Learning Community
Walking with Christ—like learning to walk with our legs—does not happen in a day. First we crawl, then we “toddle” (with many sudden landings), but with perseverance we learn to leap, dance, and run—even figure skate and surf—on the legs God gave us to use.

We learn how to steady ourselves in Christ and keep our balance in all situations until “being Christian” moves from solemn duty into unspeakable joy!

From misery we rise to PRAISE GOD! Out of darkness we burst into light! “Whoever follows me,” Jesus said, “will NEVER walk in darkness” the gloomiest of circumstances notwithstanding.

The boundaries of our own misery are the gates of hell that come crashing down before Christ and his church. Suddenly our private world is gone! Our secret treasures—petty hoards of dreams, money, ambition, sneaky loves—lie naked in blazing light from heaven and we see them for the junk they were. The doors are gone! The windows are gone! The horrid roof and walls around us have sailed away in the hurricane of Jesus’ love.

He loves us enough to pick up our demonic “privacy,” rip it apart, and fling it to the winds. Then he comes strolling into the ruins of what we were, with all that follow him—smiling, chattering, and pointing—close behind.

Welcome guests!

Christ in no way comes to us without the Gemeinschaft der Heiligen (community of saints—koinonia) we sing in the Apostle’s Creed. That is, without others. The danger of “accepting Christ” is not what he will do to us (we may trust him) but of what his numberless followers might do to us here, and what we might need to do for them.

“Lone rangers” exist perhaps, but “lone Christians” NEVER!

If we have not learned how to love and live with others—our parents, partners, children, neighbours, fellow employees and whatever grumps, grouches, eccentrics, and pests we think the Lord has placed us among—we are crazy to speak of community of goods! We are crazy to try and “establish relationships” (the new buzzword) with people oversees and around the cyber world if we spend our mornings fighting with our wives, our evenings shouting at the children, or run into arguments with those we meet.

Plain and simple, if we have not learned how to get along with others, we have not learned to walk with Christ. We are still infants, cripples, or quite likely not even born yet.

And if we find Christ, we discover the rest of his. We discover community.

Not because of chapter this, verse that! Not because of anything the early Christians, Anabaptists, or anyone else did. It just comes! It happens! Over and over. Wherever the words of Jesus fall, watch out! They may spring to new life and the Kingdom of Heaven, shining like the sun, may come to earth again!

From the Canary Islands, Miguel writes:

To be honest I fear the communal life, and I know that it will be difficult for me. I'm just human and greedy. I also know that communal living can lead to abusive leadership. But still . . . Brothers and sisters, I honestly feel (although I could be wrong) that life in community is a Christian ideal. As such it looks impossible to achieve. It looks stupid, just like non-violence looks stupid. . . . But I read the Bible, and it looks clear to me. The only way we can achieve it (life together) is by following Jesus with the direction of the Holy Spirit.

I feel safeguards can be put up against abusive leadership, like allowing people some money (according to community riches) when they depart, no matter for what reason. And we can pray for the leaders, and follow the Bible in this matter.

I feel that while everything must be shared, the use does not have to be. Of course toothbrushes must be assigned for a single individual!

I'm not a teenager, nor do I feel it's easy . . . but I read the Bible and feel nothing but conviction. I feel a complete foreigner in this world.

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From Cambridge in England, Adam writes:

I like what your group holds to, although at the moment I am not sure about community of goods. It certainly has a good biblical precedence in the days immediately after Pentecost and in the Jerusalem community, but I think that by implication we can take that most other churches did not practice it to the extreme. I am certainly for sharing things, money and labour and for a strong 'community' life (i.e. not limited to a single meeting on Sunday or a Bible study session on Wednesday).

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You are right, Adam, in believing that the early Christians worked out their total love and abandonment one to another in ways best suited to their circumstances. Many were slaves and people caught in unhandy employment situations. But in Christ they could do nothing but let go and share! Not just money and things, but their whole lives. Giving up is the essence of Christianity—the gateway to irrepressible joy!

Miguel writes in another letter:

Let's suppose there is no verse in the Bible where Jesus said that the one who doesn't share everything can't be my disciple. It would still be true what the disciples did . . . and that was sharing everything. Why did they do that? Because it was fashionable? Hardly a thought—it is not that easy.

In Law School I learned that Spanish law has three basic sources: Roman, German and Canonic Law (plus a few odd Islamic and pre-roman rules). While Roman law was basically made for the individual, German law was for the group. The early Germanic tribes as a whole DID HAVE a system of community of goods and you can have examples of this to this very day in Spain. Not in the form of a community of goods like
today’s Hutterites but you can find villages and town where forests are still communally owned, etc.

Under 19’th century liberalism, however, every form of common property was despised and many were sold to the highest bidder; normally a rich guy from a big town, that wanted to live without working.

My point is that before the Germans had contact with the Romans they did have a system of community of goods (which was more radical in one tribe and less in another). So we know it worked.

Maybe the idea survived subconsciously in the minds of German people, making it less than surprising that the Hutterites are of Germanic descent.

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Thinking practically about what he would like to see in Europe, Miguel writes in yet another letter:

A Christian community—what's that?

Do you love to farm? Well that's a way to be a Christian. Farming is an honest job. You grow food and sell it to those that need it. But is farming the only way to sustain a Christian community? I don't think so. Even in a communal setting a Christian may do anything, I believe, that is morally acceptable.

James 1:27 states that we must remain unpolluted from the world, but it also states quite clearly that we must help widows and orphans and I don't think James meant JUST Christian children and orphans.

Jesus was able to remain unpolluted even though he went to save the sinners—Okay we are not Jesus, we won't remain unpolluted, we probably aren't to begin with, but we have to take risks. If you are a nurse you are more likely to get an infection. If you work with street children you can get robbed, or have trouble with the police. . . . The parable of the talents comes to mind here. Two servants RISKED the money of their Lord. Another one kept it hidden, but that was not enough for Christ.

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You are right, Miguel. If they lower their eyes from Christ, communities of believers lose their way as easily as anyone else. Not one of us owns Christ. We must fight to stay with him, again and again! He moves on and we must move too or we stay behind.