As we conclude our thoughts on God and Money, Robinson’s words give us much to think about. Robinson evaluates Jesus’ teachings by what happens in the early church where Christians tried to follow them. Notice the result: “there were no needy persons among them.” They had accomplished the goal of the ancient stories: they had eliminated poverty in the early Jesus movement.
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(Read this series from the beginning at Part 1 and Part 2.)
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” (Acts 4:32-35)
This explains why Jesus says that whatever we give up to practice these teachings, we get in return over 100 timeswithin the community because everyone is sharing to make sure everyone has enough. They aren’t hoarding against the fear of future need. They created a community where no matter what the future brought, they had each other’s backs. They could face the future as a community where the central ethic was making sure everyone’s needs were taken care of. They would receive “homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields (along with persecutions)” because no one considered any of these only their own. They considered them as belonging to the community as well. Each gave as they were able and each person received according to their need: “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” (Acts 2:45)
Will Jesus followers today as a community ever return to these practices and teachings? We live in a very individualistic culture. The first step may be to create communities that make our hyper-self reliance obsolete. We have people in all classes in our communities. Some have nothing to give because their needs aren’t even being met. Others are living month-to-month and just barely getting by. Their needs are met, but they have no extra. Some in our communities have a little extra that they are saving for a future emergency. And others have so much extra they couldn’t possibly spend it all in multiple lifetimes, much less their own.
So today as we read Jesus’ call to sharie our possessions with others, questions of fairness are raised. I encourage you to lean into this tension. Peter Gomes had something to say on this:
“It is interesting to note that those who most frequently call for fair play are those who are advantaged by the play as it currently is, and that only when that position of privilege is endangered are they likely to benefit from the change required to ‘play by the rules.’ What if the ‘rules’ are inherently unfair or simply wrong, or a greater good is to be accomplished by changing them? When the gospel says, ‘The last will be first, and the first will be last,’ despite the fact that it is counterintuitive to our cultural presuppositions, it is invariably good news to those who are last, and at least problematic news to those who see themselves as first.” (Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News?, p. 42)
This helps me understand why Jesus said entering Jesus’ kingdom or community here on earth was difficult for some of us. It calls us to a different set of priorities:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
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