Chris Campbell

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.

Beloved in the body of Christ,

Today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us a view into how people of the early church lived, and is a stark reminder of how it is that Jesus asked us to live.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

This is a difficult truth for me to swallow—and I don't even own land or a house! But why? Why is it so difficult to accept one of the most prevalent teachings of our Lord?

I could easily blame modernity and the consumerist culture I was raised in. But that is not the true problem, the problem goes far deeper than that. Even two millennia ago, when a man approached Jesus asking what he must do, Jesus replied “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” This difficulty cannot be blamed on modernity or on consumerism, for these are only symptoms of the true problem: the inherent sin which resides in humankind.

What sin is this? Pride? Greed? Lust? Envy? Gluttony? Wrath? Sloth? No, it is the origin of all of these.

Rousseau, in his book 'The Origin of Inequality', attempts to identify what this original sin is by sketching out an imagination of early man, and through this seeing where inequality began. He comes to the notion of preference as the major turning point in human evolution, and, if I am being honest with myself, this makes sense as the origin of both inequality and sin.

What the early church exemplified is what Jesus asks that we exercise, to drop our ties to this world and to follow God! This means forgetting our preferences: our favorite food, our favorite house, our favorite people. For God sacrificed Himself not for His favorite but for all. He dispersed Himself within all, and we are called to see Him in all.

What the early church exemplified is what Jesus asks that we do, to give up everything we have and hold dear, and to live in true community with one another, to live in true community with God.

We see these things that we have and hold onto as extensions of ourselves, but they are not, the people who we share them with are! For we live a short time, and in the end, all we have to show for it is not the items and land we hold, but the love we shared with the world and the body of Christ which remains after us. As it is written:

‘All flesh is like grass
   and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
   and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord endures for ever.’

With this I ask myself how, when I pass on, I wish to leave the body of Christ which I am a member of, broken and bloodied or risen to glory?

May you live in Truth, Peace, and Love,
—Chris Campbell