No More Rivals: A Reflection on John 20.19-31 and Acts 4.32-35

One of the most striking things about the post-Resurrection stories in the New Testament is how they go out of their way to show just how radical, and radically different, of a community the earliest Church sought to be. The clear fact that, by and large, Christians have completely failed to live that out over the centuries does nothing to diminish this initial vision and excitement, but only allows it stand in starker contrast to the way the world as we know it works. Today I’d like to look at this theme of just how radical the earliest Church was in its outlook through two of our readings, the lesson from Acts 4 and the Gospel, from John 20.

Acts 4.32-35 presents a very idealistic picture of life in the Church:

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.

The past century or so has been very hard on this passage, subsuming it almost entirely in our contemporary economic discourse about Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism. But of course, none of these economic theories are in view in Acts (for the record, the earliest of them wasn’t invented until the late 1700s), so it does the text a gross disservice to frame it that way. These Christians weren’t sharing their possessions as an economic or political statement, but out of a shared identity. What we have here is a vision of community in which common purpose and identity is so strong as to completely overwhelm the clinging, scarcity mindset, and competition or rivalry that drive possessiveness.

That last word, rivalry, rings Girardian bells, and indeed Rene Girard and his Christian acolytes have had a lot to say about this passage. As a reminder, Girard thought that we learn what to desire from those around us, like how a toddler wants nothing more than the toy another child is playing with. This is called ‘mimetic desire’, and it sets up rivalry as a basic problem of human community. Through this lens, Jesus’ teachings and example turn mimetic desire on its head, ending rivalry through forgiveness, love, and grace. As Paul Nuechterlein summed it up in reference to this passage, “following Christ means following in the way of nonrivalrous mimetic desire,” and these early Christians understood this to include a radical commitment to the community that involved sharing their wealth, property, and possessions with the whole group.

The Gospel for today also shows the lengths to which the first Christians were to go in order to live out their faith. It’s a jam-packed reading, and so the radical element can easily get lost, squished as it is in between the “Little Pentecost,” which is John’s alternative (or supplementary) story of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the ‘doubting Thomas’ narrative. But, if we dig deeper into the Little Pentecost story, something interesting emerges:

… Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. (John 20.21.23)

This is nothing less than a passing of the mantle: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” Receiving the Holy Spirit is a gift, but it is also a commission. It is the setting apart and empowering of Jesus’ followers to be as Christ in, to, and for the world. (To repeat those famed ancient words yet again, We become by grace all that Christ is by nature.) This is what being a Christian, literally ‘Christ-ling’ means. This adds greater clarity to what follows: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” On the surface this seems like it’s giving the Apostles authority to act as judge, jury, and jailer over others. But if we connect it to the vocation to be ‘christs’ in the world, then it becomes clear that this is not an invitation to ‘retain the sins’ of anyone, but a calling to radical forgiveness, just as Jesus forgave everyone, including even his executioners (Luke 23:34). Paul Nuechterlein again hits the nail on the head about this, when he writes (citing Gil Baillie):

From our sacrificial point of view, we read this as a stern God who says, ‘You get to go out there and decide who’s going to go to hell and who’s not.’ Rather, the part about retaining sins is an urging to the disciples to get out there and get busy forgiving people’s sins, because if they don’t do it, it won’t get done. Unless people experience forgiveness from them, they won’t be forgiven. If they don’t experience forgiveness at the hands of the Jesus’ disciples, then they will go on generating the kinds of rituals by which they will feel expiated.

All this is part and parcel with what I’ve elsewhere called “God’s economy,” in which everything is paid forward. Jesus connects being forgiven with forgiving others, and the receiving of grace with the giving of grace. All too often, the message of forgiveness is distorted in the Church, as if it’s saying, “You’re okay. You’re forgiven. You’re done.” But what it’s really saying is, “You’re okay. You’re forgiven. Now get out there and extent the grace you’ve received with others in all that you do.” Once again, this teaching undermines the logic of rivalry. We don’t need to jealously guard God’s blessings for ourselves if we know that they are abundant, and only grow when we share them with others. We don’t need to create in-crowds and outsiders, ‘us’ and ‘them’, because other people’s different lives are not a reflection or judgment upon our own.

So, in their own ways, both of these texts that we’ve looked at today demonstrate how seriously the first Christians understood the ‘newness’ of life they had received in following Jesus. Of course, the past two thousand years of history has shown that this is very hard to live out in our world. But that doesn’t lessen the calling to do so.

Christ gave generously of his time and energy, shared what little he had with others trusting the blessings would grow, and was quick to forgive and extend mercy and compassion and slow to judge. This is the pattern he set for us, and as those who bear his name, that is our mission, our calling, our duty too.