Let us pray: O God we are comforted and inspired by the story of our forebears in the faith. As we reflect on them, may we hear the call to write our own story, make our own witness, create our own community that echoes what they have done before. Amen.

For reasons that you will hear about in a few moments, the “reflection and title” did not make it into the bulletin this week. Let me tell you that the title is one which takes a portion of a verse from our first reading from the second chapter of Acts: Holding Everything in Common

Perhaps you were listening to the reading from Acts this morning and thought that I might want to make the reflection a community effort. I've attended worship services before where the reflection time was interactive and I've always been interested in trying to re-create the experience in worship for which I am leading. However, before you start to squirm in your seats let me explain that the missing line in the bulletin was not intentional, but an outcome of using a previous week's bulletin as a template for the following week.

We didn't have a reflection last week and so when it came time to edit the worship service and update it for today, despite the fact that I read and re-read the resulting effort, well, there was no reflection there this week as well. My brain was obviously working on it overnight on Friday, so I woke up yesterday morning with the niggling feeling that I had left it out and sure enough that's what happened.

As is usually the case, however, it turns out there is a connection to what I wanted to reflect on this week. By way of introduction, let me read something to you from an introduction to this week's scripture readings, in particular with respect to the reading from the passage of Acts: Children on a play date pool their toy collection together and prepare to build an imaginary town. Adults share a meal at a restaurant and, when the bill comes, each makes a contribution and are grateful for the time together. Beyond these daily experiences of sharing, one can think of the more extraordinary acts of generosity that happen after a disaster or catastrophe when individuals and communities extend themselves to address the needs of others.

The earliest expressions of the Christian faith often seem remarkable. The world-view presented by many news accounts is one of self-preservation and greed. Given the meaning and identity most cultures place on personal ownership, it can be difficult to imagine nurturing self-giving and community. Yet Acts 2 invites us to see hospitality and generosity reflected within ourselves and the communities of which we are a part. It has been said that one’s authentic self can be found in those places where we are able to be most generous.

I have said that the passage we heard from Acts 2 this morning is one of my favourites. I often consider how the world-view presented by those few verses might inform and guide the way we organize our own society. The fact is there are communities which try hard to live with the kind of values expressed by Luke in his description of the early Christian communities. It is also true that soon after musing out loud about why we can't be more like that, someone will offer the opinion that it just cannot work, especially in the current age where as that quote I offered to you says: The world-view presented by many news accounts is one of self-preservation and greed. The impression with which we are left of course is that that world-view of self-preservation and greed is out there – something which we are in conflict with, but of course the more accurate assessment is that it's not just out there, it is also in here.

I want to tell you a couple of stories from the past few days and the connection I think they have with the communitarian ethic presented in the passage from Acts. There was a workshop in Room 205 this past week and I was asked to help provide some technical support in making sure they could use our public internet connection and also connect with a printer. Without going into a whole lot of detail let me just tell you that the workshop was focussed on a tool that a couple of women from Ontario have developed that help people to assess their passions and how those passions might mesh with career aspirations. I've probably mangled that quite a bit, but you can ask Elaine Stewart all about it. In working with Penny and Kathy in getting things to work a week ago Friday, I ended up telling a story that I've told many times before, namely how I moved from a career as a computer geek – doing system programming and administration – to a vocation in ministry. It's not a story I am going to repeat here in any great detail except to say that this has all resulted in what has been for me a life-long search in trying to mesh what I consider my God-given abilities and aptitudes for computers and computer science and other skills and aptitudes for the work of ministry. As in most things I think it is the journey that has turned out to be important, more than the goal – because I ultimately believe that the goal I have in mind will never actually be achieved.

That's story one.

I was invited to participate in a pyschology study this weekend. I probably can't or shouldn't say much about the study, but I do want to tell you about one question in the study which I think has connections with the theme for this reflection. It was a question on co-operation as compared to self-improvement or self-satisfaction – something along the lines of asking me if I get satisfaction from belonging to a group which achieves a goal or objective even if I think that I could do better or achieve more on my own. For me, that question conjures up the old feelings around group work in school. I was not really a happy participant in group work. I always wanted to do things on my own. Even now, and I have a recent example to prove it, I am happiest when I am working in a group if I can find some part of the group work to do on my own and then go off and do it and then bring it back to combine with the work of others.

That's story two.

And here's the connection: One of the ways I have channelled my continuing interest in computer software and my career as minister and theologian is in the field of open-source software. If you don't know what open-source software is, let me just say that it is software that is open. In other words, anyone can look at the computer code and can in fact, if they want to, change it. It would be like saying for example that if there was some feature or irritating aspect of Microsoft Word that you wanted to change then you or someone you hire could change it, because you would have the source code – the program that comprises MS Word. I could go on and on about the advantages of open-source software – primarily that it is often free – and as the saying goes – free as in pizza as well as in speech. I have dubbed open-source software as community developed software. Someone writes it but a whole community is able to see the code, offer suggestions for improvement and contribute not only to the quality of the software but also a much more rapid development cycle. I actually think that the church would do well adopting open-source software. In fact many municipal and regional governments, especially in Europe have taken the step to reduce their software costs by using freely available and free to use open-source alternatives to commercial, closed source software.

Well, I hope the connection is obvious, that the open source programming community is an instance of the Acts community – where everything they have is shared in common – well at least in resources related to the development and distribution of software.

As I mentioned this is one area in my life where two very different passions find common ground. I am fascinated by the ethic at work in the open source software community. What drives programmers to make their work freely available and in most cases free! These are very smart people who could presumably make a good deal of money if they wrote closed software and sold it, but instead they offer it to the world at large.

I don't have all the answers but I have spent some time in consideration of some of the issues – especially with respect to that ethic that such people hold, and in consideration of what the spirituality of people in the community might be. I expect many of them would look at me with wondering eyes if I asked about their spirituality, but I find it interesting to consider what their take is on giftedness and to discuss with them where their skills, abilities and aptitudes came from.

Well I don't have a whole lot more to say – actually that's not true – I have a whole lot more to say, and that's the problem – so I had better stop here with perhaps a number of questions dangling in the air.

Some of you might be wondering how this has anything to do with the reading from the book of Acts and the early Christian community. The point I hope I have made is that the ethic of sharing things in common and taking and using only what is needed is often dismissed because it would never work as the prominent and all-encompassing way of being in the world, but in fact there are many places where the communitarian ethic can be found and where it is working well. One of those places I believe exists in the most unexpected or unusual of places – in dark, geeky places where programming geniuses are busy working away at solving some issue with their algorithmic minds and outside of the box approach to problem solving.

It has always been said that God can be found in the most unexpected and unlikely of places. Is it possible that I have opened another instance that proves that statement to be true? Well, perhaps? Stay tuned, I may have more to say about this in future months – in fact it is one of the areas I am considering as I think about what I want to do in a sabbatic leave next year. There are lots of other things I am thinking about, one of them being Celtic Spirituality and you may have noticed a certain celtic theme to today's liturgy, as well.

Finally let me say that if this week's worship bulletin had been developed in a more open-source kind of environment, I'm pretty sure someone in the community would have said – Hey, you forgot to include the “reflection and it's title”. Point made? Amen.