DAY BY DAY

May 15, 2011
Easter 4
Psalm 23
Acts 2:42-47

(prayer)

I want to start by calming some fears you may have after seeing the title of today’s message: no, I am not planning on singing songs from Godspell. Besides, as far as early 70s hippy-culture-religious-musical-movies go, I’m much more familiar with the soundtrack from Jesus Christ Superstar.

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“Day by day, they ...

• Spent time together in the temple;

• Broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts;

• Praised God;

• Had the goodwill of all the people.

Day by day, the Lord ...

• Added to their number those who were being saved."

This section from the book of Acts is an early account of what it meant to be The Church of the Risen Christ. I guess I am wondering how well it might translate to today.

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The 21st century in North America is NOT the 1st century in the Middle East. I think it is fair to say that we live in a very complex time. Our world is bigger. Now, I know that (physically) the earth is basically the same size as it was for Peter and the other members of the early church (although they had no idea of the physical shape and scope of the world) – but unlike them, we live in a time when we are aware of so much more that goes on outside of where we live. We have much greater access to travel to see people and places for ourselves: not everyone has the means to do this, but certainly more than in Peter’s day. And we access to information about what is going on in the lives of others around the globe (sometime as things are happening).

The disciples lived in a simpler time, by comparison. By in large, they ate foods that were produced locally, rather than shop the vast array of imports we come to expect every time we walk into a store. Often times they lived day to day, where we might only have to live paycheque to paycheque (although many in our culture today have savings that would have been the envy of the ruling class of the first century).

At the time of Peter, the followers of Jesus participated in the religious practices and structure of the national Hebrew spirituality. Although by the time the book of Acts was written, this was no longer the case; the movement had spread out into others communities within the Roman Empire. It is unclear how long the group in Jerusalem was able to maintain its cohesiveness - certainly they were around 20 years after Peter, as some of the letters of the Apostle Paul contain fundraising requests for the “saints in Jerusalem”, but were they still active another 20 years down the road when Acts was written, I can’t say.

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So, how relevant can the way of being church in the 1st century be to us in the 21st century?

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Relevant or not, I think that the communal simplicity of the early church way of being is something attractive for people who seek Spirit in our day and age.

I feel quite confident in saying that most spirit-seeking-people of today appreciate a true sense of community – a ‘belonging’ that invites us to enjoy the benefits of shared joy and generosity.

I believe that this is attractive because in so many ways true community is hard. Modern people are busy: they work as much as they can; most retired people I know are even busier; and so much of young people’s lives are scheduled and structured. We live in a culture that has to schedule a time to be spontaneous. Our technological advances have made it easier to star at a screen (TV or computer or smartphone) rather than sit across a table from an actual person. I have 236 facebook friends, most of whom I never have an in depth face to face conversation with and a few of which I have never actually met outside of the Internet.

Now, there is a real upside to this cyber-community; I have been able to connect with others who share common interests to me from all over the world (music, theology, politics, sports...). That’s pretty cool. But ... there is still a longing for something more direct.

Within the wider United Church, I am active in both of the governing committees of Yellowhead Presbytery (the Presbytery Council and the Operations Team). This past Friday, I had a meeting with the Presbytery Council; this one was a conference phone call. It was to be a short meeting, so bringing people into the capital region from Edson and Grande Cache made little sense. But the sense of community is not the same connecting to people by phone as it would be face to face. It’s funny, the conversations can be the same, the business can be the same, but the community is different. When the Presbytery Ops Team meets this coming Thursday, we will all travel to Spruce Grove to share a common space. Even the person who thought they’d have to join us by phone, now says she’ll be there in person. Something about that feels ‘good’ and ‘right’ (for a church and maybe for more than the church).

In our lifetimes, we have noticed that the world is changing. Included in that evolution is the reality is that the Church is changing as well. In fairness, in some ways “the-way-church-is-done” has been slow (even reluctant) to change. {insert church lightbulb jokes}

Something I have noticed in my ten and a half years as your minister here is that St. David’s is not a congregation that insists on hanging on to traditional practices for tradition’s sake. For the most part, my observation is that (in this church), we move on or hang on with a purpose. There’s almost always ‘method behind our madness’. My overall impression (from what I have experienced here) is that this church accepts that we must be a people of faith today, not simply bearers of a wonderful ancient testimony.

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To Peter and the others, the sense of shared spirit drew them together. I believe that many people in this church and community see value in such a union as well.

So, the answer I suggest to my own rhetorical question is “Yes” - there is much we can gleam from the example of the church described in Acts 2 to help us be a relevant community of faith in our place and time as well.

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So, let’s look at those Acts 2 church characteristics. What does the text say they did?

Verse 42 of chapter 2 says “They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” That verse starts this week’s reading from Acts 2 and it was the final verse of last week’s reading. A week ago, we heard Simon Peter inviting people to turn to God anew and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. So compelling were Peter’s words that the text tells us that some three thousand people joined the followers of The Way. And that these people ... devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

The aspects of ‘church’ that are described here (in reverse order) are:

1) Involvement in ‘the prayers’: this is most likely a reference to the daily prayer rituals of the Hebrew traditions. At this point, the early Christian movement remained fully enmeshed within the Hebrew tradition. The entire body of the church in these early days were Jewish. The closest they came to starting a new religion is that they were becoming a distinct popular sect within Judaism. In the passage today, it implies that this was not something that created conflict - at least not initially: “[they had] the goodwill of all the people” (v47).

2) Another aspect of this early church was they engaged in ‘the breaking of bread’: Keeping in mind that the book of Acts was written by the same person who wrote the gospel of Luke, modern theologian and biblical scholar, William Willimon, has said that “Each dinner-time episode in Luke is a time of fellowship, revelation and controversy. Jesus was criticized for the company he kept at table. ... He failed to make proper distinction between persons at his table. We know, from contemporary experience [Willimon continues], that social boundaries between persons are most often rigidly enforced at the table. Eating together is a mark of unity, solidarity, and deep friendship, a visable sign that social barriers, which once plagued these people, have broken down.” (Interpretation Commentary Series: Acts, p41). I doubt that in this very early time of the Christian movement that the sharing of bread had been simplified and ritualized as a communion or eucharist yet, but I suspect that for many of that group, this act of sharing a meal meshed nicely with Jesus’ last supper desire that they “take and eat, and do this in remembrance of me”.

3) Thirdly, the church is in ‘fellowship’ There is a community bond here. It came out of the Pentecost experience of having people from all over the known-world share in a unique outpouring of the Spirit, resulting in a unified body of believers. So united (as it says a verse later in Acts) that they pooled their resources to ensure that each person had what was needed. This was not simply a community of those who could afford the luxury of coming together – it was a community that mutually supported itself to ensure its wide inclusivity.

4) Finally, the first description of this church in Acts 2:42 - there is a desire to learn: “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching”. The push that brought people into this group may have been the dramatic events of Pentecost, but that kind of charismatic experience is only momentary. That kind of frenzy and emotional is hard to sustain. Ironically, if it was an ‘every-time’ experience, the impact would diminish over time. And often the frenzy and emotion doesn’t allow for much depth. The response of the crowd was not to expect more drama and high level excitement, but to realize that learning and reflection often requires a calmer setting and mood. They were hungry to hear from Peter and the others, those who had been with Jesus in his life time, those who proclaimed his resurrection. William Willimon has a good phrase about this as well: “The church is not to drift from one momentary emotional outburst to the next ... rather the church moves immediately to the task of teaching, keeping itself straight about what it is and what it is to be about”. (ibid. p40)

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All of these aspects of the ancient church, sound relevant to our time and place to me. And we practice much of this as part of our regular life together as St. David’s United Church.

Now, we haven’t chosen to create a compound or commune or kibbutz where we all literally live and work together 24-7. But we do hold each other in other ways. When we share of ourselves within this church (sometimes financially as offerings, and practically, helping with various church programs and projects), we are engaging in the same spirit as that post-pentecost church. During our Sunday services, when we take the opportunity to greet each other in the Peace of Christ, we are proclaiming a unity and connection that makes us more than a bunch of individuals who happened to wander into the same room at the same time. When we join our voices and minds in song, we are literally finding the harmony that is possible between us.

There is a sense that not one of us is able to (or expected to) go it alone. As our United Church creed proclaims: We are not alone! Thanks be to God.

We do pray together; we do create opportunities for fellowship. And in the long standing traditions of The Church, we sure do plan times when we can eat full meals together (and we do intentionally engage in the ritual monthly commemorating of Jesus’ last supper as part of our church worship services).

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I do think that this model of church modelled for us in Acts, chapter 2, can be relevant for us today. I certainly believe that (generally) people long for this type of true and welcoming community.

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And I know that it is hard to do this really well all of the time. Not all of us are able to be part of this community in all of these four basic areas:

 The worship life;

 The learning life;

 The sharing life; and

 The social (fellowship) life.

We do have all of these aspects, but how many of us are to be fully engaged?

Fortunately, one of gradual changes we have seen in this church over the years is the intermixing of these different church lives – Sunday worship can also be a time of learning, sharing and fellowship.

Virtually all the various ways people serve the church (committees/groups) include as part of their activities time for devotion, prayer and shared support. I’m not sure how many of you know that at each Church Council meeting over the past number of years, we include in the agenda of the meeting time for prayers of support: before we pray we share what is on people’s hearts, who is on their hearts – and then we pray, not as an add on to the business of the meeting, but as part of it. As well, it is hard to leave a Church Council meeting in a bad mood, because we usually end meetings by sharing news about what things people are happy for or celebrating in their lives: again not as an add on to the business, but as part of it. At the Council, this was an intentional evolution from what I would call a business-efficiency model to a mission-opportunity model. Both can work, but the later seems to be a better fit for ‘church’ governance.

I sit in on a lot of committee and group meetings around this church and I see this desire and practice of fellowship all over the place.

I know that the people who were able to devote themselves to the Strengthening the Branches course that our recent student minister was able to lead as a means to do some of her own learning while here, found that a really valuable experience. The scuttle-butt that reaches my ears is ... more, more.

That’s good.

I have enough humility to know that this has virtually nothing to do with me, or any minister or other staff this church could have. This church is going to be what “WE” make it.

“Seek justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God”: this is what the prophet says is required of us. In and through all of the aspects of church I have been talking about today, I believe should (implicitly and explicitly) be founded in our common story of God’s compassion and fairness: a story that includes the impact of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. As “church” we are to be interesting in figuring out what it means that God’s welcome is wide, with God there is comfort – and that this as true now as it has always been.

In all of this we are to honour that God is our companion on this journey – the wise and caring shepherd and guide, the overly generous banquet host, who invites us into an eternity-long relationship based on compassion and peace.

If we don’t give ourselves the fullest opportunity to experience what we can offer to each other, we will find ourselves lacking. I’m quite certain of that!

 

And so, today, from this passage from Acts 2, I hope we can see that church is not supposed to be one-dimensional, we are to know fully what it means to be engaged in:

• shared, spirit-felt worship,

• real fellowship,

• meaningful sharing and

• a devout prayer and reflective life.

We are hungering for these things, aren’t we? Well, we know what to do then...day by day!

Let us pray

(ad lib)



#657VU “He Leadeth Me”