Friends
Peace be with you.
Many people have been disappointed when they send their children to Catholic colleges and universities to discover that, walking away from their education, the kids no longer believe or practice their faith. Sometimes the reasons are similar to why any person stops coming to church: because of the scandals or conflicts between what the world prizes and the church teaches or simply because it’s easier not to come to church than it is to actually show up. However, many college students have walked into a philosophy course or a religious studies course or an economics course at a catholic college and been told that the Catholic Church was socialist and should be socialist and has walked away from the church either because they believe we aren’t living up to the standards of socialism or they don’t want to be associated with an institution that advocates it. If the professor is asked what they mean by saying the church is or should be socialist, and they aren’t just regurgitating something they read in a left-leaning journal, they will probably cite the first reading for today.
Now, let me just say that the Catholic Church doesn’t generally have a definitive teaching on the perfect form of government. For many years, we preferred a beneficent dictatorship or monarch, a good king or leader. It took us a while to trust a more democratic form of government because we feared tyranny of the minority by the majority, especially in countries like the United States where there was a majority of Protestants historically and, today, the largest growth tends to be among those who have no religious affiliations. The Catholic Church tries to keep its definitive teachings for heavenly realities like the death and resurrection of Jesus. However, if you read the first reading, you may get the feeling that, indeed, the church is advocating that people sell all that they have and give it to those in charge and those in charge will make sure that everyone has what they need. That sounds pretty much like socialism to me.
Still, if you have to look at a larger context to get the real message. We’re only four chapters into the Acts of the Apostles. In the previous Chapter, St. Peter and St. John go to the Temple and, on the way, they see a crippled beggar by the door. They say to the man, “I have neither gold nor silver but what I have, I give you. Rise, and walk”. And the crippled man gets up and rejoices and celebrates. This leads to St. Peter giving testimony about how the people listening to him had just had the savior of the world crucified. Now, remember that Jesus last appearance would have started in that very place, the Temple, with those very people, the crowd, yelling “Crucify him! Crucify him”. St. Peter attributes their denial of Jesus, not to their vindictiveness or their damnation, but because they were ignorant. And he invites them to believe in Jesus. The chief priests and Sanhedrin then appear and take St. Peter and St. John prisoner, an experience that will be normal for the early Christians. They call St. Peter and St. John before them in an attempt to intimidate them with their power. But, not only are St. Peter and St. John not intimidated, but they continue giving testimony and inviting the Sanhedrin into a relationship with Jesus. The Sanhedrin kick them out of the room to think of some way to punish them but when they call them back in, the best they can do is order them not to talk about Jesus and to go away. So, the point of this story is that the leaders of the Jews who appeared so powerful when they convinced the Romans to crucify Jesus are utterly powerless in the wake of the resurrection.
But, that’s when the first reading begins. The followers of Jesus are so trusting of the leadership of the Apostles that some of them voluntarily sell their homes and give the money to them. It’s not a mandate and it’s not setting up a government. It’s trust. The way I think about it is in the context of a relationship my family had with a neighbor family growing up. If they needed anything, we’d help them out and if our family needed anything they’d help us. When our car broke down before driving to a wedding, they loaned us their suburban. At Christmas time, we’d try and outdo each other in the gifts we gave. The early Christians are like a family. They care so deeply about each other that they’re willing to make tremendous sacrifices for each other.
I look around these churches and see plaques with names on them of people who gave money at some point in history. And I know that, if we had a plaque for every person who donated to this church, we wouldn’t have any space on the walls left over. The important thing, however, is that it was freely given and never coerced or forced, unlike socialism which is the government forcing people to pay for things it deems a social responsibility.
There’s much more I could say that refutes the premise of the errant Catholic university or college professor’s theory about socialism but I think I’d miss the challenge we should feel from this story as well. On the one hand, the early church would have been very small and would have easily been able to take care of the few people who had joined the Way, as it was known at that time, but, on the other hand, the community was a welcoming place to new people. One challenge I’ve experienced in some parishes is a tendency to be either not a place that is very caring to the people who come every week because of rifts in the community or sometimes the church is a place that spends so much time caring for the people who come every week that they seem like newcomers aren’t welcome. And sometimes both can be true. One of the biggest reasons that this has happened for me in the past is when monetary fears take over a community and create a kind of possessiveness among a small group, generally from one family that does contribute a great deal to the parish. But sometimes that family kind of thinks it should basically also run the parish or at least make all the decisions as to what the parish spends money on. Sometimes, that family can spend a lot of time spreading rumors that money is being wasted or stolen, rumors that rip a community apart. I’m not saying that money has never been wasted or stolen in a church inasmuch as wondering if time and attention could be better spent elsewhere. Oftentimes, the people who are most concerned about knowing where every cent of church money is spent don’t understand why their children or grandchildren no longer attend Mass or why their family is basically the only one at Sunday Mass. Wouldn’t it be better to spend time calling a sick or homebound person, leading a Bible Study or a couple’s prayer group or finding something else around the parish we can help build up? That is the message of our first reading, not a teaching about what government is supposed to be but a handbook about the kind of servant-leaders the church needs us to be, servant leaders focused on building up the people that come to church and inviting and welcoming others to come to church too.
