Part 10: Acts 2:43-47

Experienced travelers to mission fields across the ocean often know very little about the mission fields just across the railroad tracks.

The challenge of diversity

A Cuban Christian, born in the United States, told me some people had made threats and degrading comments to him after the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He placed American flags outside his home and flags and the Christian cross on his car to defuse any anti-Islamic sentiment.

One day a group of tourists visiting this man's city crowded around him, accusing "Muslims" of killing U.S. citizens. He showed them his identification to verify his citizenship.

On the basis of his physical appearance, this man was judged to be an Arab although he is Cuban; Islamic although he is Christian, and a non-citizen of the United States although he has lived here all 37 years of his life.

In a time of increasing racial, religious and cultural diversity, religious profiling makes life dangerous for some people living in the United States. God challenges us as Christian leaders to examine the prejudices that prevent us from becoming the community that God wants us to be.

Mission at home
The first community of faith after the death and resurrection of Jesus modeled what we should strive for today in our relationships with one another. In the Acts of the Apostles Luke records some of the events the Holy Spirit used to shape the message of the early church. Before the Apostles began spreading the message of Jesus Christ, they had to "flesh out" what it meant to have God's active presence in their lives.

The Apostles asked some essential questions: How will we love God and ourselves? How ought we to treat one another? What relationship will we have to the world around us? These are important questions for Christian leaders to raise if we are to be faithful to the mission of God in a diverse world.

The United States is still a nation divided by race, culture and class. As I travel the United States, I am amazed at the profound mission experiences in which some church groups are involved throughout the world. But I also find that Christians who are experienced travelers to mission fields across the ocean often know very little about the mission fields just across the railroad tracks.

Three lessons from Acts
The early church movement described in Acts can teach us how to be in real communion with one another today.

• Members of the early church "had all things in common" (Acts 2:44). These early followers of the way recognized the need to build bonds of collective unity with one another. Membership in the church meant they were connected with one another through belief in Jesus Christ. They had witnessed the killing of their leader. On courage alone, they stepped out to claim belief in the power of the resurrection. Spiritual leadership is anchored in the belief that it is faith in Jesus Christ—not race, class or social standing—that determines the church's unity.

• Resources were shared with the entire community as individuals had need. These early Christians recognized that love for God was measured by willingness to give. "They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:45). No doubt they did not all agree on everything, but they did agree that their relationship with God would not be compromised by their disagreements with one another.
  
  Withholding our giving to the church because we refuse to grapple with the challenges of diversity is selfish and dishonors God. Christian leaders must model for a self-centered culture the commitment to give of ourselves as we struggle through our differences.

• They praised God and enjoyed fellowship together. These early Christians realized they were created for fellowship with one another. They knew all were vulnerable to death, sickness and pain, and in the end each one's judgment would come from the same God.

God still requires us to overcome our prejudices and develop authentic fellowship with one another. Authentic fellowship begins with each of us learning to receive other human beings as God's children.