A
few years ago I was standing in Red Square.
Lenin’s
tomb was there in front of me.
Along
the road to the Kremlin, I’d seen plaques and statues honoring Karl
Marx.
But
none of the people I talked with had fond memories of the communist
days.
Outside
the Kremlin gate I saw a few visitors following an old custom.
They'd
toss coins backwards over their shoulders.
And
a group of babushkas,
poor old peasant women,
Would
scramble to gather up the near-worthless Kopecs.
A
little further in the distance, tall cranes marked the many
construction sites.
Luxury
hotels and “Western Condos” with million-dollars-plus units.
Marx’s
vision was altruistic and idealistic and good.
From
each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
But
that's a lot to ask of our fallen human nature.
And
the Communism of Marx and Lenin was a dismal failure.
It
was further doomed at the outset – by its atheism and its sole
reliance on humans.
It
would be hard enough to make that idealistic system work with God’s
help.
In
one nation under God.
What
chance could it have without God’s help?
According
to our reading from Acts,
The
Communism practiced by the early Church community was working very
well.
Those
who had much shared fully with those who had little.
The
community was of one heart and one mind.
There
was no needy person among them.
Perhaps
that community was successful because its members were all,
As
our Gospel indicates, born of the
Spirit.
Perhaps the Communism of the early Church will never work for a community so
large as Russia—
Or the US.
Or the US.
Where
the hundreds of millions of members are never of one mind and heart.
But the task falls to each of us who recognize that we're born of the Spirit.
The
task of striving toward the altruistic, idealistic goals of that
early Christian community.
The
task of striving to see that there is no needy person among us.
Tuesday 2nd Week of Easter
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