The following segment from my previous “Authentic Church” post causes me to ask this question: If this is the way the early church dealt with the issue of money, and we are light years away from this reality because of our society’s structuring of itself almost exclusively around issues of money, this is a pretty clear indicator to me of just how unwilling American Christians are to really take seriously the radical contrast the early church set forth to live. The “power” issues here are seriously and completely confrontational with our mode of existence in the “developed”, “civilized” world. To “depend upon the market” to keep things flowing in a manner which “takes care of needs” is simply to give in. It is to ignore what Daniel Bell calls the malformation of desire. To recognize a deeply ingrained “sin” that is not only IN us, but that which permeates the entire structures, and that “capitalism”, hailed as the “best system”, ends up being the shape of our relationships with others, particularly those of “the other” from whom we isolate ourselves and “steer clear”
So we are asking, what did it mean for the early church to share all things in common and to sell their goods and distribute the proceeds to whoever had need? What structure might allow us to live as freely as that? We know that being the authentic church will call us to face the power issues inherent in having and not having money, not because it’s a rule we will try to follow, but because it’s a result of loving and being loved.
In American Christianity, we “spiritualize” this issue into oblivion. It’s not “having money” that separates us from God, but whether we “love money” more than God. Then we say, “of course I don’t love MONEY nmopre than God”, so we are off the hook. But the separation; the “absence of reconciliation”, endures. It goes on.
The Church of the Saviour has, from the beginning, returned time and time again to the issue of money. Maybe that’s not an accurate description. They constantly ask these questions, so that it’s not really a “revisiting” , but an ongoing issue. An ever-present enduring question and warning and point of identification for the ways in which we remain separated from one another.