Don't be touchin' my stuff

The idea of "living in community" has come up in conversation a couple of times over the last 24 hours. A question was posed to me and others last evening during a home Bible study. The question was something like, "What are your fears about living in community with other people."

For the sake of understanding, allow me to define "living in community" as best as I can. In the early first century church, there were a group of believers, possible hundreds or thousands, who chose to live communally. (I'm picturing the dorm scene in Son-in-Law where the girl's parents are following her through the co-ed dorm when a guy was walking down the hall and someone naps his towel revealing his naked butt. "Communial Living!" she explains. Anyway, back to the lesson...) Everything they owned was given over to the good of the community and they shared everything. I imagine they lived in close proximity to each other and spent most of their waking hours together. They probably knew nothing of individualism and selfishness living in that environment.

Fast-forward 2000 years and translate that into something we can grasp. Community living in the 21st century might not look like "communal" living as it perhaps did in the 1st century. We might not live on the same property but meals, recreation, and many resources would probably be shared among everybody. Decisions made are done for the good of others and there would be no sense of individualism or selfishness.

Now, back to the question. I answered the question last night by saying that there are certain things I like to keep to myself (I referred to it as "my stuff") and if I'm living in close proximity with many other people for the better part of each day, my stuff might get exposed. I didn't really define my stuff but it really doesn't have anything to do with something tangible. "My stuff" is my personality, my idiosycracies, my behavior, my thoughts, my sins, my habits, etc. My stuff remains largely hidden from the world save a few people in my inner circle.

Insert more people into the equation. Suddenly, my stuff is subject to being exposed to lots of people who might not like my stuff. They might try to change my stuff and they might make judgments upon me based on my stuff.

Talking to a couple friends at lunch today, the subject of living in community came up in reference to a song a Christian artist wrote about people masking the sin that's going on in their lives and being afraid to expose themselves to other believers. Meanwhile, their sin and lifestyle tear away at them in secret when they really should be vulnerable and let their stuff be known to those that can help them.

Community living would be hard thing to sell because everyone wants to hold on to their stuff.