Acts 2:42-47 5/7/17 Pastor Bill Uetricht 4 Easter

In the heart of the Easter season, I find myself thinking about Christmas. As I sat with today’s first reading from Acts I was transported back to the good old days when many people wrote letters, when at Christmas they would send out their annual epistle, describing their families’ past year. And sometimes, these letters would communicate something like this: “2017 was such a great year for us. Bob got a great promotion. He now administers 2500 employees, all of whom love him. Betsy has climbed to the top of the corporate ladder. Her work is so fulfilling to her, far surpassing her aspirations. The kids got all ‘A’s.’ Jeremy is now the quarterback for the football team. Jessica has scored more goals for the soccer team than any other player, and oh by the way, she is first chair trumpet player in the band. Both are being sought by all kinds of colleges, which means promising big scholarships for them.” Ugh, I would think when I read those kinds of letters. I bet Jessica and Jeremy don’t really get along that well. I bet the stress from those two successful jobs is overwhelming. I’ll even bet that Jeremy didn’t really get an A in Calculus. The letter was just too positive, too Pollyannaish. The reality of their family life can’t be that good. In some ways, that is what I feel when I reflect on Acts’ description of the early church: “All who believed were together and had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 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, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” Really? It was that idyllic? Everybody shared? Everybody was generous when they needed to be? Everybody had glad hearts? There weren’t crabby people in their midst? Everybody got along? Give me break. I am old and wise enough to know what people are like. Some people are pains. Some people don’t like this song. Some people don’t like that song. And if they are getting together to eat, as the text suggests, you know that they are going to be complaining. Some people think this is slop; some people think that that is slop. Everybody has opinions about food. It couldn’t have been as wonderful as Acts describes is. It probably wasn’t. I am sure there was Miriam who was whiny, and Joshua who always seemed to be angry. And I bet not everybody shared everything in common. There was probably Samuel who kept his Corvette in a private garage and didn’t allow others to drive it, especially during the winter. I feel certain that life in the early church was not idyllic. But I don’t think that’s Luke’s point. Acts is all about the Holy Spirit. I sense that for Luke, the author of Acts, when the Spirit of God is set loose wild things happen. When the breath and energy of God is at work, community is formed—practical community, joyful community, generous community, growing community, intimate community. When the Spirit of God is at work, magnificent things occur—things that we really would not anticipate, things that don’t come natural to us, things that seem a bit utopian, beyond what human beings can create. Luke Rop, one of our confirmation students, got it right in his selection of his Bible verse from Luke, of course: “With God all things are possible.” You and I live in a culture that is preoccupied with our private lives, with what our personal families are up to, what happens on the back porches of our houses and not so much on the front porches. We live in a culture possessed by private possession, private individual rights, private choice. When the Spirit of God gets loose, a preoccupation with the private gives way to a concern for the well- being of the community. The impossible occurs. All of a sudden, it’s not just about me or my family. It’s about us, who we are as community. The Spirit of the God met in Jesus raised from the dead brings us into community, binds us into community, sets us free for the sake of community. Matt Skinner says that all the good stuff described by Acts today is not the accomplishment of extraordinary folks. It is a “sign of the presence of the Spirit within a community of people who understand themselves as united in purpose and identity—not a dispersed collection of individual church goers.” So often our view of the church is that it is a building that we go to. But as confirmand Will Gallo wrote in response to the question on the Confirmation test about the meaning of the church: “The church is the people inside the building, not the building itself, although Google Maps says otherwise.” The church is not a building. It is a community woven together by the Spirit of God, united in purpose and identity. We don’t go to church. We are the church, something we so often miss when we think of church as one more activity to accomplish, one more hoop for our kids to jump through. The church is the community of believers who, as Acts tells us, are devoted to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. The church is a community taken in by an ancient story—a story that really is not our own. We didn’t create it. It has been passed on to us, grasping us as it is told. This ancient story brings us together in “koinonia,” fellowship. Life in the church is not a matter of putting in time once in a while in order to meet Grandma’s expectation or even your own expectation. No, life in the church is life lived together, marked by the breaking of bread. To be the church is to eat together. And yes, that means the bread and wine of communion. But the early church practiced its communion in the context of a potluck meal. The bread and wine were shared in the middle of an agape meal, a love feast, which often occurred in people’s homes. “Day by day,” Acts says, “they broke bread from house to house.” The community that was theirs was an intimate community. Life in the church was not some external religious obligation: “I know I should go to church.” No, life in the church was life lived in deep connectedness to the community—a deep connectedness that involved the intimacy of praying with and for each other. Life in the church is about a deep knowing of the other, a knowing that opens you up to share your biggest concerns and to listen to those of others. Josie Fredericks, another one of our confirmands, in her response to what the church means to her, said that the church “is people you can rely on to go to for anything. They’ll help you,” she says, “find your faith in the Lord.” Our gospel reading for today speaks of intimacy when it says that the shepherd of the community known as the church calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” This community is a community of intimacy. You are known by name. Josie, Will, Lexi, Lexie (with an “e”), Leah, Aaron, Luke, Cleone, Reece, Brady, Mason: the shepherd knows you by name. You matter to the good shepherd. The one who leads you, Jesus, is not a stranger to you. So listen to his voice. Don’t be scarce around here. What Jesus wants for you and has for you is abundant life. And that abundance won’t be fully appreciated if you stand at a distance from the community that bears the name of Christ. And part of that abundance of Christian community is very practical. Life in the community of faith deals with the real, sometimes small issues of your lives. Aaron Rich, one of our confirmands, as he addressed what the church means to him, said, “The church is important to me because these people provide emotional and sometimes fiscal help to each other.” Listen to how Acts puts it: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” Life in the community of faith is phenomenally practical. Our connection is not just some kind of spiritual togetherness. We share the real lived life of one another. We help each other out, especially with practical matters. Look at what the Amish do for each other. When a barn needs to be built, they all get together to make it happen. We’re in this together in a very practical way. And our practical community is marked by generosity. We don’t hold on to our stuff or our money. We don’t hoard it; we share it, especially so that those who are struggling have enough. Believe it or not, a community of generosity is a community of joy. Acts tells us that the early church “ate their food with glad and generous hearts.” When you are able to let go, trust me, life will be much more joyous. When you hold on to everything, squeeze every penny out of every dollar you’ve got, you won’t be joyous. You will be too busy hanging onto everything you have, worrying about your ability to protect it and keep it. That’s no fun. “Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears from death into life.” The abundant life is discovered in moving beyond wants and fears. It is found in generosity. Acts tells us today, as it concludes, that day by day “the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” I am convinced that there is something about an intimate community, a joyful community, a generous community that attracts people. People want to be, as the old television show Cheers told us, where they are known by name, where life is not characterized by heaviness and crabbiness, where a spirit of generosity prevails. Oh, I know that life in the church isn’t perfect. I know that within it there are whiny people, stingy people, grouchy people, miserable people, self-righteous people. Most of us don’t gets all “A’s,” play first chair in the band, successfully meet all of our goals. Most of us can be crudely human. But don’t dismiss the church. When the Spirit of the raised Jesus is set loose, wild things happen. People who have a natural inclination to live private, separate lives come together to form community where intimacy, joy, and generosity abound.