Wow! What an amazing passage! I like Acts 4 because it gives us a peek at how the early followers of Jesus came together and lived in an authentic community.
All throughout the gospels we read that first, John the Baptist, then Jesus, preached about the immanence of the Kingdom of God (or realm of God). Jesus boldly proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the realm of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news.” Another translation says it this way, “Jesus arrived on the scene preaching, ‘Change your whole way of thinking, for a new order is emerging among you.’”
Here Jesus is making a call to the realm of God. But let’s look also, at what Jesus is not calling his followers to. Jesus, before anything, calls us not to doctrine or not to dogma, not to personal salvation, not to social action, not to a charismatic experience, not to contemplation, not to liturgical renewal. Jesus calls us to the Kingdom of God or realm of God. The realm of God is not heaven or afterlife, but the way the world could and can be according to Divine intention.
Rev. J. Holub says, “We must not forget that Jesus encouraged his disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven …” He didn’t say pray, “to your kingdom we wish to go in heaven.” No, it is, “Your kingdom come on earth …”
And Jesus said that participation in this realm comes through repentance, a word that has been totally misunderstood and misrepresented. It has been portrayed as a debasing attitude toward self. It makes me think of those people at the Pride parades holding up the signs, “repent sinner.” The Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means to have the whole form, character, and all of our lives undergo a radical shift so that we might be equipped and prepared to fully participate in this new order, the Kingdom of God; an order that has emerged and found expression in the life of Jesus; an order that challenges the world and challenges us.”
Let me tell you about a man named Clarence Jordan. Clarence Jordan was a prophetic figure in the history of American Christianity. Jordan’s roots were deeply embedded in the Southern Baptist church. He graduated from Southern Baptist Seminary with a Ph.D. in Greek New Testament in 1938. He also had a degree in agriculture from the University of Georgia in 1933. During his years of formal education he became convinced that the root causes of extreme poverty, that he saw all around him in the culture of the South, were not just economic and political causes, but also spiritual.
Driven by this growing and passionate conviction, in 1942, Clarence, along with his wife and another couple, moved to a 440 acre tract of land near Americus, Ga. to create an interracial Christian farming community. They called it Koinonia, a Greek word meaning “communion” or “fellowship” that is used in the Book of Acts to describe the communities that formed around Jesus.
The residents of Koinonia pledged themselves to the values of the realm of God as proclaimed and embodied by Jesus, including equality of all persons, rejection of violence, ecological stewardship (they had Earth Day everyday) and common ownership of possessions. (Remember, this is the deep South of the ‘40s)
At first, the Koinonia community lived in relative peace with their neighbors, but as the civil rights movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s gained momentum, they were boycotted and experienced violence, including bombings. It got so bad that Jordan asked President Eisenhower for help, but he refused to intervene with any federal protection. Instead, he referred the matter to the governor of Georgia, who responded by ordering the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate Koinonia for suspected communist ties which, of course, there were none. Koinonia, a community based on the life of Jesus and the realm of God, was perceived as a threat to the status quo of the culture around them and the power structure that enforced it.
Jordan refused to participate in pro-civil rights marches and demonstrations, not because he didn’t favor it, but because he believed the best way to effect change was to live a radically different life in community. Like Jesus and like the community of Acts 4, he strove to embody the Kingdom of God at Koinonia.
In case you’re wondering, Koinonia survived, and is alive and well to this day. Their mission statement says: “While honoring and including people of all backgrounds and faiths, we strive to demonstrate the way of Jesus as an alternative to materialism, militarism and racism.”
The influence of the Koinonia community has been powerful and wide-reaching. Here’s something I didn’t know. In 1965, a multi-millionaire couple visited Koinonia, planning to stay for only a couple of hours. To make a long story short, in 1968 this couple made Koinonia their permanent home. They liquidated their plentiful assets, and with Koinonia as their center of operation, they started a series of “partnership housing ventures” for the poor in Africa. And – it was the birth of Habitat for Humanity.
The life and person of Jesus and this passage from Acts spoke in powerful and transformative ways that continue to make a profound impact on the world.
How is this speaking to your heart?
It frightens me, and it excites me both at the same time. It frightens me because it challenges my whole way of thinking, doing and being and challenges many of the values I hold sacred because “a new order is emerging” that Jesus announced and embodied. It excites me for the same reason in that it contains a call into a new dimension of what it means to be a human being – as one preacher put it, a more fully human person in the image of Jesus.
Our scripture says, “There was not a needy person among them.” We are living in a time when the disparity between the haves and have-nots in almost every culture and country and continent is widening; a time when more wealth and resources are being controlled by fewer and fewer.
We are hearing, more and more, that everyone is essentially on their own. And if you happen to be poor and without means or power; a senior or very young and in need of medical care; a person that has extraordinary or special needs that are very expensive; and you have no way to change your status in life – too bad!
But Luke says, “There was not a needy person among them.” Why? Because the early communities that formed around Jesus lived with a sense of interconnectedness. They took Jesus seriously when he said things like, “In the Kingdom of God the last shall be first.” “Thy kingdom come on earth …” Do we mean it when we pray it?
I was talking with a friend this past week who said, “There’s enough to go around.” There are enough resources, food, and shelter. Do we get numb seeing the number of homeless here in San Diego?
Luke says, “great grace” was upon them. They lived with grace. Perhaps this is the key to the whole thing. Rev. Holub said, “The tragedy of contemporary Christianity since the time of the Reformation is that grace has been defined too much as a noun; as a description of a state of personal salvation and personal eternal security – rather than – the way Jesus meant it and those early followers experienced it; as a verb, that changed their whole way of thinking, doing and being because “a new order was emerging” that they experience in Jesus.”
This article raises more questions than answers, and that’s OK. It’s OK for us to struggle with this in our own community of faith and I pray that as we ask those questions in San Diego, in 2013, wherever we are, how might we resemble and embody the life of Jesus, the realm of God, and the “Koinonia” of those early faith communities.
“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul … with great power they gave their testimony … and great grace was upon them all.”
How is the Spirit moving in you? Speaking to you?
God, listen to your children praying.
God, send your Spirit in this place.
God, listen to your children praying.
Send us love, send us power, send us grace. Amen
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the senior pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met), 2633 Denver Street, San Diego, California, themetchurch.org. Services every Sunday at 9 and 11 a.m.
