The Rev. Joanne Sanders
Stanford Memorial Church
April 13, 2008
COMMON GROUND, COMMON GOOD
“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.”
Acts 2:44-45
There are few things I enjoy more, and I imagine many of you, then gathering around a table and enjoying good food with others. This week I learned about an unusual restaurant called the Little Grill. A collectively owned business that focuses on healthful cuisine, the Little Grill closes for regular business each Monday in order to prepare and serve free meals to anyone who wants to come. Diners are invited to come early to help prepare food or stay late to clean up. These meals apparently draw a wide variety of people, from those lacking basic necessities to ordinary working people to college students and professors. From gardens, from unsolicited contributions, from leftovers and from shopping with a mere thirty dollars, participants create a wonderful meal for 50 people. At first a collective in practice, the Little Grill is now legally organized as a worker-owned cooperative. The original owner’s vision for it was rooted in the understanding of the example from the reading in the book of Acts today that seems to reject the ideas of exclusive ownership and collecting material wealth for one’s own self. In fact, as described in these verses today, the early Christian communities held all possessions in common and had no destitute people among them.
While I could have focused on the other, more familiar, comforting lectionary readings about the Good Shepherd in the gospel of John, and the widely known Psalm 23, I considered that in the midst of a looming national recession, an ever shifting global economy and an election year this less known or talked about section in Acts might deserve some attention. Who could argue with the basics of faith like teaching, breaking bread, prayers, and fellowship? Needless to say, what’s harder to digest is this radical practice of having all things in common, selling possessions and goods and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
The stark reality of this early Christian community boils down to this: they shared. Radically.
Reading and hearing about claims and communities like these is something that author Annie Dillard said would “make us wear crash helmets when sitting in the pew.” I mean really, in our post-modern society does any kind of a model like this come close to being sustainable? What should get emphasized?
Narratives and examples such as an early and devoted community of believers in Jerusalem are not meant to take place in isolation, but reach back through centuries and to us today in the shape of our own distinctive communities. The purpose is not to “parrot” these spiritual ancestors, but to learn from them. Their culture then
knew nothing of universal democracy, rights of the individual, the theory that all people are created equal or the workings of market capitalism. A great majority of them were living at a subsistence level, and for geographical or religious reasons had to leave their natural kin group and recreate new ones with other believers. For both physical and spiritual survival, new households were formed. This was the nature of the community of God, to share all that they had with one another in order to survive.
Getting back to the question of what should be emphasized from the example today in Acts, what seems common to most of us: food. For example, in those early Christian communities it was only natural that communal meals would be served to all who belonged to a household. Eating together was an important aspect to the cohesion of these newly formed groups. More so, the influence of the teachings of Jesus and his radical interpretation of purity laws resulted in more inclusive meal practices and modeled his proclamation of the nature of the community of God regardless of social strata. This common meal tradition
continued long after Jesus was gone and its practice was integral to their theology of his spirit and presence yet with them in the breaking of bread, which also included the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Communion) as well as meals shared openly and broadly with one another in various homes. This breaking of bread has now become synonymous with the ritual of Holy Communion in Christian belief and practice today.
If theology (the study of or understanding of the nature of God) is communicated through meals, what kind of theology around a table of Holy Communion ought to be communicated today? Through 2,000 years the Christian tradition has retained a meal of sorts – a ritual or ceremony called Mass, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion. It is a sacrament, a means of grace for the believer. It is typically interpreted as a time to privately confess one’s individual sins and to reflect on Jesus’ death for our forgiveness. In other words, a vertical element remains, but for most of us the horizontal element is missing.
In other words, we do not usually confess our sins to one another and reflect together on Christ’s death as a metaphor of a self-giving act that we are to emulate. Further, the relational aspect of a communal meal is gone; along with it any attempt to eat across social boundaries. It is a meal that has little to do with feeding the poor and the less poor alike so that no one is hungry. In most cases, our real meals take place with family or friends or co-workers who are invariably social equals.
If there is one point that I hope you retain from this sermon it is this: what we can learn from our spiritual ancestors in the narrative of Acts is what it might look like
for us to live more horizontally rather than vertically, not only in our common life as Christians but in our common life as humankind. While those early
communities may have had no other choice in order to survive, I wonder what would happen if as a whole we began to link this sacred meal to the need for not only Christian believers but communities of all social classes and ethnic backgrounds to come together around food? Perhaps it would also develop an awareness of how our eating habits relate to the environment and world hunger. Suddenly, the creation and existence of a Little Grill restaurant does not seem so far fetched or improbable.
Through this story and practices of a cohesive community in Acts, we build upon what we heard last Sunday of the pair on the road to Emmaus who met the risen Jesus on the road and did not recognize him until they broke bread together, we too may not recognize Jesus unless we break bread with each other until all are satisfied and none are in need.
The occasional rhythms here and today in our liturgy at Memorial Church are by design and intention meant to call us beyond a vertical understanding of what it means to embody an understanding of God to a way of life that is lived horizontally. Woven throughout our order of service are clues that lead us to recognize that and also help us see our common meal here, Holy Communion, as more than a device to nurture our individual, private relationship with God.
Here we will take the wine and the water, here we will take the bread of new birth; call us anew to be salt for the earth. (Opening Hymn)
God calls humanity to wake, to join in common labor, that all may have abundant life, in oneness with their neighbor. (Hymn following the sermon)
The meal we share binds us to meet each captive’s deepest need; forgive us God, that we have given love’s word but not love’s deed. (Closing hymn)
Take us out to live as changed people because we have shared the living bread and cannot remain the same. (Post –Communion Prayer)
Amen.
Notes:
Of Widows and Meals: Communal Meals in the Book of Acts; Reta Halteman Finger; Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2007.
Acts: Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary; J. Bradley Chance; Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 2007.
The Christian Century, April 2008.
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