FROM WORSHIP TO WITNESS; FROM MEAL TO MISSION
The beautiful and special thing about the Biblical Book of Acts is that it gives us a close and intimate look into the lives of those first generation Christians. Just think, some of these people were first hand eye-witnesses to the Lord's ministry. Perhaps some had heard him preach and teach and were there when he rode into Jerusalem that final week. Maybe they were a part of the cheering crowd that first Palm Sunday, and conversely, maybe they were a part of the blood thirsty jeering mob at the end of the week as well. Who knows! If they hadn't experienced and seen the physical Jesus for themselves, they most likely came to believe through the testimony of those who had known the earthly Jesus first hand and had witnessed his crucifixion and experienced the presence of the risen Lord. These first Christians and their response to the risen Christ, I believe, is important for us to pay very close attention, for their witness to us can serve as a model and example for our witness. We need to allow them to mentor us. Like them, we too worship the risen Lord. For sure, they were 20 centuries closer to the earthly Jesus; their faith was fresh and new; they burned with passion for their faith in a world that was hostile to this new movement and the more this new movement was persecuted by its enemies, the more it grew and expanded. Through the Holy Spirit's witness in their lives, the faith not only survived, but in a matter of a couple of centuries it swept through the very empire that tried to destroy it.
I have always felt the strength of the church in any generation from then to now lies in a paying very close attention to the foundations and the basics of the biblical faith and applying them anew in our day; our time; and our context. These few verses this morning, in a simple and beautiful narrative, give us a wonderful glimpse at that foundation.
"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and prayers..."
In the verse I just read we have a capsulated description, perhaps one of the earliest descriptions, of the characteristics of early Christian worship. It included an encounter with scripture, "the apostles teaching," in the reading and preaching of the Word. We have the essence of worship which is "koinonia," a word that means fellowship. And then there is the move toward the communion in the "breaking of the bread and prayers."
But notice! It didn't stop there. Listen!
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. "
Notice how quickly, Luke, the author of Acts, moves from worship to service; from worship to action; from worship to witness; from word and koinonia to deed; from meal to mission.
I don't know about you, but the first question that hits me right between the eyes is, do I move, do you move, do we move that quickly from worship to action; from centering on the Word and Sacrament in the context of "koinonia" to service and deed? Or when I (you) walk out that door a little later this morning, after experiencing the "word," the "koinonia," and "the breaking of the bread" in communion, do I make a quick move to action, service and deed? Do I even think about it? Do you even think about it? Is it even on our minds? Do we find ourselves energized for action?
There are many things I could say this morning about these few verses from Acts. There are several important themes for several more sermons, but I wish, for today, to only make one point. One of the most significant things about the witness of those first century Christians is they lived their lives in one piece. They were not fragmented and compartmentalized people.
I believe one of the greater dangers, temptations and challenges we face as Christians in our time is to live our lives in a fragmented compartmentalized way. Our age is an age of specialization and compartmentalization. Robert Bella in his book of a decade ago, Habits of the Heart, discusses in some detail this schizophrenic tendency. He says we feel the pressure to compartmentalize our lives in order to cope with all the demands and pressures that come with everyday life: the demands of work; family; community; friendship; church; play; recreation; the demands of this and the demands of that! He says that often the many demands are sharply divided, inconsistent, contradictory and have conflicting expectations. When the pressures and tensions mount between the different aspects of our lives in order to cope, we compartmentalize, and each compartment has its own rules, its own ethics, its own values. When we are in any given compartment, all the rest of the compartments and their values don't matter or don't count. The only thing that counts is the compartment you are in and the rules that apply in that compartment. The result is we become fragmented and compromised people jumping from one compartment to another not really knowing who we are!.
We see this manifested in so many little ways. I've seen well adjusted, loving Christian people turn into enraged, crazy lunatics on the freeway. I used to play golf with a guy who was someone I considered to be a strong Christian, and even professed to being a Christian. But when he got on the golf course he cheated, he became profane and his etiquette was atrocious. His competitive passions would literally take over and he would do anything to win.
We can also live out our lives of faith, our spiritual lives as just another compartment, another dresser drawer that we pull out and dress up in special spiritual clothes when it's necessary.
One theologian said it this way,
"The persistent danger of our worship, the sacrilege against which we must be eternally vigilant, is the tendency to divorce Sunday worship from daily life. It is the danger that all our anthems and songs, our praise and prayers, our poetic preachers and warm fellowship might somehow conspire to turn worship into an event that has nothing to do with everyday life. Unless there is some link between our worship of God and junior's spilt cereal at breakfast, the boring routine at the office, the monthly collection of bills, the cancer that will not heal, the conflicts we encounter then our worship is not only irrelevant to human need, but also unfaithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Over the years I've had people say things to me like:
- "Stay out of politics pastor; don't preach on politics! Politics and religion don't mix!"
- "If you talk about money more than once a year, I'm leaving the church. The church needs to be concerned about spiritual matters."
- "Pastor, I think preachers should stick with theology and avoid controversial subjects like economics, homosexuality, abortion and the like."
I could go on, but I'm sure you are getting the idea.
Those early Christians knew one thing that we need to know desperately. Perhaps their close proximity to the earthly, physical Jesus helped them on this. It's something that we can easily forget being separated by 20 centuries of time from the life of Jesus. The knew that the Christian faith is an incarnational faith. The word incarnational means "in the body." From day one Christianity has proclaimed that God was incarnate in Jesus Christ. That God revealed himself through the real person of Jesus Christ. Jesus lived among us as a real visible tangible sign, that God can truly love us only by coming "in the body," by coming to us in a Jewish carpenter's son from Nazareth.
Now there may be religions where religious practice is limited to what you do in some holy place, hermetically sealed from the stress and strain of everyday life. There may be religions in which things like political debate, bodily health, material well-being, physical needs, issues of suffering and justice are irrelevant, but Christianity is not one of those religions. When the risen Lord Jesus met with his disciples, he found a frightened bunch of people who had withdrawn from the world. It was the risen Jesus who gave them the courage and commission to come out of hiding, and he sent them back into the world. Our Lord doesn't remove us from the world, but he gives us a way to live in the world.
In my mind the most significant part of the worship service that links us to the outside world is not the scripture, or the sermon, or the prayers, or the songs, or the communion. The part of the worship service that moved those early Christians from worship to witness was the offering. Let me explain.
First of all the offering is called the offering, not the collection. In the early church, the offering consisted of bread and wine and food that people brought for the holy meal they shared together as a part of their worship. They often worshiped in the context of table fellowship and a meal, like Jesus did with his disciples at the Last Supper. Usually there were many more resources brought then for their needs, and the surplus of the gifts were deliberately given to those in greatest need, or the sick, or the strangers and travelers in their midst.
You see, the offering is a key turning point in the service; a critical juncture; the place in the service, were we, at least in our liturgical drama of worship begin to move our feet and our hands and our lives in response to God's action upon us in the Word, the meal, and the fellowship.
The offering is the place where we, yes, mainly give our money, because money is the main resource of value, worth and power in our culture that enables us as the church to do the ministry God calls us to do. But we need to see the offering as more than a giving of our money; it is quite literally the giving of ourselves.
Every time we receive an offering, we are giving visible, tangible expression to the incarnational nature of the Christian faith. You see, God takes ordinary things like bread, wine, money, time, talent, knowledge, skills, and makes them extraordinary. When we look at Jesus ministry, he was always taking the everyday stuff of life like seeds, flowers, birds, coins, sheep, shepherds, tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, children, sinners of all kinds and lifting them up in such a way that they were given extraordinary value and purpose in the kingdom of God. After spending a little time with Jesus, and walking with him through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John you can't walk past a hungry person, lift up a loaf of bread, pick a flower, or gaze into the eyes of a child quite the same way as you did before meeting him.
The offering is not an unwarranted intrusion into your privacy. Rather, the offering is the bridge that begins to move us in the direction that God wishes for us to go; from worship to witness; from word to deed; from meal to mission. It's the hinge that opens the door and moves us beyond this place and this fellowship to be God's people in our everyday worlds. It's the litmus test of what and who were are ultimately about.
Let's gaze at this short, yet powerful and profound scripture and let it speak to us one last time.
"The devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers." That's us too, on Sunday, just like those first apostles at worship. Here we are!
But their story doesn't end there and I pray with all my heart, soul and strength that ours doesn't either.
"...they 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."
We might say that the real test of our worship is not merely what goes on in here as we gather in the word, the meal and experience the koinonia, but what goes on out there after we've sung the last song, pronounced the final benediction, and said our last amen.
I pray, that like those first believers, we will leave this place with such glad and generous hearts that we will offer ourselves and our gifts to the glory of God.
So the last word of this sermon will also be among the last words we will speak in this service this morning in a few minutes:
"God in peace; serve the Lord"
(Hopefully the congregation responds with: "Thanks be to God")