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From April 13, 2008 Time unfolds differently for the church than it does in daily life. Take Advent, for example. Those four weeks equal centuries as we go from ancient prophets telling us about the coming Messiah, to his conception, and then to his birth. Time is measured differently in Lent, too, as we power walk through Jesus' three-year public ministry in under two months. In church, time expands and contracts. It even jumps back and forth willy-nilly sometimes. Take today, for instance. Here we are in Eastertide, four Sundays out from the magnificence of Christ's resurrection, and yet things are out of sequence. Even though we won't celebrate Pentecost until the 2nd Sunday in May, today we're being invited to remember what happened after that, after the wild winds of the Holy Spirit turned a gathering of believers in Jerusalem into the very body of Christ, into the church. What happened then was this: as soon as God's holy wind died down, as soon as those gathered stopped speaking in foreign tongues, the apostle Peter jumped up and began preaching the sermon of his life to the curious crowd that had formed outside. Peter began telling them--no, make that testifying to them--how the God who had raised Jesus up from the dead and had given him a seat at God's right hand, was--even now--pouring out the Holy Spirit so that everyone might see and hear and know that Jesus the crucified was also their Risen Lord, their real-deal Messiah. "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation," Peter begged his world-weary, Roman-empire oppressed Jewish audience. And as many as three thousand people responded. Oh my, how they responded! Listen to the way Eugene Peterson's lively translation, The Message, describes what happened next: "They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! “And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved."
The kingdom was coming to life in this community of believers not because they had been convinced (pointing to my head), so much as convicted (pointing to my heart). Everything was different now that Jesus' own spirit was alive in and among them. Not just inwardly but outwardly, too. These new believers weren’t interested in living like they had for so many years. Instead, they couldn’t help but live the Jesus-life--centering their lives in God, giving lavishly and holding nothing back, praying and praising and feasting and fellowshipping together in an entirely new kind of community. While he was alive, Jesus had said this kind of life together would come. Indeed, he had said it was close at hand, a kingdom unlike any the world had ever seen. Jesus had preached about this kingdom, modeled it, worked for it, and prayed for it, too. He had even taught his disciples to pray for it as well: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. This was God's kingdom, this new community where everything was shared and everyone was included. This was God's will, this was what heaven looked like right here on earth. Jesus had taught his disciples to pray for this day. And for daily bread which, as it turned out, wasn’t manna--the nourishing stuff God made appear every morning while the children of Israel journeyed to the Promised Land. No, this bread was even more delicious. Why? Because it came from someone's home oven and was passed on to a famished new-found friend. Jesus' prayer was coming to life in other ways, too, in this new community of believers. Trespasses, debts, failures in love didn't go away altogether but now that people were overtaken by agape, by love, what was important was the dispensing of forgiveness, not the tallying of grudges, resentments, and such. And if there were temptations, they were nearly always the good kind: the temptation to love more and give more in this God-filled, Jesus-hearted, Spirit-soaked community. While he was alive, Jesus the Good Shepherd had said: I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. Now that abundant life was here and now everyone in the fold was wealthy. Everyone was rich. All those old dividing lines, so familiar and rutted, those time-worn categories of haves and have nots, those were gone now. No longer was there yours and mine, just ours. And now there was no more you, and you, and you, and me, there was at last just one category, a most glorious and amazing and awesome we. A we that got bigger and better with each passing day, not because anyone tried to make this happen, but because God was alive in their midst, doing great things in and through them as they studied and shared, worshipped and fellowshipped, prayed and passed plates of food back and forth to one another. Their numbers grew by leaps and bounds. Why? Because word about what was happening got out and it wafted through the streets of Jerusalem like hickory smoke outside Starnes BBQ; it floated through the city's streets and awakened a voracious hunger people hadn't even realized they had. Because of Jesus, alive as a man and alive now in and among them, that old every-man-for-himself way of living had given way to something new, something remarkable. Because Jesus was alive in and among them, members of this community understood themselves as the graced recipients of a common wealth, a kind entirely unlike the world's. Jesus had called it treasure, a kind of wealth that could not be earned or created, only received and then shared. A kind of wealth that, strangely enough, multiplied the more it was given away. But you don't need me to describe this kind of community or its economy of love. You already have God's common wealth. You exchange it with one another more freely than any congregation I have ever known. The church that love built never fails to have love to spend, and plenty of it. Love to lavish on one another. Love to lavish on the person who wanders in a stranger and wanders out a friend. You already know yourselves as the inheritors of great wealth, a wealth you hold in common. A wealth you don't take credit for but do take responsibility for sharing. You see to each other's needs. You respond with generosity when those in our midst have needs they are unable to meet. Out of your wealth, you share this building easily and often, never asking questions or even expecting anything in return. You graciously and gladly share this spiritual home where doubts and questions are welcomed and no one is ever expected to think alike. Or love alike. Or look alike. Or even sound alike. You share not only what is good but what is hard. You share in the burdens others are carrying, even at a distance, even ones as far away as Kenya. We are wealthy here. So wealthy. Far wealthier than many churches, even ones with seven figure budgets and million-dollar endowments, communities of faith with parking lots as big as corn fields, ones so big they need buses to tote folks in to worship. We are wealthy beyond compare, even though, as Phil pointed out at Council on Tuesday night, for 25 years we have struggled financially and lived with the often unsettling question of viability. We are wealthy even though our membership has not seen triple digit membership in quite some time. Our common wealth has nothing to do with the assets we hold, the square footage we enjoy, or the neighborhood we're privileged to be part of. Our common wealth isn't like that. And it isn't ours, either. Not really. Our common wealth is like that quarter Midge Perlini pressed into my two-year-old palm one Sunday morning. It is something to be given away. All of it. And we can afford to do that--day by day, week by week, year by year. Why? Because we trust Jesus when he says, "I came that you might have life and have it abundantly." Amen. |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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