There is much food for thought in the saying of G K Chesterton: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” 

Following the radical teachings of Jesus has certainly been found difficult, right from the beginning. The Book of Acts gives us a picture of the earliest followers of Jesus living communally, not only eating together but sharing everything. It tells us that “there was not a needy person among them”, because those who had land or houses sold them and brought them into a common fund to help those who were in need (Acts 2:44-45, 4:32-37). Special mention is made of Barnabas, who sold a field and handed over the proceeds to the apostles. But this special mention could imply that even in those early days not everyone did that kind of thing. As the principle of sharing became routine in the life of the early Church, it inevitably had to be organised and eventually institutionalised. Human nature being what it is, complaints began, and a committee had to be set up to ensure that it was properly organised and fair (Acts 6:16). And so we find already in the New Testament a tension between the radical teaching of Jesus and the realities of communal life and human nature.

As the Church grew in numbers, its general character drifted further away from its radical beginnings. Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and then of the nations of Europe, it largely ceased to challenge the order of society. The Christian civilisation that evolved was nothing like the close, sharing community of the early Church. Such ideas as pacifism, the discouraging of wealth, and the breaking down of class divisions were no longer acceptable. The idea of “the kingdom of heaven” was no longer seen as a new world of peace and justice here on earth. It became the place we go to when we die, so long as we have the right faith.

But despite the difficulties and even sometimes the loss of the original vision, the attempt to live out the radical challenge of Jesus has been a constant feature of Christianity.

In the Roman Empire the idea of rich people giving their money away was already familiar. It was a matter of honour and prestige. Wealthy citizens would compete with one another in paying for a dole-out of food or providing free games in their cities. Poor people received some of the benefits of this, but only if they were Roman citizens. There was no tradition of giving to the poor just because they were poor. When Christianity became the predominant religion of the Empire, there was an influx of rich people into the Church. For them, the tradition of generous giving was transferred from the city to the Church. Many rich Christians endowed the Church itself by paying for ornate new buildings, festivals and so on, but many also made provision for poor fellow-Christians whom they now regarded as fellow-citizens of the City of God.

In mediaeval Christendom, rich people would share their wealth by endowing alms-houses, schools, and other charitable agencies. It was a culture in which the doctrines of Christianity were unquestioningly believed as fact. Life was often short, and death was much more a part of people’s daily experience than it is for most of us today. Heaven, hell, and purgatory were very real. Rich people believed they could atone for their sins and build up credit in heaven by their charity. They saw laying up “treasure in heaven” as simple economic prudence.

During the 1170s Peter Waldo, a wealthy French cloth merchant, gave up all his possessions and became a vagrant preacher, gathering followers who lived in what he and others came to call “apostolic poverty”. His followers were at first admired by many, but their radical criticism of the Church and their efforts to change it led to their being excluded as heretics. However, the movement persisted and eventually became a recognised Protestant denomination. Its chief heartland was in northern Italy, but it now exists in several other countries. The Waldensians, as they are called, still have a great emphasis on serving the marginalised and promoting social justice.

A little later we have the more widely known figure of St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), who also left a life of luxury and pleasure behind to become the leader of a community of vagrants. The difference between him and Waldo was that Francis remained firmly within the Roman Catholic Church and received permission from the Pope to form a new kind of monastic order. Franciscans did not give up private property and pool it in a monastery – they became penniless vagrant preachers living on what people gave them.

In more recent times we have the example of evangelical “faith missions”. George Müller (1805-1898) provided homes for over 10,000 orphans during his lifetime, and schools for more than 120,000. Through all this, Müller never made requests for financial support, nor did he go into debt – he trusted in God to provide. On one well-documented occasion, thanks was given for breakfast when all the children were sitting at the table even though there was nothing in the house to eat. As they finished praying, the baker knocked on the door with sufficient fresh bread to feed everyone, and the milkman gave them plenty of fresh milk because his cart had broken down in front of the orphanage.

Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) founded the China Inland Mission. In its rules he stated that all who went out as missionaries should go in dependence upon God for temporal supplies, with the clear understanding that the Mission did not guarantee them an income – it would only help support them as the funds sent in from time to time might allow. The Mission was supported entirely by “the free will offerings of the Lord’s people”, without any personal solicitations or collections, and it would not go into debt, because that was seen as lack of trust in God’s provision.

In the twentieth century, Albert Schweitzer gave up a glittering career in scholarship and music to become a doctor serving sick people in Africa, and Mother Teresa devoted years of her life to caring for the poorest in India.

Chuck Feeney, who died recently, was born during the Depression, of relatively humble parents. He was a genius at making money – at the age of 10 he was already selling Christmas cards door-to-door! In the 1950s he began selling duty-free liquor to US navy personnel and went on to be a co-founder of the very successful Duty-Free Shoppers (DFS). But in 1984 he transferred his entire share of the company to a charitable foundation he had set up. He did this secretly: not even his DFS partners knew that he was no longer making any personal profit from his share in the business. The foundation gave substantial help to charitable causes all over the world, including among other things universities and schools, AIDS clinics in South Africa, numerous medical agencies, and earthquake relief in Haiti. In his lifetime he gave away more than $8 billion. He refused to have any buildings or projects named after him, thinking that others might make bigger contributions in hope of getting the organisation named after them. He himself lived a frugal life, living in a modest two-bed rented flat, travelling by coach, and wearing a watch that cost $15.

Another outstanding example is Oseola McCarty, a black woman in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Because she had to leave school at the age of twelve to care for her ailing aunt, her ambition to become a nurse was never realised, and her life was spent working as a washerwoman. From childhood she was taught the habit of saving, and this remained with her all her life. She never married, and never owned a car. She walked everywhere, except for having a lift from friends to go to church on Sundays. She pushed a shopping trolley nearly a mile to get groceries. She did not subscribe to any newspaper, and had only a black-and white-television. Even her Bible, which she read avidly, was held together by adhesive tape because she did not see the point of spending money on a new one. At the age of 87, she signed an irrevocable trust allowing the bank to manage her money. Setting aside some money for her church and a few relatives, and a basic pension for herself, she gave the remaining $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to set up a scholarship fund to enable poor students to get the opportunities she herself had not had. This action inspired others to give to the fund. It has now been running for nearly thirty years and about a dozen students each year are benefitting from it.

Chesterton’s statement that the Christian ideal has been found difficult and left untried is not the whole truth – there is a long and honourable history of brave attempts to put it into practice. And we must also bear in mind the vastly wider circle of Christians, people of other faiths, and people who do not profess any faith, who under the influence of the example of Jesus have been kinder and more generous than they otherwise might have been.