experience of true sharing, the experience that everybody has enough , the experience that Luke is describing in his story of the early Christians in Jerusalem, as those who were “of one heart and of one soul”, this experience is being exchanged with a symbolic sibling story of pretense and of lying. Fair sharing and the justice of everybody having enough is being mocked and rationalized away by narcisistic self-gazing.

We can see how this drama is enfolding in our larger political context, but even in our smaller realities, we must admit that sharing is not always as easy as we would like it to be.

If I have large amounts of something, then it might be possibly a little easier to share, may it be chocolate, money or even time. If those goods are not as plentiful, then it becomes a real sacrifice and I might think twice if I really want to share – and most of all also with whom!!!

And so that, which was happening back then in the first church community in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, this was therefore even more exciting. For the early Christians have not only shared a little bit with each other, some of them even gave up all of their possessions and distributed it among the parishioners. They really took it to an extreme. The so-called „Distribution of goods“ has been a very interesting topic in the book of acts.

In those early Christian Communities of shared goods we did not encounter a socialism or communism that was being ordered from above. The first Christians never claimed or even aimed to create “Heaven on Earth”. The first Christians were certain: Heaven that only exists with Jesus! And they were right! That sharing of goods was never meant to call Heaven down to Earth, nor did the early Christains aim at any secondary gain. They did not try to earn any golden stars with God, nor did they try to labor to build Paradise here on earth. They knew that Jesus had done everything already.

Their motivation was a deep gratitude and an immense joy and love that could be found amongst the Jesus followers back then. Having experienced the forgiveness through Christ everything else became secondary, even one’s own possessions. And so they let go of their possessions in light of a much greater good: the love towards the neighbor. This particular kind of community probably only existed in Jerusalem. It was not something that all newly founded church communities experienced. Already the community in Antioch did not report an experience like this.

However, not hording one’s possessions, but to share willingly and readily and to help the poor, those have always been important values of Christians. However, the early „distribution of goods“ in Jerusalem did not become the model everywhere else.

The reasons for the action of the people back then can be found in the first verse 32: “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.” What was forming there in Jerusalem was a tight knit community.

They had a very clear sense of belonging, a core, a cord that was binding them all together, who was Jesus himself.

Joy, compassion and love were shaping their relationships- and in such an atmosphere, in such a mood it became much easier to be giving and to pour one’s self completely into the message of Jesus and into the community itself. The intention was clear: Those people who are around me, who have experienced the same change in life, the same joy as I have, I feel the need to share good things with them.

And not only that, it becomes self-evident: It cannot be that you are suffering beside me, when I could prevent that from happening. It can’t be that you have to go to bed hungry, that your children are suffering and that you have nothing to clothe yourself with, and I am not helping you.

Wouldn’t that be a form of derision when I see the need of my brother, feel compassion and pray for him and then leave him alone in this hunger, while I am going home to fill my stomach. Such a thought is ridiculous. And so, the early Christians started sharing everything that they had. The analogy is very clear: The Christians back then felt as if they were born into a new family.

And we are using this image until today. We call each other friends, and yes, sometimes also brothers and sisters. And this image comes from this early time in the life of the first Christian Church Communities.

And hey, that one shares everything within a family that is understood without out question, isn’t it? Of course my daughter can go and get some food from the pantry when she is hungry. We are one family.

And this analogy of a family the early Christians transfered onto the church family: As you are my brother, you can take from me what my brother would be allowed to take from me! And so, the deepest motivation was this newly gained sense of a large family in which people were treating each other

loving and fair, based in a deep joy that they could not help themselves other than caring for and sharing with each other.

The early Christians were for each other. Their principle of acting was “for you”. Not based on the principal we know so well of “because of me”, but “for you”. That was a great experience, a great thing!

Well, I now could claim a provocative thesis: I believe that today among Christians the sharing of goods would not primarily be made impossible by people who would not give, meaning the willingness to share everything – but more so by those on the receiving end.

For when we raise the new theme of „For You“, then being there for the other person and standing in for the other person also means that one has to be ready to receive.

And that, at least this is my impression, is much more difficult for us today the way we are wired. Let’s imagine XY has financial difficulties. More or less without fault he has gotten into a financial impasse and he cannot pay the minimum payments on his credit cards anymore. First question: Would he share this with his church community? I hope he would – but I am afraid he might not. And if he tells, then he is happy that the others will be praying for him that God would take care of him. However, I bet, that we would refuse to accept money from his brothers and sisters in faith. For he does not want to. Strange, he just asked to be prayed for that God would take care of him – only to then reject the care of God through his siblings in Christ.

Isn’t it strange: we rather struggle on our own and suffer than that we would allow our siblings to help us. Our very own siblings!!! This is a strange way of self-denial and in my eyes truly false humility. For when God takes good care of the others and God puts it on their heart to share their gifts with you, then it is pretty much hubris to reject this gift of God! I really want to encourage you to accept the help that God gives us through the help of others. They love to help and share when they do. See this exchange as a praising of God – the movement that gives things away and the movement to accept the gifts that come.

I believe deeply that it is not Christian to live together in a community and to not see or help with the need that our neighbor has, if it somehow lies in the scope of our ability.

And so I am seeing us as followers of Jesus called to four things: First: Remain conscious of what gift Jesus is for you in your life. What he has liberated you from and what you can be grateful for and praise God for!

Second: Walk with open eyes through life. Have your ears open for the needs of others around you and pay attention if you notice any lack of things in the lives of your faith siblings and your larger neighborhood community.

Thirdly: Listen within and check in with God and with yourself if you might be the one who is meant to address this particular need – even when it costs you something. And then, become active!

Fourthly: Allow to be helped. Learn to accept help, support and offers that others make. There is nothing that one needs to be ashamed of. In contrary, it is not right to categorically deny the help of others.

How are we doing as Germans in Atlanta? How is our church community doing? Do we share everything? Hopefully.

Hopefully we are on our way so that the climate of our community and of our church becomes more and more shaped by solidarity, mutual sharing and mutual helping.

Hopefully we are on our way to enjoy sharing our gifts, money and time to quench the thirst and need in the life of our faith siblings and also in the life of our larger human community around us.

That does not mean that we are creating Heaven here on Earth. However, we create a pretty cool place to belong! Amen