Being You And Being Me

"Grateful For Our Garden"

Acts 4:32-35
April 19, 2009

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one
claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in
common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among
them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of
what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any
had need.

There is an old but new phenomenon going on in this country, one that a few of you
who are little older might recognize, but for us younger folks, its something new
altogether. It is the growth of community gardening, or community gardens, especially
in urban areas, in cities across this country. It’s the whole idea of victory gardens all
over again, those community gardens in World War II, where people toil and garden in
a common spot, where food is grown, and either used by the grower, or given away to
others. In World War II, it was a way of supporting the country in the midst of the
conflict, but now community gardening seems to come out of a deep need of some—
not me, admittedly—to sink their hands deep in the soil and grow something, right in
the middle of Chicago, or New York City, or even Detroit. Vacant lots across this
country are being revitalized and used again, so that folks can add more green to this
world—not just ornamental green one would find in a garden full of flowers, but a green
that feeds the stomach as well as the eyes.

“In New York City a few years back, garden users and nonprofit groups (one of them
spearheaded by Bette Midler) united to prevent the city from auctioning off some 100
community gardens to developers. One of those gardeners, Claire Blum of Project
Eden in the Rego Park neighborhood of Queens, says, ‘The garden is a wonderful
place where we can enjoy being outdoors with our family and friends—friends that only
a short time ago were neighbors we would just see in passing.’” (Jones, Alan, and John
O’Neill, Seasons of Grace, 80) I think that’s great, you know, but I’ve never gotten
gardening, or anything to do with the yard—I always kid around with people that my
ideal would be to carpet the yard with cement, so I didn’t have to mow! I am surprised
that someone like Joyce Tutton, who has quite a garden of her own, doesn’t dislike
me—anyone who doesn’t love the sweet soil should probably be under more suspicion
than I am…Now, I am just kidding about the lawn of cement, though you are probably
not going to see much activity in that garden in the parsonage, not while Douglas is in
Chicago, anyway. And, of course, we are very blessed to have Chuck Chronister
mowing our church lawn, and Ray Smith taking care of the parsonage lawn—otherwise,
it probably wouldn’t get cut as much as it does.

I think the whole idea of community gardens is a good thing—I like what comes out
gardens, out of flower gardens, out of food gardens, and I get why they are so
important, important for the same reason we have public parks, not just private parks,
why we have dog parks, and not just only our backyard dog runs: they are important
because they build community, they knit us together, they draw us together, they bring
us out of our houses, and into the community, walking and playing beside each other.
Community is important—it was for the early church, as you can see from our text
today, and it’s important for us as humans. I think that one of the reasons this church
has continued to live on, despite some tough odd through some tough times, is
because we’ve seen ourselves as part of this community—we’re not above it or distant
from it—Coloma, Watervliet, our little neck of the woods—it is us, and we are it, and so
we do things like lead up the Randall Park project, and the Blessing of the Animals, and
maybe even, hopefully, lead up the development of dog park for community, which is
something that I have been wanting for awhile now. Community gardens remind us that
we are connected, and in urban settings, its very easy to get disconnected, and
community churches like ours, they remind us that the church is not just for those who
belong to it, but is meant to be an expression of grace for everyone, member, friend,
distant or close, friendly or hostile. I got that sense from our retreat a few weeks—that
we really do feel that this 150 year old church is not only an expression of our faith in
Jesus the Christ—which it certainly is—but is also an expression of what we think that
faith compels us to do, which is to make this world, this country, this state, this county,
these towns and townships, a better place to live for EVERYONE.

Folks, that is a powerful thing, something I have really come to appreciate about you,
and something I had never really encountered until I began to pastor this church. The
only other hint that I’ve ever had of how we understand ourselves here is actually in our
text today, from Acts 4, and even then, it is different, it is a little more of a closed
community, which is understandable for a community of faith that was just beginning to
get a real sense of who it was. When Christ was resurrected after the horror of his
crucifixion, the community of disciples, both women and men, had to figure out what to
do with this experience, how to express how Christ’s resurrection was to be mirrored in
their own lives, how his resurrection had become their resurrection. What they found
was a community of people that were so overwhelmed by that experience, that
experience of knowing the Christ, knowing this resurrected One, given to them through
the Holy Spirit, this Christ within them, that now flowed in their veins, they were so
overwhelmed that they expressed that experience by sharing everything they had, at
least materially, with each other.

But, of course, that is kind of scary, isn’t it? In this passage, there really does seem to
be this call to live in some sort of socialist commune, where, as the Scriptures say, “no
one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held
in common.” Scary stuff for us capitalists, including me, because I’m not taking any of
you in to live with me anytime soon—sorry.   Yet, I know that to follow this One might
mean something pretty radical, actually, so radical that I might actually consider
something like this   Still, there does seem to be an out in the Greek language being
used here, that suggests when the need arose, those with possessions and lands
would sell them and deliver the proceeds to the apostles—the phrase “as many as” can
also be translated as “from time to time,” hence sparring us from running out and trying
to sell our houses to keep the other one afloat. However, I don’t want to casually
dismiss this text—it’s too easy for us to get our excuse at the principal’s office in order
to miss this class, and it’s probably not going to do our soul much good if we think we
can use the pass to keep as much as stuff as we can in this life, because, of course, we
all know that we can’t take it with us when it all over.

Being part of a community actually does mean that I care about you, about your future,
your health, your life. I can’t pretend to own the whole garden, because to be a part of
a community is to be part of a garden, a community garden, like the garden of Eden,
where our needs are taken care of, when things get rough. I will never forget the time
when folks held that food fundraiser to help pay for Dennis Nitz’s hospital expenses—it
was amazing to see so many people there, many or maybe even most who didn’t even
know who he was! What that moment taught me is that one day we’re probably all
going to need each other—in this church, in this community, in this country and in this
world. If we forget that, we will probably make the mistake that “a prominent builder
made in a small Ohio town when he was asked to join the volunteer fire department. He
politely declined. After all, what could he get out of it? His home was brick, wired to
code, and fire-resistant. But one day his house caught fire. The volunteer firemen
showed up with the pumper truck. But before turning on the water, they playfully asked
the contractor if he still saw no reason to join. Without hesitation, he said he would be
glad to join right then and there, and the fire was extinguished. Scott Russell Sanders
likes to tell that story because his dad was one of the volunteer firemen that day. He
also likes to tell it because of what it says about being a part of a community. He writes:
"We should not have to wait until our houses are burning before we see the wisdom of
facing our local needs by joining in common work…We had better learn how to live well
together, or we will live miserably apart." -- Steve Wilson,"Cult of the Individual
Weakens Sense of Community," The Arizona Republic,15 September 1996, A2. Now,
that is the truth, isn’t it? I think it is, and if we don’t learn those lessons like that early
church did thousands of years, ago, we’re going to find our houses, our homes, our
lives, going up in flames, with no one there to help put out fire, and no one to help us
put our lives back together.

Now, I have to say that I love the part in our text today about folks selling their property
and setting it at the apostles’ feet, at the feet of the religious leadership—I certainly feel
like that is something we should do here at this church, and I will be happy to do some
good work with it, after taking the normal pastor’s 20% processing fee! Hah! Seriously,
obviously that is not something we’re going to be doing anytime soon, especially us
Congregationalists, with all the power resting in the congregation, and not in my hands,
but it does say something about the idea that everything should be laid at God’s feet,
not necessarily the minister’s feet, or the apostle’s feet, but at the feet of the Lord—it is
an act of submission to God, a recognition that what we have been given in this life is
really the Lord’s money, the Lord’s property. That kind of submission is something I
struggle with, but if we remember that it doesn’t go into the apostle’s pocket, but to the
actual people of God, to all of us in the community garden, it makes more sense, if we’
re willing to see people for the children of God that they really are. “An ancient rabbi
once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day was
on its way back. "Could it be," asked one student, "when you can see an animal in the
distance and tell whether it is a sheep or a dog?" "No," answered the Rabbi. "Could it
be," asked another, "when you look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is a fig
tree or a peach tree?" "No," said the Rabbi. "Well, then what is it?" his pupils
demanded. "It is when you look on the face of any [person] and can see [them] ... as
your brother [or sister]. Because if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, it
is still night." -Marjorie J. Thompson, Soul Feast (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1995), 127.

I don’t think we’re interested in living our lives within darkness, emotionally, or
spiritually, and so, like those early disciples in crazy, wonderful early first century
community, I think we ought to claw towards as much light as we can. And summer is
coming and there will be plenty, plenty of light, perhaps more than we can stand. The
gardens will be at their fullest during the coming months, especially as summer rolls
towards us, and it will be a time to be grateful for the goodness that a garden can
produce, a garden that captures the bountiful light all around us. Yes, there will be
some dreary days, some rainy days, especially in life, and especially in this economy,
but it doesn’t distract from the fact that we will still live in a garden, all of us do, and we
need to tend to our corner of it, and maybe even pick up the slack from those that can’t
keep up with the garden row they’ve been given. The early church knew that the “the
true value of possessions and wealth is their ability to impact other people. Or in a
similar sense, if we can’t share what we own, we are owned by our stuff.” All of us have
a lot more wealth than 98% of the rest of world, even if we think we have so little
compared to everyone else in this country. But what if we really did see ourselves like
that early church, that we were so interdependent that if one of us did without, we all
felt as if we did without---what if living in the light of the resurrected Christ really
impacted us like that? How it would change our lives! Imagine how much lighter our
burdens, our worries, would be if we knew each of us would be carrying MORE than our
fair share, because that is what we were asked to do by this God has who has always
given us much more than our fair share. One of the reasons I love this church is
because I think, in our better moments, we do that, we pick up the slack for each other,
for our community, doing the things that enrich the lives of all our citizens, rich and poor
alike, Christian and non-Christian alike, whomever. Summer is the time when the world
is most alive, most green, most vibrant—I think we still have a lot of summer left in us, a
lot left to give, because of our experience of this resurrected Christ, this light of the
world, a light meant for all of us, all of us, everyone of God’s children, that are growing
in God’s good garden. Amen.