April 3, 2016

Susan Adams

Low Sunday     Acts 5:27-32     John 20: 19-31

Have you caught up with the talk about a guaranteed minimum income [i] ?

The idea has been around for a while but never gained much traction.

Now-days it seems to be on the agenda for thinking about with more possibility. Finland and the Netherlands have moved to the stage of experimenting with the idea., and Switzerland will do so in a month or two. It goes something like this

Everyone from a predetermined age, perhaps even birth, gets a financial distribution from the government – of say $200 a week. This can be spent or accumulated for later costs such as education. Other ‘benefits’ are removed or simplified – or changed in character – and the tax system is overhauled to accommodate the costs.

Clearly there are many details to work out if the idea is to gain traction and equally clearly it is counterintuitive in the current economic climate of individualised ‘reward for effort and risk’.

Those open to the exploration seem to be willing to do so acknowledging we face an unknown (perhaps unimaginable) change to the nature of work and employment in the not too distance future – some of which we are beginning to experience already with increasing technology, short-term contracting, limited hours, a shift in energy resources and the like. Those who are reluctant to consider the idea or are even hostile to it, seem unwilling to admit such changes are possible and seem to hold that the current framework for distributing wealth is working well enough.

As followers of Jesus, that is as a community seeking to understand the implications of the truth about the risen Christ, it behoves us to struggle still with how to be community, how to care for all those who are community with us as well as those who are impacted by the attitudes we hold and the way we choose to live. Nothing is clear cut for us today, life is increasingly precarious for many and it is full of conundrums that we have to live with as best we can. In this we are no different from the earliest of Christian communities. These communities also struggled with how to handle the matter of income and property, how speak truth in the face of opposition from the power holders, how to manage differences of opinion amongst themselves.

In those first decades after the disturbing events around the ignominious death of Jesus as a criminal, on one of the hundreds of crosses the Roman authorities used to rid themselves of undesirables in the interests of order and control, the followers of the prophet Jesus continued to talk about him: his influence on them, the vision that he had talked about for a life liberated from Roman colonial power, and loving one another.

There were little groups popping up all over the place in the hundred or so years after Jesus death, Gentiles and Jews, who were still talking about him and the way of life he had encouraged. There had been some amazing changes in the most unlikely of people immediately after Jesus death – Thomas for one, and Saul who was now called Paul for another. Paul had been a persecutor of the followers of Jesus, and was now claiming special insight into the meaning of Jesus' teaching, special knowledge about the significance of the crucifixion, and offering special instructions for the groups left wondering and struggling to put into practice what they thought the ‘Jesus Way’ was – and the of course instruction for the curious inquirers. Paul was writing letters and speaking to everyone who would give him 5 minutes about how to turn all that had happened around the crucifixion and confusing aftermath into something that would give these small communities of faith strength and a place of difference from the Roman powers that were increasingly making life difficult for them. the Luke-Acts material is written after the fall of the temple in Jerusalem and well into the migration of Jews and Christians to other parts of the world in search of more hospitable places of establish themselves. It offers us 'observations' as it were into those first communities and the work of Paul. The Luke-Acts story was, we are told by scholars today, put together in the early years of the second century 110 to 120CE. So not an eyewitness account despite how it reads! [ii]

How will our story read I wonder? We know from the record that has been passed on to us that there was much opposition to the vision the Christian community had for their life together. Paul and others had been imprisoned before this for speaking and preaching what was considered by the authorities to be a subversive message. It seems the Christian community had decided in the face of a direct ban on their message to say that they 'must obey God rather than any human authority'. They were desperately trying to hold on to the idea and experience of a mutually caring community even selling land and possessions and holding all things in common for the wellbeing of everyone. They were, we are told, expecting Christ to come again very soon so wanted to be ready for the general resurrection of all Christian people and not found wanting in their efforts to hold to 'the way'. And core to this 'way' was ensuring everyone was taken into account. It seems this 'way' they were living and the vision they were proclaiming, was attractive because we are also told, 'the number of disciples increased greatly'. And this was in direct disobedience to the Jerusalem authorities that continued to persecute them and ordered them to stop teaching in Jesus name.

How will our story read, I wonder? Will it read that in contrast to the prevailing wisdom of the importance of individual wellbeing, the communities calling themselves Christian dared to proclaim a view that sharing the wealth of the earth amongst all the people and justly recompensing people for labour so that all had enough to live with dignity was the way to be in community with one another; that being in just relationship with others was critical and should be strived for even when it seemed contrary to what was considered 'common sense'? Will our story include our willingness to provide a Living Wage as a basic necessity, perhaps even include our willingness to explore a guaranteed minimum income for all people whether they have work as we know it or not.

In these next few weeks of the Easter Season we will be exploring who we are as people who call ourselves Christian and how we live the truth of the resurrection: the hope for life. In other words it is important for us consider how we behave as the Body of Christ, alive now in 2016, and how we bring to life in our midst justice, hope and love despite the common practice of prioritising some and marginalising others.

[i] Hickey, Bernard. NZ Herald ,p27, Sunday 27 March 2016.

[ii] Borg, Marcus. Evolution of the Word. New York: HarperOne, 2012.