What happens when “the tumult and the shouting die, the captains and the kings depart,” as Rudyard Kipling put it in his Recessional?  For us it may be less dramatic but nevertheless there is a clear change in tone once the pomp-and-circumstance of the Easter processional has departed and the music of the trumpets and the odor of the lilies have faded.  The Sunday immediately following Easter is called “low Sunday” for a reason.  There is no question that there is a bit of a let down after the rush of such high energy.

 

We find it in the scriptural narrative also.  After the crucifixion and the resurrection, the disciples seem to be at loose ends.  They are in a kind of daze being led more by their emotions than their intellects.  There is a German psychological term, “schadenfreude”, which refers to the embarrassing reaction of relief we feel when something bad happens to someone else instead of to us.  The soldier in combat who sees his friend killed 20 yards away while he himself is unhurt, the pupil who sees another child get into trouble for copying on a test, or the golfer whose best friend misses a gimme putt.  While they certainly don’t wish their friends ill, they can’t help feeling an embarrassing spasm of gratitude that it happened to someone else and not to them.

 

When we hear the story of the last days of Jesus, there is not a lot of emotional content conveyed, but there are clues.  Peter wasn’t the only one who denied Jesus when it came down to crunch time.  The disciples scattered like a group of folks who were glad that it wasn’t happening to them.  While we certainly don’t pick up emotions of elation there were those of confusion and wonder.

 

I.  New Life Begins After Easter

 

What happens then when “the tumult and the shouting die, and the captains and the kings depart?”  Even the most casual reading of the New Testament communicates the fact that after Easter is when interesting things begin to happen.  We may spend our time in contemplation of the cross and speculation about what did or did not happen on Easter morning, but the New Testament is clear that neither the cross nor Easter are themselves places where the faithful are meant to linger.

 

As important as the Easter event is as a watershed for faith, it is what happens after Easter that ought to command our interest and attention.  We know that among the happenings that confused and amazed the disciples during this time were a number of post-resurrection appearances.  Those appearances have often entered our discussion as a way to prove that this thing really happened like some solution to a mathematical problem or a philosophical theorem.

 

However, there is something more and of much greater consequence involved here.  As interesting as those appearances may be from the standpoint of speculation, they are there to say to us that here is where new life begins; this is what our new life is all about.  For new life can only truly begin after Easter!

 

There is a quotation I came across recently from John F. Kennedy (who always had a way with words) that made him extremely quotable.  In this case he made one of those memorable quotes at a time when the World War II generation was on the edge of realizing a dream never before achieved in the history of humankind -- the dream of retirement.  It was in that context that he said, “It is not enough for us to extend life if we do not learn to engage in a new kind of life.”

 

It is interesting that this kind of language is being used around the current Social Security debate.  It is hard for most of us to imagine what life was like before the advent of Social Security.  Before Social Security most people worked until they died.  Retirement was virtually unknown (except for a small slice of the very wealthy).  In fact it was considered something of a death sentence.  When you retired, you died.

 

Then came Social Security and the dream that there might be some reward for those long years of toil and labor.  Retirement became associated with ads for Sun City with folks sipping a fruity drink by a pool or spending their time with endless rounds of golf.  The dream of retirement was no more work combined with the pursuit of pleasure.

 

But the worm has turned once again, and the New York Times (16 March 2005) says it is not entirely due to the current debate over private accounts and the question of a crisis.  Endless hours on a golf course have lost its allure for many.  Now retirement planners are advising against the cessation of work altogether but transitioning into a different kind of work that is experienced as productive, satisfying, and life enhancing.

 

In the same way our understanding of resurrection life needs to undergo a retrofit.  You see, the resurrection was only partly about the promise of eternal life to come; it was also about the beginning of a new kind of life now -- the kind of life that those original disciples never dreamed was possible for them or anyone else.

 

 

II.             With a New Kind of Person

 

Our scripture lesson in Acts 4 begins to give us a snippet of how that new kind of life begins to take shape.  In these verses at the end of Chapter 4 and the beginning of Chapter 5 we find a new kind of community being formed populated by a new kind of person.  It was a new kind of community described as being of “one heart and soul” and “holding all things in common”.

 

The ideal of building a utopian community that can shut out the world, turn off the television, and remove the destructive temptations that abound in a materialistic culture has resurrected itself time-and-time again throughout human history.  On the face of it that seems to be what is happening here only with a different twist -- the ideal is concretized in the form of a different kind of person.  And in this story he has a name -- Joseph.

 

It was Joseph who modeled what this new kind of community was all about by selling some of his property (apparently a fairly significant piece of real estate) and giving it (with no strings attached) to the young church.  Who then was this man who is mentioned as the first example of the kind of person who would build this new ideal community?

 

He is briefly described here as a Levite and a native of Cyprus.  As a Levite he was part of a tribe of people whose vocation it was to assist the priests in the sanctuary.  They were not priests but they assisted the priests.  It was also their responsibility to distribute help to the needy, as well as being the ancient version of Sunday school teachers who passed on the tradition of faith.

 

In this way Joseph was very much part of the old guard which made it all the more surprising when he jumped into this new movement with both feet.  In fact the Apostles recognized the tremendous change that happened in Joseph’s life by giving him a new name, Barnabas.  The giving of a new name was a sign of blessing and the promise of potential.  We know that throughout the Bible new names were given as a witness to the presence of God’s transforming power in a human life.  Jacob became Israel; Simon became Peter; Saul became Paul.

 

So here as a sign of the kind of person who would be part of the building of God’s new community on earth, Joseph became Barnabas meaning son of encouragement.  In the Greek this phrase, huios paraklesos, is the same one used to refer to the Holy Spirit as the paraklete meaning helper, comforter, or guide.  Barnabas then as the son of encouragement was the example of the spirit of the new community which was later described by an outsider as “see how they love one another”.

 

Barnabas is lifted up as an example of the new community because he not only gave what he had, he gave of himself.  We know that such examples of commitment can never be understood separately.  They are one and the same.  “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also”.  The other side of the coin is illustrated in the very next chapter in the persons of Ananias and Sapphira who played games with their commitment and pretended to be something they were not.

 

While visiting with a colleague recently who is preparing his congregation for a capital campaign, he said to me, “My congregation doesn’t know much about sacrifice; they only know about giving out of their abundance.”  And that is the way most of us do it, isn’t it.  We put our calculators to work to figure out how much of our time, energy, and resources we can let go of without it having much impact on the new home we want to build, the vacation we want to take, or the car we want to buy.

 

You see, the challenge to us in this post-Easter world is to consider this new kind of life where interesting things begin to happen.  Barnabas not only gave what he had, he gave what he was for this new life, and he laid it all at the Apostles’ feet.  He was called the son of encouragement because he wasn’t two-faced; he didn’t pretend to be one thing and do another.  His kind of commitment wasn’t conditional and his gift wasn’t designated.

 

III.  A New Kind of Community

 

After the resurrection there were other people like Barnabas who were drawn to this community of “one heart and mind, and who shared all things in common”.  It must have been an exciting, grace-filled time, but it didn’t last -- or did it?

 

There have been some who try to cite this passage in support of a communistic economic system.  In fact the sharing of common resources has been a mark of utopian communities for hundreds of years.  At the time of Jesus, we know through the Dead Sea Scrolls that there was such a community at Qumran.  To enter that community a person’s property had to be turned over to the head of the community.    Closer to our own time in the 1970s (when the so-called Jesus Movement was capturing the imagination of young people emerging from the drug culture) a number of communities sprang up to try to emulate what they thought was the New Testament model of the early church.

 

In Seattle I became acquainted with one of those groups called the Love Family.  There was much to commend them.  They were committed and sincere folks.  When they entered that community, they took on new names both as a sign of their new life and as a dramatic rejection of their old one which included their families of origin.  Whatever they had in material goods, they presented to their leader while at the same time yielding their personal autonomy to their leader who directed all of their activities.

 

The Love Family stayed in existence for a decade or so but ultimately dissolved from internal conflict and outside pressure, and most importantly from the fact that they didn’t get it.  They didn’t get what that first community, that New Testament model was really all about.  It came about from a change of heart motivated by the Holy Spirit and resulting in voluntary not compulsorily change.

 

You see, one characteristic made the early church different from succeeding imitations -- private property was never formally abolished; people gave what was their own.  And secondly, the giving was voluntary and not a condition of entrance into the church.  So that ultimately, the new kind of community that emerged and formed itself through the Mediterranean and then throughout the world was based not on the rules of admission but on an on-going and growing relationship with a loving God and a caring community.

 

And that’s where we are now, my friends.  We are in that place where eternal life is before us, resurrection life is happening all around us, and it is an interesting place to be to say the least.  We know that the church we are part of now is not of one heart and mind nor do we hold all things in common.  We yearn for that day but it is not yet nor will we see it until the kingdom comes.

 

We are in a place where the spirit is moving, where lives are changing, where caring happens, and where love is made concrete in a thousand different ways.  It is an interesting place to be and it will transform us if we can trust God and keep learning to love each other.

 

Amen.