Learning from experience - bathed in prayer

 

Sunday 11^th April – 2^nd of Easter

Acts 4: 32-35. A highly idealised view of what the church may have looked like in the first few weeks after the resurrection but it obviously didn’t catch on and this form of community life is only practised, even half closely, in Monasteries and convents nowadays. Though note that if we take Luke literally the charity only extended to fellow Christians. A more modified generosity and  charitable frame of mind is now the norm based on the understanding that we are all made in the image of God.

1John 1:1 – 2:2. We live in a world far removed from the understanding that animal sacrifices atone for anything, but if we understand sacrifice as a free will self-offering to God as a gift (The original impetus) and understand that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:19 we shuffle closer to the full import of the cross for Christians which John concludes was for the “whole world”.

John 20: 19-31. There is no need to wear Lucan glasses and see this giving of the Spirit as some kind of prelude to Pentecost. For John this is an equivalent story and is reminiscent of God breathing the breath of life into Adam in Genesis. The episode with Thomas is to illustrate the nature of resurrection faith. Thomas says he will only believe when he can see and touch Jesus’ wounds but when given the chance to do so, he acknowledges Jesus as his “Lord and God” before actually doing so. Jesus then blesses all people who will do the same thing, believe without seeing.

 

One of the failings of the human mind is to be captured by an “all or nothing “ overly literal attitude to rules and regulations more suited to small extremist cults than a religion that aims to change hearts, minds and perceptions on the world-wide stage.

In the book of acts we have Luke’s account of a situation in the early church that could only have lasted a few weeks or months before proving completely unworkable.

I mean how would it feel if I said that in order to become a Christian, or member of this church you had to sell your house and give that and all your money and possessions to the PCC to do as they wished with it?

And if you refused and held back even a part of the money the penalty was death? That was what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in the next paragraph.

What we are seeing and reading here is the start of a process of working out  how high ideals translate when the rubber hits the road of real life.

The real take-home message from this passage is that honesty, both personal and financial is of paramount importance. The real sin of Ananias and Sapphira  was in attempting to lie and defraud the church.

Personal integrity – My word is my bond – is essential for any family including the church family to thrive.

Another notion you can take from this is that all my possessions are on loan to me – that fact that no material possessions are intrinsically or eternally mine should guide our thinking sitting alongside a natural generosity to those less fortunate than ourselves is guided by the knowledge that we are all children of God, but that differences in natural attributes, upbringing and education, and good old-fashioned good fortune, leads to natural and different outcomes for people.

You cannot legislate for equality of outcome, but you can try and legislate for equality of opportunity.

We are also minded to always be kind and generous to the poor whilst at the same time noting that Jesus said “The poor you will always have with you” in Matthew and Mark because poverty is relative. This to me is the guiding principle of the welfare system – to make sure there is always a safety net against destitution – completely in line with Christian principles.

On the wider spiritual canvas you will note that in John’s gospel Jesus breathes the spirit into them and that earlier in the same gospel (16:13) says that “the Spirit will guide you into all truth”.

That says to me that the truth is not presented fully formed but we are guided through the realities of life towards the truth of any situation.

Life experience moulds us but as Christians our life experience should be bathed in prayer that we learn from the right lessons from life.

In this respect all experience is beneficial to our spiritual growth. Good experience and bad experiences together. In fact we learn more from bad experiences than the good ones.

This is how we should relate to St. Paul saying that he rejoices in his sufferings – that is a profoundly Christian attitude to life – that all human experience can lead us further into the mystery of Christ.

And we really can say along with St. Paul in Romans “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.