This past Friday night, the Baccalaureate service for Episcopal High was held at the Cathedral. The procession was very long, with well over a hundred seniors, faculty, Board of Trustees, Administration and clergy. Most of the seniors sat in the first few rows, but one row was directed to sit in wooden chairs in front of the altar rail. The vergers ushered them to their seats. They looked around, feeling uncomfortable. And then they all stood up and promptly left their seats, marching to the back of the transepts where they sat in folded chairs. When I got to the front, I wondered where they were. Once I located them in the back, I wondered if I should stop the service and herd them back to their assigned seats. I decided not to, but I thought to myself, "Ah, sheep!"
When the early Christians began to form a community, there were no processions and noformal liturgy, but they did have rules. And their rules were no joke. Many of us today would see their community as communist or at least monastic. They had no private ownership. Everyone brought their money and belongings to the community and the leaders divided it all up. In other words, everybody shared.
When Ananias and Sapphira sold their property, they only gave the apostles a portion of the income, holding back some of it for themselves. When Peter accuses Ananias, the man falls down dead. And later, when his wife comes in, Peter asks how much she sold the land for. She, too, lies and gives the lower price. Peter accuses her as well, and shows her the feet of her husband, who lies dead on the floor but the disciples have covered up his body with a sheet so only his feet are showing. When Peter accuses her of lying, Saphira too, falls down and dies.
It is not exactly an advertisement for private ownership. But how do we compare the community of the book of Acts with our lives today? It would be simply unacceptable for me to tell all of you that we are all going to share our money and belongings. It would be chaos. You would not accept that and even I would wonder if it was really a good idea.
I think that we get stuck on the ownership issue and fail to neglect the main point of the early Christians. That point being that they were really interconnected. For Peter and Paul, life as followers of Christ meant life together, as a group. You did not believe alone. You believed in community.
A man visited with me after a funeral a few weeks ago. He told me how the funeral meant so much to him, that it warmed his heart like some kind of resounding bell had been sounded deep inside, a bell that had been silent for a long time. I invited him to return to church.
“I’m spiritual, not religious,” he said. He told me that he prayed alone, in the morning. He liked to walk in the woods and contemplate the majesty of God. “I used to go to church, a long time ago. But the people disgusted me. They were so petty. I just figured I’d be closer to God out here.”
Being together is frustrating. It is much easier to pray alone. In church, we have kind people and we have jerks. Sometimes it is so hard to get along with one another that we can hardly worship. Believe me, there are times when I myself feel like fleeing out to some pasture alone to contemplate God. It would be a heck of a lot easier.
But the disciples saw the Risen Lord in community. Even Mary Magdalene, who saw the Lord alone, was told by him to go and tell the others that he had risen. Most of the Resurrection appearances were in the company of at least a few of the community. The Holy Spirit came to the Church when they were gathered in community. It is when we come together that God is most potently present.
“When two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus said, “I am in the midst of them.”
Why? Why not just let us be church alone? It would be so much easier.
The reason why God told us to worship together is because God knew how very interconnected we are. We are not really ourselves unless we are together. Human beings are communal creatures. As much as we get into fights and skirmishes with one another, we function as one body. We were meant to be together, not alone.
Jesus tells us that we are like sheep. And sheep always travel in packs. If they wander off alone, it is usually bad news. Their safety and their salvation are in sticking it out together. And that is what we are supposed to do.
In America, we live by a myth called the Self. We truly believe that you can make yourself happy. We train you to think for yourself, focus on your own health, your body, your education, your career. We ask one another “How are you?” as if it is the individual whose mood is most important. And we neglect to recognize how much the lives of those around you affect your own happiness.
If a newborn baby is not held, it will die. So you must be held and supported and you must hold and support, in order to be fully alive. We sheep have to stick together.
Max and I are reading a book. It is called Follow the Drinking Gourd. It is about the Underground Railroad and how the slaves in the South were led to freedom before the Civil War. These slaves were taught a song by a man named Peg Legged Joe. Peg Legged Joe would hire himself out as a handyman to plantation owners. While he was working on the plantation, he would teach the slaves a song. Follow the Drinking Gourd, the song went, Follow the Drinking Gourd. The song had details about how to follow the Drinking Gourd, what we would call the Big Dipper, northwards to freedom. The song detailed markers along the way north. Once the slaves had the song well-memorized, Peg Legged Joe would move on to another plantation, to teach more slaves the song.
The bravest slaves would follow the song, letting the big dipper led them north to freedom by night. But the slaves would not have made it were it not for the people that they met on the way. They were hustled into barns, fed in secret rooms, hidden in wagons full of corn. Mile by mile they traveled on the wings of those they met. Without the community of the Underground Railroad, they would not have survived.
Think over your life for a moment. You would not be here were it not for the love of others. Someone fed you as a child. Someone gave you a job reference. Someone introduced you to your best friend, your spouse. Someone invited you to church. We do not exist apart from one another. We cannot survive without one another.
And so God comes most potently to us when we are together. In fact, I am not allowed to celebrate the Eucharist alone. It simply does not work. The bread and wine will not become the Body and Blood of Christ for me alone, only for us.
The early church knew that they must stick together. The disciples shared everything because they knew the truth, that everything is ours, not mine. My future belongs to my children, my past to my parents. Last Sunday I stood between our former Dean, Edward Harrison and our Seminarian, Quinn Parman, and I realized it that I was standing between the past and the future. I am part of something much larger than myself. That’s why we worship together, because this is much bigger than any one of us.
When you wake up in the morning, don’t just think about how you are doing, what your day will bring, think about us. Think about your church, your family, your country. How are WE doing? That is really the question. For you cannot really think of yourself apart from your community.
It is such a relief, the day that you leave me behind and begin to think about us. It is such a relief because not everything is up to you. You are one of the sheep. I am one of the sheep. And we are most joyful, most faithful, yes, most challenged, but most blessed when we are together.
