Scripture: Revelation 21:3-4  and  Acts 4:32-35

Audio Podcast:  Beloved Community

Sermon:

I lost a friend about a week ago, and I didn’t get a chance to see her before she passed, but I did have the opportunity to read a note that she left.  In her note she mentioned that she was happy to be on her way to become part of another beloved community.  She wrote other stuff as well, meant for her family, but I was really struck by her comment about another beloved community. 

In the past, she and I would have conversations about this community that is described in the book of Acts.  Our reading says that in this community everyone had what they needed, and everything was shared.  Those early Christians, God bless them, they were truly empowered, and they really thought that they could change the world.  

Now 2000 years later, we have gotten a lot more sophisticated than those people of the early church, in fact we are so sophisticated that we think that this community in Acts is totally idealistic.  But the fact of the matter is that this idea of the beloved community is a revolutionary vision of community where differences are respected, conflicts are addressed nonviolently, oppressive structures are dismantled and where people live in harmony with the earth, nurtured by spiritual traditions that foster compassion, solidarity and reconciliation. The beloved community is not a utopian fantasy.  It is a view of a just society.  It is a view of society that Jesus says we can attain. 

We sometimes think this view of a just society, this view of the beloved community is something that happens in heaven, or maybe we think that it is heaven.  But we should pay attention, because the book of Acts shows us that the community at Jerusalem was life on earth.  It was a spiritual force, and it was of the flesh.   

As I reflect on the community at Jerusalem, I can’t help but think about our global community today.  Years ago, someone wrote a summary of what the world would look like if the earth’s population was shrunk into a global village of just 100 people.  This would be the make-up of that global village; 

• The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific.
• 51 would be male, 49 would be female 
  
• 82 would be non-white; 18 white 
  
• 67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian 
  
• 80 would live in substandard housing 
  
• 67 would be unable to read
• 50 would be malnourished
• 5 would be dying of starvation and 1 would be overweight 
  
• 33 would be without access to a safe water supply  
  
• 39 would lack access to improved sanitation 
  
• 24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)
  
• 7 people would have access to the Internet 
  
• 1 would have a college education
• 7 would have computers 
  
• 1 would have HIV 
  
• 2 would be near birth; 1 near death 
  
• 5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens 
  
• 33 would be receiving --and attempting to live on-- only 3% of the income of “the village” 
  

So how do we move from our global village which highlights scarcity and difference to the beloved community, to a just society? 

I think that we make this move not by focusing on the gaps, but by focusing on the ways in which we are the same.  Each of us longs to be shown that we are worthy, valuable, desirable, gifted and unique.  Each of us carries a built-in hope for the beloved community. 

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King often spoke about the beloved community.  Like Jesus, he believed it to be a realistic objective, completely attainable in this life.  He said that we just need to want it and to work for it.  Dr. King saw the beloved community as one in which all people share in all the wealth of all the world; where homelessness, hunger, and poverty are all things to be studied as history; where racism, discrimination, and prejudice are all consigned to trash heap and not recycled.  Where local and international disputes are resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation, instead of with military power. Love, justice, peace, trust, all prevail as fear, unfairness, conflict, and suspicion all fade into the twilight.   

I love that the kernel that evolved into this world-changing view came from scripture.  It came from the book of Acts. 

It is in the pages of the book of Acts that the beloved community” was born. In a small house in Joppa, northwest of Jerusalem, the dividing walls between Jews and gentiles were knocked down by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  The distinctions in which so many took comfort and reassurance were blown away by the winds of the Spirit of God. The grace of God was there for the Gentile and the Jew.  A new community, the Beloved Community, was born. 

In the book of Revelation, John writes, “See, the home of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them and they will be the people of God.   

This is great. All the people of God, dwelling together in complete harmony, and God dwelling in their midst.  Mourning and crying and pain will be subjects studied in history. Wars and conflicts are gone. Oppression and hatred is banished.  John saw it. John caught a glimpse of the beloved community. He saw ancient animosities quelled. He saw all peoples living together in the presence of God, regardless of their ancestry or class. He saw the world as God intends it to be.  And so the question becomes, “how do we get from here to there?” How do we move from the world of conflict and strife in which we find ourselves, to a world without fear, where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream?   

If the world is to become that world illuminated in the book of Acts, then the church must first become that place.  If the world is to be a place of peace and justice and freedom for all, then the church must first become that place. 

We must become a church without barriers, without prejudice, without walls.  We need to trust the Spirit of God enough to move us from where we are to where we are called to be. 

What if we actively and intentionally and deliberately worked to be more the kind of a church found in Acts?  What if we doggedly pursued being and building “the Beloved Community, right here at Queen Anne?” 

I invite us all to pray about this, to be serious about this.  I want us to start today, this hour.  In a few moments we will share the Communion meal.  In our remembering of the ancient Passover meal and in the remembering of Jesus Christ as we break the bread and share the cup, let us truly pledge ourselves to the work and mission of building God’s beloved community. Let us take our places at this Table as equals in a world where inequality between people is encouraged and revered.   

The meal we share is simple. There is only bread and a little grape juice. But until there is bread for all and a cup for everyone in our global village, we remain in solidarity with those who have less.  We will give ourselves to feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty.  We have an opportunity to help this weekend, and we will have more mission opportunities in the coming months.  Let us make the most of them. 

We can do it. The world can be as God intends it to be. The Church can be as God calls it to be.

But it will come to be only if we truly and deeply see ourselves as the builders of “the Beloved Community.” We must be the change we want to see in the world; and we can do it in the name and in the power of the Risen Christ. Let us build “the Beloved Community” – a community that will last for now and evermore.

May it be so.  Amen. 
 
 

Comments (1)