A Reflection for Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter
“The community of believers was of one heart and mind.” (Acts 4:32)
Wouldn’t that be nice, to be a community of one heart and mind? We Catholics in 2023 can hardly imagine living in such harmony. The earliest community of believers might be called socialists today by some of the hyper-vigilant capitalists among us: What’s all this Marxist jazz about no one claiming any possessions as their own, and holding everything in common, and donating the proceeds of the sale of property for the good of all?
Today’s passage from Acts belies the Chesterton quote: “The problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it has been found difficult and left untried.” The Apostles were trying it. They were evangelizing with their lives.
Following Jesus is difficult. It’s often easier not to try. For all of Jesus’ promise that his yoke is easy and his burden is light, we have trouble even thinking about the kind of material poverty the early Apostles practiced. “There was no needy person among them,” according to the reading, a result of their conscious behavior. “Imagine no possessions,” sang John Lennon. We wonder if we can.
We have the resources to provide for the needy among us, but we lack the will.
It’s tempting to dismiss this account as pie-in-the-sky early Christianity. We tell ourselves that we aren’t meant to take this idealism literally, that we don’t have to sell our houses and bring the proceeds to anyone’s feet. I mean, that’s not what Jesus wants from us, right? Like the seemingly thick-headed Nicodemus in today’s Gospel, we struggle to understand what Jesus teaches us about “heavenly things.” We struggle to let go of the earthly things that keep us from being born of the Spirit. We aspire to be Christ-like, but we have a lot of stuff.
What does Jesus want from us? We know that he wants us to take care of each other. No one should be going hungry or thirsty or unhoused or untreated on our watch. We have the resources to provide for the needy among us, but we lack the will.
To be a community of one heart and mind seems impossible when we are divided amongst ourselves. Maybe we need to take a break from our inconsequential quibbles and hear this today: “With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” If we were to bear witness to the creed we say we believe, we could not help but take care of each other. We may not be able to move into communes, but we can work for a world in which no one is starving or ignored or neglected or ostracized as unworthy of God’s love or made to feel ‘other.’ We all belong. Call it socialism, but this is our faith.
