Image by Ben Sutherland via Flickr
This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.
Acts 2: 42 - 47
The image here is community; what it means to live in community the way Jesus did. The community becomes one body of people, who live and behave as if they are one person.
Over the centuries there have been many attempts to live in this way. For many, it is an ideal, something other people do whilst the rest of us get on with living our lives.
Mutuality though is present in many communities, especially where there is poverty. It is not restricted to intentional religious communities. It is a desire to help one another because when mutuality breaks down the community is doomed. It falls between selffishness and selflessness as self interest, understanding that by supporting others I further my own interests.
The reality is mutuality is a means of survival, a practice where people who stumble are held up because next time they will be the ones doing the holding.
The powers, political and religious, will do anything to break these networks of mutuality because they are profoundly threatening.
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