The Common Good

The Common Good of Community

When we get to heaven, we shall find that everything is held for the good of all in common.

Mechtild of Magdeburg Cited in Mystical Hours

Br. Teasdale reflects on the ideals of community in these words:

“In the early ages of the Church, Christians were distinguished by the way they loved one another, and served the needs of each other in the community. We are a part of a much greater reality than ourselves, our families, and our circle of friends. One of the goals of life is to learn the value of community, of interconnectedness. Our oneness with Divine Reality. Social enlightenment is the keen realization of this truth and the commitment to live in it day- to- day experience.

Our notions of private property and ownership are human contrivances that God and nature do not recognize. As we strive for the heavenly ideal, we should work together to set forth a path for humanity that includes everybody. That’s the Divine Will for the human family, and the best in each religion acknowledges a similar vision. Let us become open to genuine community, to extend ourselves beyond our loved ones.”

As the Book of Acts teaches us, the early Christians held everything in common and shared things, possessions etc., with one another. It was a more purely egalitarian, and truly communal way of living, in and building up the members of the Christian community in its early decades; before it became a political, before it became more secular, and more acutely mindful of economic differences and the competitive need to distinguish one another from the group. 

The emphasis that was placed on engaging fully in the world, and then fitting oneself to its economic demands, rather than aspiring to live in the King/Queendom of God, might well be the turning point of consciousness and consequence in church history. 

I know that I have shocked church members and Bible students with my statement about this unholy alliance or soulless accommodation to culture when I have declared that you cannot be a capitalist and a Christian!

When I read the “red letters” of Jesus in the Gospels, he does not come out as a fan of accumulating wealth, living greedily, or even valuing the ownership of property. Basically, he is more of a democratic socialist where the distinctions of class, culture, and commerce are to be overcome so that your focus and your loyalties belong to God alone.