Last week we looked at a wide variety of images that have been used to describe the church; the body of Christ, The Way, the Church, a hospital for sinners or a community of the Promise. Each of these images carries with it a particular view of what the church should be and how it ought to operate. While these images are helpful to our vision quest to be the church of the Promise there is one more place we need to go if we want to see how these images might actually be lived out…to the book of The Acts of the Apostles. Acts is the story of the transition of the followers of Christ from rag tag disciples into a Promise proclaiming community that changed the world.
The story in Acts begins with Pentecost when the church was empowered by the Holy Spirit to tell the story of God's saving love as the fulfillment of the Promise. This transforming moment had two important consequences. The first is that it sent people of the Promise out across the Roman Empire telling the story of Jesus and the transforming love of God. The second is that it created a very different kind of community. We read about this community in the second chapter of Acts.
"Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 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. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. "
What we see in this passage is that this was not only a community in which lives were being changed by the power of God but a community in which people lived as if they were one large family. They shared all that they had with one another so that no one person would be in need. This was one of the great demonstrations that the Kingdom of God (the fulfillment of the Promise) was breaking into the world, since the Kingdom of God was the place and time when the needs of all would be met. This was a community living the Promise to the fullest.
Unfortunately as we read the letters of the Apostle Paul we begin to realize that while some churches such as the one at Philippi lived out this sharing life in its fullest, there were others such as the one at Corinth where sharing was not at the heart of their life. In fact at Corinth wealthy believers would eat and drink to excess in the presence of hungry believers and feel no compunction to share.
The challenge for us as the 21st Century church is to figure out how this call to sharing ought to be lived out in our midst. There are simple ways: our giving to the church that it might be shared with the wider church and its mission activities, our giving to the deacons fund which meets immediate needs of families (food, shelter, clothing), preparing meals for those in our community who find themselves in need of short term assistance, sharing our time and talents to teach Sunday school or serve in another way to make a difference in and through this church.
Underlying each of those ways however is the firm belief that we are more than a volunteer organization but a true family bound together by the love and grace of God in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. For if we believe these things then sharing will become part of who we are not merely an occasional act of compassion "others."
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