"Off the Grid" in Christ

"All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved."

Acts 2:44-47

Well, It's been about fifteen years since I've had a role in a full-length play (even longer since I've dared to appear in a dance number--and if you come see the show, you'll know that's for good reason!) but this weekend, I'll be joining with some other members of Salem, and our surrounding community, to put on a production of, "Oliver!" This is, of course, based on the Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist, in which the title character, an orphan relegated to a workhouse in awful conditions, eventually finds solace in a community of pickpockets in the slums of 19th century London.

I'm amazed the more I think of this story, and--though of course this instance of it existed only in the imagination of Charles Dickens--how often the basic elements of it repeat themselves in human history. Seems like every time the formal structures of a society make up their minds to ignore some need, or stop caring for some of God's children, somewhere "off the grid", up like weeds pop up these little communities of care for one another. They are by no means perfect, but up they pop, as an indictment of the society itself.

It occurs to me that there is a prophetic spirit buried within the human community. In the Bible, God often mentions writing God's law--God's expectations for human life together--on the hearts of the people. Not in a book, or in a societal structure, but more like, somehow encoded in our DNA: right from wrong, justice from injustice.

The technical term for this type of view is "natural law," and I'll warn you, it's not conventionally viewed as very "Lutheran." We Lutherans believe that humans by ourselves--without God's word--are not capable of doing anything but sinning and falling short of God's expectations. If we took the natural law principle and did "what is within is," society would look even worse than it does today.

But at the same time, "God's word" and "human institutions" are two very different things. And so, when those in power fall asleep at the switch--when kids start to go hungry, when debts get out of control and whole nations are taken into indentured slavery, when empty worship and piety starts to stand in for real acts of mercy in the world--then God's word goes "off the grid," into communities willing to do the work of love which those who rule over them are not.

One such community arose around the prophetic ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, and continued after his unjust death at the hands of those in power. Not only did his community continue, but they continued and grew stronger with the express belief that his presence continued with them, guiding them each step of the way. They took care of the widows, the orphans, the slaves, the prostitutes, the ones that their public institutions had agreed to ignore, and they did it not to win elections or campaign dollars, but because they believed it was their commission from God to do so. And they believed--probably rightly--that if they didn't care for each other, no one else would.

It's funny where this prophetic spirit will arise. Whether it's in the surprisingly egalitarian pirate crews of the 17th and 18th centuries, or the grass roots Catholic Worker Movement arising out of the poverty of the depression era, God's Word often does not wait for approval from a president, a congress, a pope or a pastor. It just gets working in the heart of a community, and wild things start to happen. Like Grace.