Church is the message

Acts 2:42-47

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

On the Sundays following Easter we’ve been looking at passages that address the question of how it is that people come to believe.  We saw “Doubting Thomas” who insisted upon touching Jesus’ wounds before he would believe.  For him, testimony was not enough; he needed a flesh and blood encounter.  But that raises the question: how do you come to belief if you haven’t seen?  Last Sunday we saw the two disciples walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.  They’re prevented from recognizing him, even as he interprets the Scriptures to them.  But when he breaks the bread - which Christians have long understood as an allusion to the communion table - then their eyes are opened and they see Jesus for who he is.  Yes we need to hear about Jesus, but we might still desire to meet Jesus - and the table is the place.  

And this Sunday we’re looking at the famous description of the early church’s communal life.  The usual questions this passage raises - to what extent are we meant to imitate this?  Did the church ever even live like this, and for how long? - might actually distract us from the significance of the passage.  Arguably the main point being made here is that the shared life of the Christian community - a life that was by its very nature unavoidably public, not behind closed doors - impressed outside observers so much that they desired to become insiders.  The church presented a compelling witness to the world; so compelling that, “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved”.  

There’s no question that Acts also emphasizes the importance of preaching leading to belief, and this is usually how we imagine the movement from unbelief to belief: you hear something that convicts you of its truth; you believe, you repent.  This works especially well when you’re preaching to Jews who already believe in the Scriptures, who await a messiah, etc.  Preaching to gentile pagans was a trickier proposition, and in our day, preaching to secular, nihilist, material reductionists is even harder.   It’s one thing to believe in the wrong god, but quite another to doubt  - if not deny - the possibility of God altogether.  How might they - how might we - believe?  Better preaching is part of the answer, but the lesson of Thomas and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus very much applies today.  Hearing about Jesus does not move everyone.  Rather, they needed an experience, either a physical encounter with the risen Christ or a “spiritual” (or corporeal!?) encounter with Christ at the table.  

The early church gave people something they could see with their own eyes.  They didn’t just preach a message, they became the embodiment of that message, and so they were the message.  If Christ has died and risen again, if God became a man and gave himself for us, if the dividing wall of hostility has been torn down and we have been reconciled to God and one another, if the shepherd has called the sheep by name and called them into abundant life - if all this is true - then it’s not something to be merely believed; it must be lived.  How could you not!?  That they shared their possessions and shared their time was not, it seems, a deliberate decision so much as an organic response.  The word of the Gospel became flesh in the community - in a sense Christ himself became incarnate in the body of Christ.  People saw the way the Christians were living and could not deny that something powerful, something compelling, was happening.  

I’m convinced that if people are going to move from unbelief to belief today, if they are going to receive the Gospel as Good News, then it will because they observe, even experience, something powerful and compelling in Christian community, that there is something qualitatively different about the kind of life being lived amongst the people that commends the truth of what is proclaimed.  The church is itself a proclamation.  Or not, as the case may be and often is.  If Christian communities fail to make the truth incarnate, if the kind of life they life is not different, not compelling, then why would anyone believe?  And maybe more to the point, why would we believe?  

In a world not inclined toward belief church must not merely assert its truth claims, it must demonstrate them.  And too often church has not done this well, has failed altogether, or has even  been entirely counterproductive.   In some respects, the rejection of the faith is actually reasonable when the evidence before you suggests that, despite what these people say, none it really seems to be true in their lives.  It’s a disembodied idea with no claim on reality.  It bears no fruit.  

To the extent that we’re interested in making a difference in the world - even saving the lost - this might seem to put a lot of pressure on us to convince people that what we’re proclaiming is actually true.  But we don’t need to worry about conceding an effective strategy; we simply need to be faithful and trust that the rest will take care of itself. 

I know that we want to avoid anything that looks like self-righteousness, but we still might, in all humility, believe that we have something that the world needs.  Not just a message to accept, but a new life to live.  And the reason that we might believe is because we’ve experienced it for ourselves and can’t help but want others to experience it too.  But that leads to the question: have we experienced the Good News as really real in church?  

I hope that the answer is “yes” - especially as it pertains to this church.  The hope for this community before it even began was that it would - that we would - become a people whose shared life together would be compelling in much the same way as that of the early church, that we would we find ways of practicing the faith in a way that we visible - that our light would shine before others and they would see our good works and give glory to God.  

But clearly this not a vision that’s been fully realized.  Perhaps we have experiences something here you don’t find “out there”, but perhaps less than we’d hoped.  On the one hand, you might question just how true the vision really is, but on the other hand you might question if we’ve actually tried it.  What if we attempted to live as community that shared everything? 

Even for those of us for whom the thought is attractive might simultaneously feel also a sense of dread that any movement in that direction is going to demand more time and energy, two things which are already stretched thin.   It seems like a big ask; the cost is clear but the benefit uncertain.  

Rather than dwelling on what we must be for the world, our outward mission, I’m going to appeal to our enlightened self-interest.  That we might consider that this is good for us.  That even if we don’t (yet) possess the kind of faith that naturally produces this kind of life, we might, with the faith we have, attempt to live this kind of life in the hope of finding a joy we’ve never known.  

Shaun and Adriana recently welcomed Theo, and many of us have taken them meals.   This is an extra bit of time and effort for those who prepared a meal and delivered it - and there may even have been moments when you kind of wished you hadn’t agreed to it - but invariably, I’m sure, the joy of brining them the meal made it all worthwhile.  This is a small but not insignificant example of  holding all things in common, of giving our possessions to those in need. 

I’m not going to ask you to see all your possessions and give them to the church - I’m not prepared to do that myself - but I do hope that, more and more, we will begin to share our lives together, not because we must, but because it’s the very substance of the abundant life Jesus promised.  

Some of you like a challenge (and some of you don’t!), so here’s one.  I’ve heard several of you say that, chit-chat on a Sunday aside, you don’t really know many of the other people in the community.  So one simple way to address this is to invite those people over to share a meal.  Yes, that requires some time and energy that could be spent elsewhere, but if this community is going to become what I hope you hope it can be - if it lives into the possibilities opened by God through Christ - then we need make the effort to live together more.  And we can do so in the hope that this might just increase our faith, and even become a witness that inspires the faith of others.