Woke this morning thinking about the scripture that says the early Christians liquidated all they had and used it to serve God and one another.
44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)
I wonder how much that happens today? I know that there are pockets of it - in the monastery or among the new monastics. And most churches have some kind of a deacon's fund that is available to people when they have nowhere else to turn.
But I'm not asking about those kinds of structured arrangements.
I'm wondering if the average person on an average day, when they see that their neighbor needs a hand, a word of encouragement, or a few dollars to make it to their next paycheck, feels drawn to offer support. I am not talking about close friends, or even the amorphous, nameless "poor" who are served from a distance through checks, canned food and used clothes from our closets. I am talking about people in our communities that we encounter every day. If Christian faith is, in fact, a transforming faith. If acceptance of a journey away from a life of self-service and toward Christ is actually a radical shift that is incomparable to other journeys one might choose, is there evidence of that transformation in the day to day lives of most people who claim to be Christian?
Is there evidence of it in mine?
When religious scholar and author
Karen Armstrong accepted the
TED prize in February, 2008, she, like other recipients of the prize, shared a wish for the betterment of society. The former Roman Catholic nun who refers to herself as a "freelance monotheist" made the following request to the TED community:
"I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by a group of leading inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect."
As a result of this request and the efforts of hundreds people from around the world, of all faith traditions, nationalities, languages, and backgrounds, Armstrong's Charter for Compassion is being released across the globe on November 12.
In the days leading up to the release of the charter, I began to see online banter that runs the gamut from enthusiastic support to speculation that it represents the single world religion in the end-time Biblical prophecies.
As with so many things related to this Christian faith that both delights and confounds me, I find these potentially controversial faith questions to be both fascinating and troubling. On the one hand, who can argue with a call to compassion? Empathy, caring for others, the Golden Rule, this is the good stuff. Then again, the premise that Jesus is the way tends to complicate inter-faith initiatives and create lots of noise in the blogosphere.
This led me to wonder, how might Jesus respond to this multi-faith initiative?
Rather than rely on my own best thinking, I posed the question to several thought leaders representing different Christian faith traditions, from conservative to progressive. I will share some of those responses here over the course of the week, starting with the thoughts of Phyllis Tickle, author of a number of books including The Great Emergence. Tickle writes:
Jesus, first and foremost, would have asked to see the document itself. [There is a considerable history of His having taken that tack when entering into a discussion fraught with controversy and laden with opportunities for divisive and derisive misunderstanding.]
Having seen the document, my guess--again based on known track record--is that He would ask of its authors and signers why it had been written. Of all people, He most would know that religions, or at least the major world religions, are very much alike in both their moral values and their wisdom. It is in their mysteries that they differ.
If therefore, the document and its fashioners have dedicated their work to explicating the unity of religious wisdom and morality, He would undoubtedly applaud that action as a very sensible and enlightened thing to do, especially in an ever-more-connected and shrinking world. If, however, when pinned down, those same fashioners had to confess as well to an attempt to make all religions seem to be little more than enculturated expressions of ways to the same God or end, I suspect He would have shaken His head and said, "Can we talk?"
But I also suspect that they, should that be their motivation, would likewise shake their heads and move off down the road.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this response and the charter itself when it is posted.
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