"Why Communism and Socialism Fail to Create Community" by Melvin Lehman | KFW 2024

Lesson Transcript

Well, good morning to you all, and greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus. I truly am honored for this opportunity to be with a crowd of believers who know the Lord and are seeking a way forward in our generation. If you are hoping for yeah, there you go. If you are hoping for a lesson on economics or a whole lot of really big answers to these questions, I probably will not do so well with that. Thank you very much. So why communism and socialism failed to create community? And what is the answer?

There's assumptions, I guess, in these statements that are being made. So have they failed? And what about democracy and capitalism? Have they done much better in the whole business of creating community? I'm actually not going to spend a great deal of time on trying to answer that first part of the question. Why not? Well, I decided some time ago that now, I'll just read what I wrote in my notes. "It is not a lament that will change the world.

It will be changed by people committed to Jesus and full of the Holy Spirit who join hands in communities of faith all around the world in deep commitment to the kingdom of God." For that reason, while we can talk all day long about why they failed, my question is, so what of it? What are we to do? What are we to change? How are we to live? However, I will make a few comments about communism and socialism along the way.

Maybe just right to begin with, there are people in this audience who would be far better qualified to talk about this than me. I do teach world history. I'm a little fascinated with economics. I'm quite amateurish in it, so I know a little bit about it and don't mind talking about it a bit. But I would say just first off, something to get straight here.

So the historians and people who are into economics and political structures and all that will be sure to make a difference between Marxism or Marxist communism and socialistic communism or democratic communism, you might call it. They're going to make those differences. It's beyond the scope of this discussion to actually make sense of that. I'm not going to try to.

In fact, I'm just going to begin with two stories maybe to give you a little bit of an idea of the context or why we're talking communism, socialism, and creating community. So it goes back to the, well, let me see, probably 2000, well, no, even before that first, 1990s. I'm in Warsaw. I'm sitting across the desk from a lawyer. We're trying to work through important papers in order to establish a work there in Poland. The lawyer could speak good English.

And remember, those of you who are old enough, we're not too far from 1989 when the Berlin Wall collapsed and communism sort of collapsed in Eastern Europe. So you're not that all far out. They're still operating pretty much within their old system. So I'm asking the lawyer, "So how do we move forward here?" And he says, "Well, Mr. Lehmann, for $75, I can write up your papers. I can send them off. I'll need to have a $50 fee myself.

And you have something like about a 30% chance that those papers will be returned to you. If they are, you might get them three to six months from now. We needed them immediately. You might get them three to six months from now. Pause." Then he said, "For $4,000, I can process your papers. You have a 100% chance of getting them back signed, sealed, and delivered." Am I still on? "Signed, sealed, and delivered.

And it'll be within two weeks." I leaned back in my chair and I said, "Well, I don't remember his name anymore." But I said, "Mr. Lawyer, in the United States, you'd go to prison for that." And he leaned back in his chair. And then I got schooled a little bit in a way that I had never expected. He said, "OK, Mr. Lehmann, I understand. I understand exactly what you're saying. I have a question for you.

Would your poorest people in the United States be able to pay $4,000 to accomplish this goal?" "Well, no." He said, "I know how you all think about this, but let me tell you how we think about it. So by setting that fee at $75, that makes it accessible to almost anybody in Poland. They actually could pay that. And they could actually pay the $50. They have a chance. They have access to this legal procedure." But he said, "Mr. Lehmann, I could not make a living on that.

So the fact of the matter is, what we do is we have these fees set up." I know you call it blood money. That's what he called it. He said, "You have but we have that system set up so that the rich and the wealthy and the well-to-do are actually bearing the brunt of how this system works." Well, I had to admit he had just a tad bit of an argument at what he was saying. And so I said to him, I said, "All right, sir. You win the argumented part. I'm still not I don't have one dime for blood money.

So we will take the route that is the legal route and that's it. Whatever happens, happens." At the end of that story, six weeks later, we had our papers back and we were good to go. So praise the Lord for that. But my point to you is before you write Covey used to say, "Seek first to understand, then be understood." Too often we jump to really fast conclusions about things to get ourselves into trouble. The second story for you is now fast forward a couple of years.

And again, I'm in Poland, but this time I'm in Minsk, Mazowiecki. I'm sitting at a coffee shop. We didn't know about coffee shops years ago. At least I don't think we did. I can't imagine my dad in his bib overalls coming out of the cow stable and cleaning up a little bit heading off to the coffee shop with my mother. Yeah, just the picture doesn't fit. But there I was, coffee shop in Minsk, Mazowiecki. Łukasz is sitting across from me. Łukasz just graduated from the University of Warsaw. He's a trained socialist.

And I had been asked by some of the brothers over there. They said, "Would you go and talk to Łukasz and discuss things? Give him your perspective." He was also agnostic. And so there we are and we're seated. This was just shortly after 9/11. It was either in the winter there or else early spring. I can't remember anyway. Łukasz's lead statement is, "George Bush should go to prison.

He should go to prison immediately." And I'm like, "OK, George Bush should go to prison." So we continued the discussion and we began to talk more about economics and socialism and communism and capitalism and on and on and on. And we went on for four hours talking about this subject. And of course, I was weaving into it some things about Christianity.

And in the middle of conversation, I stopped him and I said, "Well, you know there is Christianity and that system of belief and that understanding of economics, well, it is really true from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. When it's working and the Holy Spirit is moving, that's precisely what happens." And I proceeded to tell him.

I said, "You know in the community I grew up in, if a neighbor's barn burned down and something needed to happen, I can promise you his cows would have gotten milked somewhere that night. And I can promise you that by the beginning of the next day excuse me, by the beginning of the next day, well, there would be people on site and they would be cleaning it up. And it would be quite likely that within one week that man would be back in his barn milking his cows." And I described a little bit.

But he said, "That's an exception. Nobody lives like that in this world." "No, no, no," I said, "Łukasz, you're wrong. The truth is I could take you to communities of hundreds of people, yeah, even thousands of people, and they live this way. That's what they do." Discussion went on. I didn't think much more about it. The next morning, I get up early and I'm walking down the street in Minsk, Mazowiecki, kind of trying to catch my breath in an early morning.

And I could vaguely there were a few people on the other side of the street walking down the street. You know it's morning. You're going to work, right? You got your head down and you're just headed that way. And suddenly, "Melvin!" And I look across the street and here's the Łukasz. "Melvin! The Mennonites, the future of the world!" So there you have it. I told you did story form so you could get just a little bit of a feel for, "OK, so what are we talking about?

Communism, socialism." In his view, the answer is we're going to work at creating equality. Maybe just a little bit on that. So I'm going just a little bit out of the order that I had originally have in my notes. So forgive me as I hunt my way around just a little bit. So communism, socialism, and notice that I put in here democracy and capitalism because let's not distance ourselves too far here. Just pause a moment and think about the polarization in America today.

And I know it's about a whole lot of different things. But I'm not quite sure that the tale is yet told here about how well we're doing. So if I were to give the reasons why that communism and democracy have failed, the primary reason is it's a finite cause. It's not transcendent. It's dealing with human issues at a human level. And it does not take into account the issues that human beings have such as selfishness, et cetera. In 1 Samuel 17:29, you're likely familiar with the passage there.

David has come into the camp and his brothers are all over his case because they're saying, "What in the world are you doing here?" And Goliath walks out and shouts his challenge and everybody is silent. And David raises the real question. He just says, "Well, isn't there a cause? Why is everybody just standing here doing nothing?" So I would suggest to you first and foremost, there is no transcendent cause.

So in the mind of a typical socialist, the cause is a classless society where all are economically and socially equal. There's an equality that is spread out across all peoples. And listen, that's not all so off the wall. In fact, I've come to believe that socialism is in many ways a Christian heresy. What do I mean by a Christian heresy? Well, it's picking up the ideas. It's the right idea. You can find this, by the way, in the New Testament, the idea that we ought to be paying attention to a sense of equality.

So the means here is interesting. How do you get there? In communism, it's the nation-state or the government. I'll say a bit more about that here in a bit. So in pure communism, when I say pure communism, maybe the word Marxism could be put in there. It's a coercive state. Is needed until the state withers away. For those of you who know a little bit about the history of this business, that's Karl Marx, Engels. They're teaching the idea that you can't get this to happen.

After all, the rich and the well-to-do are not going to give up easily. You're going to have to use force and coercion and take it from them and give it to the poor. They had no clue how to make that really work so that you had good people when you were done. And hence, we are familiar with Marxism being worked out in the old Soviet Union and places like that. But note, the means is the nation-state. This is how we'll get this done. We'll have the correct officials. We'll twist arms. We'll throw people in jail.

We'll take and give. In democracy, relative economic equity is theoretically achieved through our graduated tax system. So it's the same idea, really. It's to find a way to level the land a little bit. And we've been playing games with that for years. The rich figuring out how they don't have to pay taxes. And it's endless. Nevertheless, give credit where credits do. It's an attempt by government to say, "Let's level the playing field a bit." And their primary method is graduated tax system.

So I would say a failed experiment is I call it a failed experiment because it's been very, very clear, as you observe this being worked out over the years, that we're not seeing the kind of equality that was proposed. But what about the Christian community, maybe? How do we think about things? Well, I want to back up. And I told you it's not a lament that will change the world, but I am going to take up a lament. And I'll tell you why.

So remember, for those of you who are here on Friday, my comments were that every great movement in the church and I would say other places when I say great movement, movements, be they good or ill, are typically a response to something that is out of whack. It's not working right. And there's overreaction and all of that happens. But what you want to do is get your finger on what is it that they were actually reacting to?

So communism, socialism, I think, is a reaction to the failure of the Christian world to create community with identity, belonging, and thus an attempt to create community from a humanistic position. Why do I say this? Well, I teach world history. And you can't help but see this thing happen. So the Crusades are somewhere between the 1100 and 1300s. You have sort of 200 years of off-and-on fighting.

And probably one of the most notorious stories in the Crusades is the Fourth Crusade when Christian Europe at the behest of Constantinople or what we know as the Orthodox Church today marched toward Jerusalem and the Holy Land, of course, in their quest to wrest Jerusalem from the Muslim people. But it turned out to be an economic fiasco. And so in the Fourth Crusade, rather than actually do that, they go marching over to Constantinople, Istanbul today, and attack the city. Now, that's another Christian city.

They're not Muslims. They're Christians. OK, I know what kind of Christians. I'm not here to argue that point. But it's the Christian world. It's Christian against Christian. Now listen, any solid-thinking Christian who was alert and alive and aware and had any clue of what Jesus said would have had to raise a question. What in the world is going on here anyway? Christian community? And we're slaughtering each other. You got to be kidding.

But don't forget the Protestant Reformation comes along that's supposed to fix everything, right, along about 1500. And by the way, you can just check in 1300, 1500. In those 200 years, John Wycliffe, John Huss, people like that, have risen up already in reaction to what's happening in the church and saying something's got to change here. So that's kind of over a period of time. And by the time you get to the 1600s, the Protestant nations are in tremendous conflict.

The Protestant countries in one of the most horrible wars ever fought was 1618, 1648, the Thirty Years' War. This is not the Catholics. This is the Protestants fighting each other. Well, the Catholics were involved too. But so you have that conflict going on. Again, it does not surprise me at all that enlightenment, humanistic thought I mean, the thinkers of the world, they're just saying, "Ha, Christianity, come on.

It has created more issues for our world than anything else that has come onto the scene in the last couple hundred years." I really am rather convinced that we got off the tracks really badly right there. I've said for years now that if there was anything that Jesus taught accurately, taught clearly he always did accurately taught clearly and went over a number of times to make sure we got it, it is that love is unconditional. We love our enemies.

We love the next-door church that maybe doesn't agree with us on everything. We are lovers of people. We are lovers of what God is doing in in in the world. And we refuse to resort to anything like the Crusaders did or that 1618 to 1648 event. And again, I want to bribe up the Anabaptist a bit here or at least give them a place to stand because they were perhaps the only church that was very clearly saying, "We disagree.

We believe the teaching of Christ is to be followed." And may I just put out a little plea here? You know there are people who leave our circles and they head off into one of the evangelical churches. I don't want to find fault. I don't want to throw stones. But I have a question. You know this thing of swallowing a nat yeah, swallowing a camel while we swatted a nat?

I still cannot understand for the life of me so we don't like wearing black shoes or whatever it is, fill in the blank, something that really bothers us about the way our church does. And so we pack our bags and head off to a church who will actively tell their people to it is your duty to take up the sword against whoever, those nasty Muslims or whoever the enemy is.

It just feels to me like swatting at a fly and swallowing I'm sorry, swallowing a camel and swatting at a fly because I still don't get that exchange. I don't understand it. Because the fact of the matter is, if I'm understanding this anywhere close to accurately, the historical movement here, the the secularization that happened with the enlightenment and everything that followed it there, I I see it as a reaction to the failure of Christian community.

And I see it as our opportunity, perhaps, to make a difference there. Here's just a few basics I already mentioned. Again, I told you I'm not going to teach a class on this. So it's a history of all hitherto existing societies of class struggle, which social classes are defined by their means of production. I'm just watching the clock too and seeing that I can't take time here for this. If you want to study this, well, ask Edselberger or somebody.

And here's the statements from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, Communist Manifesto 1848. For you historians and for those of you who are not historians, we really should look at the 1840 to 1860 window, a very, very, very defining three books that were written during that time that have changed our world. The one is the Communist Manifesto 1848. Another one was Das Kapitale, kind of a follow-up in the 1860s.

But tucked in between the two, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859. Those three books formed and shaped the modern world and defined the at least they were big definers of the 20th century. And we're still trying to find our way around some of those things that were involved. So equality, of course, here is the big question. Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Again, from the Communist Manifesto, in pure Marxism, that was the call to violence, can rise up against the owners of the means of production. Now I want to back up. So what's the answer? I doubt that I will surprise you with the answers that I offer for you. Read an article in Christianity Today just not too long ago. And the writer there was actually writing on community. I'm surprised maybe not surprised.

I shouldn't be surprised at the interest there is in Christian community that has arisen, not just in our circles but across Christianity. I think there is a sense that there's been tremendous loss. And how can we regain this? And so the writer gave I got this verse from the writer. "And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone.'" Now, of course, we normally use that passage when we are preaching about a wedding sermon or something along that line.

But if you just stop right there, well, maybe it says more than just that he needed a companion. Perhaps it is that sense. We weren't created to be loners. So why do we need community? I have four things for you to consider. So first is the question of identity. This is going to sound just a little bit I don't know, just maybe a little secular. It's not. I want you to just give me a moment here to explain this. So identity, who am I? Belonging, to whom do I belong? Security, how strong is my safety net?

Significance, do I count? Do I make a difference? These are four very, very important pieces that stand at the core at the center of creating community. And lest I forget to say, as some of you have heard me say many times, I'm tired of reacting to things. I want to create things. So you can react to your community if you want to. You can fuss and fume and go on. My call to you this morning is begin to create it. OK?

And what I know for sure, as people come into our communities, whether it's from our own children or whether it's people from outside, these four are the pieces that they don't want to make of. So you know a very good biblical example on this is the Prodigal Son. So if you consider the Prodigal Son, why in the world did he come back home? What brought him back? Well, you think about that for just a moment. You'll see those categories right there. He refers to himself as his father's son. He did have an identity.

That identity had been established while he was growing up. And so he had that sense. And in the end, he knew where he belonged. And he knew where his security was. Remember what he said? When things really went south, he said, "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going home." Why? Even the slaves in my father's household are well taken care of. Do you see that sense of security that is there? What brought him home is my question to you. And finally, on the significance issue, do I count? Well, do I count?

So he gets home and out comes the fatted calf. And there's a big celebration. Of course, his father just immediately communicates, "You matter. I'm glad you're home." We have some lessons to learn here. And again, I don't have time to unpack this at all. And I don't have the capacity to either. But I do know that these are the questions that, as people come into our community, I know they're the ones to ask.

I know the ones to ask when I'm trying to think, are my children and grandchildren going to remain in the faith and in the tradition that I've grown up in? Is that going to happen? Or is it not? I know these are the questions that have to be asked. We have a man. He's a member of our community now. He was 32 years in prison. He got out. He had a pretty significant crime back in the day. And this morning, as I'm talking to you, I would expect that Brother Will is in the congregation.

And he will for sure have a strong testimony for the Lord this morning. And just the last Saturday, I believe it was, Sheila and I had him and another friend from prison and some others in our home for pizza. And they were talking to another friend who needed a lot of help. And I was so blessed to hear them say that we feel loved in this congregation. That's no kudos to me. It's just saying that I know. I know that's what it takes. So that's why I'm starting here. Create community. Think of this. Nuts and bolts.

Already mentioned to you that the failure of the primary failure of socialism and communism and even democracy is the law there's no common cause. There's not a transcendent common cause. The nation-state would like to have you think there is. And that's why they call young men and young ladies now into military service. It's because, in their mind, the highest call is the nation-state. Robespierre in the French Revolution, same idea. That whole notion came through there. So obviously, a common cause is needed.

And you need roots if you want to form community. Give you a chance to explain that in just a moment. You need values, common values. You need common goals. You need common needs. That one would you need to think about that one a little bit. Whether or not common needs then I don't know. Things can go south. You need common heroes. And all of these deserve at least 15 minutes. You need common songs. I will stop right there in just a little bit.

I have been just really blessed by what I have come to call the Renaissance in music among us. I'm really blessed by that. Why? Because I know that all at the center, if you want to read a culture, if you want to read a community, read its songs, listen to them, and pay attention to how they actually to what songs they sing and why they sing them and how they sing them. So Brother, it was really good to see these young people up here. I know.

My heart just rejoices because I know when the songs of a culture or a community are bought into, there's big buy-in by people. And so Sheila and I have actually spent some time here on this one thinking about it. Neither she nor I are great musicians. We like to sing and so on. But we decided very, very early in our marriage that our children would grow up being exposed to good music and so on. And they're much better singers than we are.

But one of the things we do, if I can just drop it in as a tradition, so I have either Kyle or Jordan or one of them brings it when we have a family gathering, they bring I have them bring some men's music. And excuse me again. And I have them I say, "Bring one song that we don't know. Bring a couple of songs that we do know. And we're going to sing them." And so sometime during the weekend when we're together at a cabin or whatever, I get around the table with my sons and son-in-laws and a couple of the grandsons.

And we start singing on these songs. And I see the little guys sitting right there, you know my grandsons and granddaughters. They're a little small. And while they're listening to their uncles and people sing, believe me, they're not listening to Grandpa. But they're listening to the other ones. And they're like you can see their eyes wide open and their mouth hanging open. And I know they're being drawn into the community. That's why I stop there. Common traditions as well.

You already heard me just talking about a common tradition for our family. Create them. First of all, OK, quit fussing about the traditions that you can't stand. First of all, I don't know that they're as bad as you think they are. And second of all, all that fussing just keeps you from creating culture. And so again, if I could just reference Sheila and me, we decided that early on.

We just said, "Well, OK, it feels clear to us that, in fact, if you create the common traditions that a family is drawn into, you will very likely keep them with you. If you fail to do that and if you are constantly reacting to whatever the tradition is that you can't stand, you'll do something opposite." And so that's why I suggest this one to you for some consideration. So now there's a different way to see this same thing. And I want to show it to you in the next slide. I actually prefer to look at it this way.

So do you see what I had shifted there? So I put the common cause out front and left it color the rest. OK? If you do it the other way around if I could just back up to that slide. Am I back there? Yes. If you do it the other way around, notice that if you pull roots out too far because some of you aren't as rooted in the Anabaptist community as some of us are. Well, supposing you this question came up somewhere. Supposing you pull that thing out.

And it can't color the common cause in the same way that somebody who grew up in the tradition. Well, it does make a difference. I promise you it does. And it's an issue I've thought about a lot. And you could start around that circle there. And you can pull those colored circles in and out. And it changes the color on the common cause. OK? If somehow you can reverse that to saying, "Let the common cause color the rest," it actually changes the equation a tad bit. Maybe not a tad bit. Maybe a great deal.

And so Brother Will that I'm talking about, what has warmed his heart is the common cause. He doesn't have roots in our community there in Meadville. He spent the best years of his life in prison. But the fact of the matter is he's buying into a common cause. We are in this together. And what is that common cause? Again, I have to just shift my notes here just a tad bit to get where I want. Well, there we go. What's the answer? Common cause is the Kingdom of God. I said that very quickly.

This answer is so profound. We haven't gotten it yet, if I may say so. It is, in fact, the Kingdom of God. It answers the question of eternal transcendence. OK? Listen, United States of America, I'm a, I think, a loyal citizen. I agree with whichever brother was saying. We ought to be contributors there. I'm all in agreement with that. It's not eternal. I promise you that. It's not going to last all that long, I don't think. But the Kingdom of God, eternal transcendence and let these not be just words.

Focused in the resurrected Lord Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, realized in the church. And here again, I would love just to stop and preach a sermon. I'll just give the short version of it that I gave on Friday. I'll just give it again. The short version is Ephesians says that, in fact, the mystery of the ages was the church, was the body of Christ. It was thought of even before the foundation of the world, it said. And then Paul says, "It's the great mystery.

And all are invited into it." And he says, "Farther, the wisdom of God Himself is manifested. It is known in the body of Christ." When my heart fastened itself on that, that's when I decided my life would be given to the church. So whatever your view is, whatever your experience is and I know I've heard from some of you that you really feel pushed around by the church and by you're not sure where you belong and a whole list of things like this. Well, God bless you.

Don't hear me here trying to heap some kind of coals of fire on your head. But just hear me say this. The church is the only organization that will transcend. It's the representation of the Kingdom on Earth today. It's the only thing that is going to transcend both time and eternity. And believe me, if you hear nothing else this morning, hear this. It is worth your time and your energy to find your place in the body of Christ and to give yourself to it fully with no reserve. Experienced in Colossianite.

I'm not German enough to unpack this very much. But it's such a powerful idea. And it comes right from our own Anabaptist roots. And from what the people who understand the word better than I do, it goes very, very, very deep about how we do brotherhood. And now it would be easy for me to take up a lament because I don't know. I'm troubled by the lack of Colossianite that we see at times. But praise the Lord for a gathering like this. It feels to me like there's a chance. Praise the Lord.

Jesus, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. So what is the answer? The recognition that the Kingdom of God is, in fact, the transcendent cause. And then to find a place of repentance because that's what Jesus said. He said, "Repent because that Kingdom is at hand." Well, that obviously raises a question. But of what shall we repent? What is it that we're being called to here? I'm back on there. I think so. First, I'm just going to mention a divided loyalty. I have five minutes.

I won't have time to do this very much. But divided loyalty, economically divided loyalty, all over the place. I just see it divided up. And I'm talking about both personally and corporately. We're just kind of out here flailing around, doing this for a while, then doing this for a while, giving some energy here and some energy there. I know. I know. We've got jobs. We've got this. We've got that. We've got things we've got to be doing. I understand that.

However, when I find a person whose loyalty is not divided, it is solidly in one direction. And you can count on the decisions that they're making, whether they're big or small, how they prioritize their day, how they prioritize their money, all that stuff. When I see them actually just that loyalty just brings them back center. They might stray off. That's me. Stray off a bit. But it brings them back center. This is what I'm about. It's why I'm still teaching at 46 years. OK?

Believe me, there have been many times when I've come home and told Sheila, "That's it. I'm finished. I'm done. I've had it. These students, they won't behave." And a whole list of things like that. And Sheila just very kindly says after about she lets me go for five hours. And then she says, "Well, Brother Melvin, I mean my dear husband. My dear husband, I see I know you better than you know yourself. You wouldn't be out of the classroom for six months. And you'd be saying, 'What in the world?

Why am I not back in the classroom?'" So anyway, I stayed there. But I stayed there more because I believe what I'm talking about here. And we need to stop our murmuring and our bickering. Now I'm just going to let it lay. Just have to stop that. I have a passage for you. How shall we then live? Loyal and commitment to the body of Christ. Reject the claims of the nation-state? Really do? We heard some about that already. Don't be fooled by that, the voting, all the stuff that they're wanting to call us to.

Serve God, not mammon. Embrace the mystery of the ages. That's the church. Already been giving you that. The last one I have here for you is practice watchfulness for the coming of the Prince of the Kings of the Earth. And this goes to that murmuring and complaining thing. So if you look at the unwatchfulness thing, I don't have time to read that into our passage there. But if you look at Luke 12 there, that's likely too small for you to be reading in the back of your Bibles. You can turn there.

Luke chapter 12 says, "Let your loins be girded about in your lights burning." And it starts in on it. And verse 41, it really I wish we could do a Bible study on this one. Peter said unto him, "Lord, speak us out to us or to who?" Because he was saying, "Be ready." And Jesus said, "Well, who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his Lord shall find make ruler over his household to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing.

Of a truth I say unto you that he will make him ruler over all that he hath. But and if that servant say in his heart, 'My Lord delayeth his coming,' my Lord delayeth his coming and shall begin to beat the men servants and maidens and to eat and drink and to be drunken." Brothers and sisters, the lack of watchfulness is the lack of paying attention to the relationships we have in the body of Christ. OK? That's it. "Look, have peace among yourselves," he says. One minute I have. And I want to comment on two things.

And then I'll sit down. I'm going to read to you I'm going to take up for the government just a little bit. I'll tell you who this is after I read it. This was addressed to the class at Wellesley College. That's the ladies' college elite. These are some of the best, highly trained people in the world, ladies. It goes like this. As important this was the closing part of the address as important as your obligations as a doctor, lawyer, or business leader will be, you are first a human being.

And these human connections with spouses, with children, with a friend or parents are the most important investments you will ever make. At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend, or a parent. That's called community. Our success as a society depends not on what happens in the White House but what happens inside your house.