Today is Pentecost Sunday which is a Jewish festival held 50 days after Passover.  It was and is a day that Jewish people celebrated each year as the Festival of Wheats.  It was like our Thanksgiving, only bigger, and it was held in the spring. and was when the Jewish people from all over the world would come to Jerusalem, from Africa, from Asia, from Greece.  Even in Jesus’ day the Jewish people had been spread in the diaspora all over the world.  But they came together on the Pentecost 50 days after the day of the crucifixion of Christ and more than a month after his resurrection. Like Mike read, the Disciples were preaching about Jesus and how to live a different kind of life.  Peter and the others were in the temple where every Jewish person was making a journey to worship God and be thankful for all that they had.  But a strange thing happened: each person, regardless of where they came from, heard the disciples speaking in their own language.  At first the people around them were amazed and then called them drunk, but Peter argued, no doubt, Peter always argues, that it is 9 in the morning and they hadn’t had a chance to get drunk.  Then they heard Peter and the other disciples preach and felt very connected to each other.   As Mike read, the crowd was 3,000 large, and this is the crowd that began the first church.  After repenting and being baptized their very next act was to sell everything they had and give it to each other no matter what the need.  They worshipped together.  They were in community with one another.  Her pain became my pain and visa versa. Empathy abounded.

How empathetic are we and how does this affect community?  I am not talking about if you hurt when you see someone else hurting. Something greater than even this, where you problem-solve to prevent that pain from ever happening again. Empathy is the emotional glue that builds and sustains thriving communities. It allows members to understand each other’s needs, validates individual experiences, and fosters supportive relationships that ultimately prevent division and resolve conflict.  They were not more than human.  They fell down on this from time to time, we know because most of the New Testament after the Gospels is about the churches and their different problems and how they solved them.  But problems are fewer if you are all equal.

Now I am not preaching that we should sell all  of our belongings and share with one another.   The first Quakers did not sell all their belongings or practice communal property ownership. Rather, they maintained private property but emphasized simplicity, strictly regulated business dealings, and developed a deeply interconnected support network for members of their faith.  That is what I am preaching today. Early Quakers were known as good business people who held a very high ethical standard.  But they were also generous to one another and made sure the poor around them had their needs met. Instead of abandoning their assets, Quakers were expected to avoid flashy consumption, ostentation, and the hoarding of wealth. They favored simple clothing and functional architecture.  Local Quaker meetings collected funds to aid the poor, the sick, and those imprisoned for their religious beliefs. While this created a strong safety net for their community, it was organized mutual aid, not joint ownership of all assets.  The women were also called to preach as well as the men, and they would raise one another’s children when the woman had to be gone from the family for an extended period of time.  They gave of their time, their wealth, and their faith for each other.

Giving like that is a spiritual practice.  From us pours what we can afford to give, and we give time as we can to also help the structures of this church and we give energy to the different committees and life of the meeting.  We believe in equality.  It is why we make pledges or use the brown box in the corner to put offering in.  We do a lot for the poor in our area, but we do it mostly individually.  Our Peace and Social Concerns Committee is active and does what it can to help this church address the needs we can afford to address.  And that is always a blessing to give money, energy or time. We feel great after a night at the pantry helping others without food to be fed.  Giving is a way of admitting that we all belong to each other. Imagine if all of us lived simply and gave all our extra money collectively. Imagine then how many poor we would be taking care of.  Imagine our expenses getting taken care of every month.

On the back of your bulletin is a piece of information that helps you know how we are doing financially here at the Friends Church.  We don’t give this information out for guilt but for transparency and because you form this church, you are why and how it exists.   You are what keeps this boat afloat. There are no mega donors.  We are all common people who give what we can to keep these doors open and keep our witness in the community.  This financial information on the back of the bulletin lets us know if we are reaching budget.  We have savings, yes.  But we as Quakers are called to be practical people. 

I am reading a book called “Practical Mystics” by Jennifer Kavanagh, about Quakers and how our faith teaches us to be practical and active in the world, helping the poor, relieving oppression, caring for the ill, but also running successful businesses and working hard at being sensible when it comes to our lives. . I’ll read one paragraph taken from the book about practicality of Quakers.

In the introduction Kavanagh explains the term “Practical Mystics” and what she is planning to reveal in her book.

“”Practical mystics” is an odd phrase: seemingly a contradiction in terms… What I hope to describe is a group who combines mysticism with often radical action. To look not just at how the contemplative and active lives can coexist but how in essence they are the same, …how the action stems from that faith, how the two[mysticism and practicality] are intertwined, and how crucial that interaction is.”

The first churches were both radically mystical and radically practical.  They found a way to be both that worked for them.  But there is something at the root of what happened; they realized that they all belonged to each other.  This Christian belief that all become equal in the sight of God was a core value as Christianity began, and as Christians, we need each other to be better people.  As we depend on Christ to guide us, we also depend on each other for empathy and support.  The first church had definitely found community, and community and empathy for one another need to be intertwined like practicality and mysticism.  When you are in community you need to know for certain that even your enemy matters and can be a source of God’s love.  You know in your heart that all people are connected to each other and what benefits the weakest of us benefits us all. Empathy also fires the need to help others and makes us be active people in the world doing and being a witness to love.

We don’t live in the First Century.  But we are still people who support Christian ideals and beliefs to love one another and God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strengths and love our neighbor as ourselves.  We are instructed by Jesus to follow that one commandment in all that we do and say. Let us be people of generosity and commitment as we step toward a better future.

• How is this church your community?
• If given the chance to sell all you had and live communally how would that affect you spiritually?
• How is giving a spiritual practice?
• Do you feel connected to people you don’t even know?