April 13, 2008 - Elizabeth Gibbs Zehnder

Acts 2:42-47



MP3 File

I want to give you some context for today’s scripture reading. Its from the Book of Acts. We understand Acts to have been written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke. In the opening verses of both books the author dedicates the work to Theophilus – “Lover of God” – scholars speculate that this was a believer who wanted to know more about the first hand accounts of Jesus’ life and the life of the early church. In Luke we learn about Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection and in Acts we get the next installment about what comes after the resurrection - how a minority religion from a tiny outpost in the empire, crossed the sea to Rome, the capitol.

In the opening chapters of Acts come a flurry of snapshots: I picture the dramatic vignettes rendered by the master oil painters in 16th century Europe

· the disciples huddling to draw lots to decide who to choose to replace Judas
· the Holy Spirit rushing through the house where the disciples have been hiding out and tongues of fire resting on them and then the cacophony as the whole place erupted with languages from around the world,
· Peter's speech to the skeptical crowd, and the turning of their hearts and the explosive growth in the disciples' community.

Then, in today’s reading, we come to this account of life in the early days of the church describing how people who had been drawn to the message that Jesus had carried to the disciples were living. The passage carries a fresh dewy innocence. "they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. They were together and had all things in common." This passage is an account of the early, earnest uncertain days after Jesus’ death and resurrection. So many things had been turned upside down, people couldn’t imagine what God would do next.

When I lived in Florida I belonged to a ministry called Single Purpose which was all about faith in action. This passage reminds me of the earnest and dreamy reports that team members would give upon returning home from Single Purpose mission trips. I participated in one such trip to a deaf school in Port au Prince, Haiti. On the trip we had rearranged our selves considerably, leaving behind our suburban north American lifestyle (more or less) and for the 10 days of the trip we ate rice and beans for every meal, took cold water showers, we wore what we thought were more culturally sensitive clothes (looking at the pictures it was an unfortunate combination of madras plaid and peasant dresses)- but all of these “inconveniences” went uncounted, because the joy of what we were doing and sharing with the people that we met was intoxicating.

I would say that today’s reading very closely describes the experience in the community that was created for those 10 days when we lived with the students at the deaf school in Port au Prince.

Now, almost 19 years later, the glow has faded. And when it does – it calls into question the veracity of the experience – was that just a phase? – just my visit-the developing-world-wearing-frumpy-cotton-dresses phase? – or was that the moment watershed moment, walking barefoot on the Haitian beach, when my whole world shifted on its axis and I was awash in freedom to live life in a way that mattered to God?

Coming to this passage so many years after it was written, we push past the words on the page and try to read between the lines – we ask the author in a private whisper, so what are you really saying? To include this description of what the community of faith was like in the early days makes me wonder if this was different that what the community of faith was like for Theophilus and his friends, the first readers of Acts. Were they reading this passage saying – “oh, that’s just like how we do it! That must be why we share everything” ? or were they like us. Hmmm, that’s pretty intense. Nice.

The scene that is described is lovely and it would make a nice painting. And if we want to leave it there we can. But If we are taking the bible as the LIVING word of God, then we need to push past nice art. We need to discern where the invitation for change and growth is. In light of that, we should get our gut reactions out on the table.

One part of us LOVES it. We love the adrenalin rush of the mountain top! We want our life to be saturated with meaning and purpose and purity of intent. We want to be a part of a community where wonders and signs regularly proclaim God’s presence and love, we want to be open and generous with our resources, we want to have a glad and generous heart, we want to be in on such an exciting thing that God would do.

Remember the TV show, Fantasy Island. The premise was that this man Mr. Rourke had the ability to allow people to live out their fantasies. So they would take a little prop plane to his tropical island and he would insert them into a “real life” experience of their fantasy and then at the end of each episode pretty much everyone came out of their fantasy and was glad to go home to real life, with the benefit of insights gleaned from learning that they didn’t really want that fantasy after all.

So if I was going to Fantasy Island, I’d write the check to Mr. Rourke and have him send me into that exquisite moment in time. Set the dial or what ever he did to Acts 2:42-47. Living with the apostles, signs and wonders, sharing what I had, getting what I needed. But then, like everyone who ever went to Fantasy Island, I imagine that I would come to know that its not being born at the wrong time that blocks my membership in the early church, its resistance within me….so here’s something else that I need to put on the table.

When I read this passage, a part of me pulls back.

I like my stuff. I like having control of my resources. 10% tithing is fine, but I resist giving up the other 90%

So, we’ve got some reactions out on the table, let’s check in with the text – what was the author of Acts trying to tell us about the early community of faith? is this meant as descriptive or prescriptive?

Descriptive?

Like a postcard from vacationing grandparents – the weather has been lovely, we visited this church, they have sold their possessions and share the proceeds with the people who need it, they have glad and generous hearts, the church is growing, wish you were here, love gramps and gran.

Descriptive in that this is how they worked it out – loving God, living a life that created space for growth, that gave witness to that love in their life. Descriptive - it's helpful for you to know how someone else did it so you can work it out in your own way.

OR instead of descriptive is this text meant as a prescriptive?

This is how they did it and therefore if you want to be authentic Christians, this is what you should do too. Prescribing a formula: X+Y+share your processions + pray and break bread with hearts full of gladness = authentic Christian community.

This can hook us in a bit, because as North Americans we are charmed with the idea of an authentic original pure experience. We’ll pay a premium for “Heirloom” varieties of tomatoes, jeans that are new, but distressed to appear worn. We think that if we can just get back to the bedrock experience, we can grasp with uncluttered purity the truest essence. We elevate and romanticize the past, thinking we need to check out of who we are in order to get back to who be who we were created to be.

So there’s our tension. We can trust that God created and called us to live in LA in 2008. AND when we read this text we can identify how our experience is different. In that tension is where we can experience the Living in the Bible is the Living word of God. Life, growth, movement are all predicated on tension – tension between what is and what could be, what should be, what might be.

Navigating the tension, navigating the living word of God takes the wisdom of the whole community. For me, the most powerful GPS system is the narratives of the faith community. It’s the stories of our life together that guide us, that remind us of who we are and where we want to go and how to get there.

When we reflect on the past, we can press our hands onto the touchstones of where God has been close as our every breath. I’m sure you each have your own vignettes that pop up in your minds eye – I see the faces aglow in the circle of candles as we gathered at 7th and Berendo to mourn the death of the man who shot. Lucy offering the weary thanksgiving basket team quesadillas giving them energy receive the hungry families who had come, Naomi taking on paramedic when he tried to treat a member of Immanuel like a stray dog. These stories from our past stretch all the way back to the dreamy account in Acts. We too are part of that conversation, we too are a part of that community. These stories guide us and pull and push us along to be the gathered people of God that we aspire to be.

We are not only who we have been in the past, we are also very much in the present. When pause to narrate our present, we have the opportunity to see where we stand. Have you ever caught your reflection and been surprised at what you see. You didn’t know about the brocolli caught in your teeth or hadn’t realized the weight that you’ve lost? The reflection gives us the opportunity to see ourselves from another’s perspective - we gain a sense of where we stand. Narrative theory calls this creating a reflecting surface – laying out the experiences of our present life, and as we narrate them to each other around our community, these stories become a reflecting surface in which we better know who we are.

Again, living things can’t stay locked in the past or frozen in the present, to live means to grow and stretch and change. Yet its when we tell the stories about what is yet to come, we can get a little wacky. Sometimes what we say we want and what we choose in our daily life diverge so significantly that the narrative around the future is just fiction. Yet, narrating what we as a community want the future to hold can move us closer to it being reality.

Now, I have what might be the world’s tightest hip joints. I can wiggle my way into most yoga postures. BUT the ones that require any flexibility in the hip/hamstring area, FORGET it! The instructor will be inviting people to rest their foreheads on the floor and I am just able to get my nose out over my thighs. Keep breathing and hold your intention, the instructor tells me, just by intending to fold my body out over my knees, my hips release a bit. Its like that with our future. If we see that we aren’t living the reality of the Act’s community and we see that that is where God is calling us, then holding that intention can open up all kinds of possible movement. Our intentions are born from the narratives that emerge when we gather to imagine who we are becoming as God’s people. Immanuel, like every faith community that is seeking to live into God’s call, is stretching to understand, to embrace, to be authentic. We are pushing our selves, what does it mean to welcome everyone – not just on paper, but in our life together? So we breath, we hold our intentions and we see where God opens up new possibility, new understanding, in short, new life.

So if the author of Luke and Acts wanted to go for a trilogy, what would get communicated to dear Theophilus about us? Would the description be glowing and dewy? What would an outsider see in us? What do we know to be true about ourselves? What has kept us from being our fullest expression of God’s love?

Its hard work to have these conversations – to share the stories with candor and compassion. And yet, once we have been to the mountaintop, or walked on the beach and felt our world shift on its axis, even when the glow fades, there really is no turning back.