Sharing Community

The 4th Sunday of Easter, Year A


They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47, NRSV)

"Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:1-10, NRSV)



“SHARING COMMUNITY”


Sharing comes with difficulty for most of us. It starts out when we are young and first discover that word, “Mine.” Laying claim to what is our own is necessary in part, but some of us develop the skill very very well throughout life. It is particularly intense if what we want to own is a rare or valuable or desirable object. It’s not just us, by the way. I bird-sit and was watching Gabby and Gordy, two Alexandrine Ring Necked Parakeets. For a while, if you gave them a small spoon of breakfast cereal, they would pick out the almonds and throw away the flakes. Not just drop the flakes, haul their heads back and fling them across the room. I stopped giving them cereal for a while. Then I tried an experiment. I stood at the entrance to the room and said, “I have something for little birds. I have something for little birdies.” They were waiting for it and rushed over to get it and ate it all. I chuckled to myself that this was the food they used to toss away. After a while Gordy, the male, would finish his first, then go to try to take the flake of cereal away from Gabby, the female. I chuckled to myself again, that now they are struggling over what they used to toss away. Sometimes what is valuable is only in the eye of the beholder. The other week Gordy tried to take the food away from Gabby but it broke and so they split it, eating side by side. They were sharing.
The reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us a vision of a new kind of life. It comes after Peter has given a great speech telling the crowd who Jesus is and that he was put to death and raised from the dead. He goes on to say that the Holy Spirit was poured out over the disciples. Those who heard this message asked what they should do. Peter’s answer was that they should believe and be baptized. What they did next was to join the community. At the center of that community was the teaching of the apostles, breaking bread, and prayers. It was a spiritually-centered community. Their sharing went beyond just meeting together as they sold their possessions to provide for the needs of all. Great joy marked their lives. And God blessed the community by adding to its number daily.
The Gospel reading talks about another aspect of this community. It is that formed by those who hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and follow him and together form his flock. He is not only the shepherd but the gate. Through him the sheep enter the flock and are kept safe. Others may come, but they do not care for the sheep in the same way. This is what the sheep have in common; this is what they share, that they have the Good Shepherd who cares for them.
Many miss the sense of community in our society nowadays. Philip Gulley talks about it as he recalled the town he grew up in. He lived next door to a kid who ate dirt. Another neighbor sold shoes and when a snapping turtle ended up in his yard one day, they were invited over for turtle soup the next day. Another neighbor was a plumber, and would get his hair cut in exchange for unclogging their pipes. Mr. Bolton would show cartoons on his reel-to-reel projector in the garage to the neighborhood kids, while giving them popcorn and soda pop. But it wasn’t only these things that made them neighbors: “The Myerses and the Blaydeses resided two empty lots away. I’ll never forget how my mom and Mrs. Blaydes stood in those lots holding each other and crying the day the Myers boy got killed on his motorcycle on North Salem Road.”
He laments that those days are over. Community is in trouble in many ways nowadays. There are many changes in society. We are left with the question: What does the church have to offer a society with so many ways of getting together? It is that same vision as those first disciples had—that the church is a spiritually-centered community, that the church is a meaningful community in an increasingly superficial world. The church still has something to share. A church without any depth or purpose will be lost among the many things people seek. But a church which brings these things—knowledge of God, the presence of God, fellowship, sharing—to people will find a purpose in the world. The other vision is that there is more to the church than the people. It is the community God calls us to. The Lord brings us together. It is more than what we bring with us when we gather. It is what God gives us as we do that.
What do we share? There are a couple ways of looking at the word ‘sharing’. One is what we have in common, what we all partake of, and the passage from Acts is rich in that. We share the gospel, the good news of God’s love, the baptism by which we enter the church, the meal God has given us to strengthen our faith, our love for one another. We have been given many things. The other side of the word ‘sharing’ is what we bring or give of ourselves to others, what we take from those riches we were given and give to those around us and to those far away.
There is another side to the word ‘sharing’. It is that we give to others from what we were given. Gina Bridgman tells the story of when she was a girl and wanted to marry someone with a lot of money. Her mother said that money was not that important and besides, it didn’t matter unless he was willing to share it. There are many ways we share with others what we have. Perhaps it is extending oneself in new ways. It might be seeking forgiveness or letting go of old hurts. It might be to see beyond the walls of the church to find what more it can do for the people around it.
Phil Gulley found that, while he might have left his old neighborhood, he didn’t leave what made his old neighborhood special. There were new people in the new place, but they had what the others did. There is more to neighborhood than a place. That kindness is what made the neighbors into neighbors. He discovered in the new neighborhood those who brought cookies, hung wallpaper, gave out Juicy Fruit gum. He said, “Kindness thrives. It’s awareness that’s on the wane.” It is not where they were that mattered; it was that they shared their lives.
Community is a gift. It is from what we are given that we share, that brings us together. It is also something we make. The early church was blessed as it heard the Lord’s voice and was the Lord’s presence in the world around them. It was blessed in order to share and that sharing also became the blessing. We, too, can hear that voice that calls us not to be people who merely get together, but people who share what God has given us. To share is truly to create community.