What are Christians to do?

I was raised in a devout Baptist Christian family. The family’s life revolved around family, church and school, in that order. We were believers but also doers. Our faith did not allow for unkind behavior and demanded doing our best. We knew we were not perfect, but church and family came with high expectations. I was a child of the Great Depression. Sharing was a tool of survival. My childhood had little I and me. It had a lot of we and us.

Reta Halterman Finger, a faculty member at Eastern Mennonite University, recently published an article in Sojourners magazine about sharing resources in the early Christian Church. I was impressed by her research and writing because she put the subject into the context of the living experienced by Christians in the first century CE. The early followers of Jesus were drawn from the very poor of the Galilean area. Jesus himself was a very poor man who had little or no resources of his own. He was a voice of hope among people dominated by extreme poverty. Land ownership had passed from the many to the few. The owner landlords lived in luxury in cities. Laborers had been left behind in poverty. Commonly able-bodied men had been reduced to the status of day laborers who worked for less than subsistence pay.

Professor Finger argues effectively that giving was not possible and that the Christian community had resorted to sharing rather than giving. Women were particularly vulnerable. Vulnerable women are often referred to as widows or prostitutes. In reality they were women, often times with children, who had been abandoned or divorced by men. In the early church such women were accepted and were benefactors of sharing.

There is no evidence that tithing was practiced in the early church. In reality, argues Finger, people renounced personal possessions and practiced sharing for the good of the community.

There is no reason to argue that they practiced communism. They were a part of an economic system that was very unlike any modern economic framework. Society was divided by the rich and the poor. The response of the early church was sharing. The key concept was the rejection of I and me in favor of we and us.

I continue to be fascinated and challenged by Harvard Professor Robert Putnam’s recent book “Our Kids.” It is the story of what has happened to American children over the past 50 years. The gap between rich families and poor families has become gross and dangerous. Millions of children are being left behind. Poor children are losing the opportunity for education and upward mobility. They are living in segregated communities and attend segregated schools. The segregation in not racial but economic.

In the final chapter of the book, Putnam poses the great question. What is to be done? Either Putnam does not know the real answer or he knows the answer and does not dare put it in print. The closest he comes to giving an answer is in the title of the book. OUR Kids. The kids who are being left behind are OURS.

Professor Finger does not mention what early Christians did with homeless, abandoned or fatherless children. This subject is not specifically handled in the New Testament material. However, the words of Jesus ring true. “Let the children come to me for of such is the Kingdom of God.” The traditions of the early churches indicate Christians scooped up homeless, abandoned children and took them home. The homeless, abandoned children were not “those” children but “our” children. Compassionate followers of Jesus did not hold fundraisers or sponsor holiday dinners or run “toys for tots” events. Apparently early Christians simply shared what they had.

I ponder what would happen if American Christians and their churches decided to practice sharing their homes, food, clothing and love with the kids in our very own communities. The first step is to say, “These are OUR kids.” The next step is called sharing.

From time to time, I have made studies of particular subjects found in the Bible. One such adventure that I took was on the subject of hospitality. Jesus depended on hospitality as he made his teaching tours. He taught his disciples to do the same. The laws of hospitality are a part of sacred writings for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. They all ignore the teachings found in their holy writings. Of course it is a tall order. To practice hospitality, sharing, not giving, would be needed.

My adventuresome mind goes from the abandoned children of first century Palestine to the homeless children of America and finally to the millions of refuges of our world. Notice I used the word “our” world. Americans have enormous wealth. We pride ourselves in our giving. We will never know our potential until we abandon I and me and embrace we and us, and then fully embrace the potential of sharing.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.