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The scripture from the Book of Acts (in Eugene Peterson’s exciting rendering) gives us a stunning picture of the early post-Pentecost Christian Church. It was awesome, with wonders and signs. But these wonders and signs went beyond good feelings. Most amazingly there was a miraculous harmony. This was not the result of a long evolutionary process or intentional community building. It seems to have happened instantaneously. They suddenly saw who they really were as a community. And a number of tangible things happened.

First, when they saw that everything belongs to God, and nothing belonged to them as individuals, they held everything in common. Not because of some pre-communist ideology, but because when you truly see God as Creator and Giver, that has an impact on how you live.

Second, they saw that they themselves belonged to God. Therefore, they belonged to each other, and each person’s need became everyone’s need. So they sold their possessions and pooled their resources in order to meet those needs.

Third, worship became a daily discipline. It happened at the Temple, their communal place of worship, and it happened in each home, where it centered around mealtime. Like Jesus they saw each meal as an occasion for joyous, exuberant celebration.

And all these things made them an extremely attractive community. People liked what they saw and joined them.

One might ask whether it really happened this way, or ruefully note that it may not have lasted long, but that is beside the point. That it happened showed it is possible.   But what about us at Christ Congregational Church, especially on this Annual Meeting morning? Let me briefly suggest this:

I believe we yearn for wholeness. We yearn for something of this kind of community, even if we regard it as unlikely. Our lives are too split up, too compartmentalized. The rampant individualism of our culture takes a terrible spiritual toll. The story of Acts brings us back to basics. 

First of all, if we really believe that everything we have and are belongs to God; and that everything we have and are belongs to each other; that is tremendously liberating. It is freeing. It is inspiring. And it opens us to possibilities that our culture slams the door to.

Second, and very important for us this morning, the lines we draw between work and worship, the spiritual and the material, God and money, public and private, are arbitrary and artificial. That is what we are trying to taste this morning. The work of the church, in all its nitty-gritty detail, is the worship of God. And the worship of God, in all its uplift and glory, is the very work of the church. Indeed the Greek word for “liturgy” means the work of the people.

Third, whatever happens here happens in the Holy Spirit. This is not a plea that we clean up our act and behave nicely because we are in church. It is rather to affirm that to be aware that we live in the power of the Holy Spirit, is to be aware that God speaks through us. And though, as at Pentecost, we may be speaking in our own languages, from our own angles of vision and views of what is important, we will understand each other. Today, I believe this means that if we each speak honestly and lovingly and authentically from our hearts, in all our uniqueness, there can be understanding. Not always agreement perhaps, but understanding. And we will experience that deeper spiritual harmony. And that will be awesome.

Let our prayers together this morning, in the worship and work of the church, be that in all we say and do, in all our dreams and our deliberations, the Word of God will be broken open and revealed to us. And that God’s will be done and that we be blessed.

AMEN

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