Date: August 19, 2001
Text: Acts 2:41-46
Topic: Community
Title: How to Make a Difference -
Part 3 "Learn to Love”
Theme: We were made to live together in community; learning to love is a key to making a difference in the world today.
46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Acts 2:46-47
Porch time…that’s what I used to call it. When I was a little boy growing up my family moved and lived all over the country – in fact, all over the world. There was only one place that I really felt the tug of any roots going down into the soil and that was at my Dad’s parents’ house in South Mississippi. I called them “Big Mama” and “Papa” and whether I was living in Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina or Germany, in my minds eye I could always go back with joy to the gentle, predictable routine of life on the farm at my grandparents’ house.
One part of the routine happened every summer evening I was visiting there, just after supper. For supper we’d eat fresh vegetables and fried chicken followed by a generous helping of either pecan pie or banana pudding all washed down with gallons of sweet tea. Then we’d all amble out to the front porch and sit down on the front porch swing. We’d sit there until dark, when the glow of the yellow “bug” light would overtake the orange and reds of the magnificent sunsets we enjoyed on that porch. Papa would pull out his tin of Prince Albert tobacco and light up his pipe and we’d sit there and swing and talk…porch time.
About the only thing you did besides swing and talk (and occasionally chase down lightning bugs) was you waved.
My grandparents lived way off the main highway on a dirt road and you could hear a car coming for miles. During daylight you could see the dust cloud from the car too if you looked off in the distance. Probably five or six cars went by a night. As a car would approach, Papa and Big Mama would begin to speculate about who was coming down the road. They knew all their neighbors of course. Finally the car would roar by, and the big moment arrived. You raised your hand and gave a generous, friendly, “how y’all doing” kind of wave - it didn’t matter if it was a total stranger that passed – you always waved. Of course, once the car passed there was the inevitable speculation about where whoever it was, was going. And even more speculation if it was a stranger.
I miss those evenings on the front porch. I miss the conversations, and the changing colors in the twilight, and the smell of Papa’s pipe. But what I miss most of all is the neighborliness and friendliness of those days.
What ever happened to knowing your neighbors anyway? Why don’t we get to know one another and share our lives anymore like people used to?
You know, it used to be we wandered out into our back yard and chatted over the fence with a cup of coffee in our hand. Now we’re more likely to set the cup of coffee on our desks and drop in a chat room, mouse in hand, to “talk” with people we’ve never even seen. We’re more likely to know tracman@aol.com in Toledo, Ohio than we are our own flesh and blood neighbors next door. We’re plugged in and wired, but we’re often disconnected from the very people we live the closest to.
Of course, there are many reasons for this loss of neighborliness – we’re busier, there’s more to do to hold our attention, and there is fear involved. But in many ways we’ve become a nation of strangers. The truth is, today, in the most connected time ever in civilization, many people are feeling isolated, lost, unloved and unknown.
We’ve been talking for three weeks now
about how to make a difference in life, how to live lives of significance.
We’ve been learning from the early church. So far we’ve realized from them that
sharing our faith and deciding to grow are two great ways to have
a life of significance. Today’s lesson, from verses 46 and 47 of the second
chapter of Acts, teaches us that to make an eternal difference we need to LEARN
TO LOVE
It was the poet John Donne who penned the
familiar line, “No man is an island.” And he is right – we live and exist in
community. We cannot thrive when separated from others. Islands are nice places
to visit, but we cannot live there indefinitely. But here is the paradox:
Western culture is INDIVIDUALISTIC and yet COMMUNITY,
in the words of Howard Thurman, “is the native environment of the human
spirit. Nowhere do we function more proficiently, get our needs met, develop
and express our own gifts, and receive appreciation for it, as in community.”
But what is community? You hear the word
often these days; the “global village,” the “brotherhood and sisterhood of man”
and all. Mirriam-Webster’s Dictionary
defines community as “A unified body of individuals.”
Unfortunately what often
masquerades as community isn’t.
Sometimes what is called community is merely polite smiles and obligatory
pleasantries – a superficial level of interaction that some call
“pseudo-community.”
I call it plastic people. I’m sure you’ve experienced this in some of the groups, classes or organizations you’ve been associated with. Plastic or pseudo-community often feels good and wonderful, but ultimately it is unfulfilling because no one is really being real with one another. No real connections are being made between people. No one is being challenged or encouraged to become more than they are at the moment.
There is a deeper state of community – one that most groups fail to achieve. A place where people don’t put on any airs for one another, a place where people can disagree and not be paralyzed by the disagreement. A place where you are loved not for what you can do for the others, but simply because you are who you are. That’s what the early church found in Jerusalem and that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
How
to experience the deep and true community of the Acts 2 Church:
The way to experience the deep and true community of the Acts 2 Church is laid out for us in narrative form in the two verses we read today. All we have to do to figure out what was going on, and then to apply it in our own lives, is to ask four questions:
First, what did they do? This is probably the most untheological and shallowest point I’ll ever make in a sermon, but what they did is simple. They HUNG OUT together… continually. “Every day they continued to meet together…” Acts 2:46.
It is no accident that the most popular shows on television for the past several seasons have all been shows about hanging out. Think about it: Cheers is a bar in Boston “where everybody knows your name.” Frazier is a psychologist who, along with his family and friends, spends all his time hanging out. Friends is just that, a group of twenty-somethings who never ever seem to do anything but hang out together. And the top grossing TV show of all time, Seinfeld, billed itself as the “show about nothing” because they never did anything but hang out together.
I’m not a big fan of the moral values of these shows, but I am a fan of the shows themselves, as are millions, precisely because of what we’re talking about this morning – people want to know and be known; community like this is a deep-seated human need. When we vicariously experience the community of these shows, where the people go through everything together, it touches something inside us that says, “I want that too.”
The second thing we need to ask of these verses to discover the early church’s secret for community is to ask, “What did they do while they were hanging out?”
Again, the answer again isn’t deep or theological – what they did was EAT! Look at the verse, “They broke bread in their homes and ate together...”Acts 2:46
Now I know for many of you this is most excellent news. Pastor Steve is telling us that to build community we need to eat more! I can just hear the conversations at home this week as our members stuff themselves… “What dear?…Of course I’m going to eat that…didn’t you hear what Pastor Steve said on Sunday about eating!”
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but what was really happening as these people broke bread together was about much more than simply caloric intake. What was happening here is what I call “kitchen-table fellowship.”
Everything that is important that happens at our house – all the serious stuff – happens around the kitchen table. In our house, and I think in a lot of homes, the kitchen table is the place where people really get real and say what’s on their mind. It’s the family place.
My daughters often have friends over to spend the night. Sometimes old Dad is a little in the dark about who is coming over, and when, or even if there are strangers in the house. I must admit there have been a few Saturday mornings when I have stumbled into the kitchen table to eat my pancakes and bacon (a weekend tradition at our house) in my pajamas, hair not combed, you know the look… and to my surprise there sit three or four fourteen-year-old girls giggling at me at my kitchen table. That’s pretty embarrassing….
But my point is, people are themselves at the kitchen table, that’s where all the serious business of being a family takes place doesn’t it? What really happens around your kitchen table? I know at mine at least three things happen on a regular basis:
The “E” stands for ENCOURAGEMENT. You find out the most amazing things about your children’s lives at the dinner table. And it is there that we funnel out tons of encouragement in our household. The image I often try to remember is that it is there we can best personalize God’s presence for each other, which is one of the main tasks of all believers for each other. Donna and I don’t just give encouragement there at the table either, we get it – from our kids and from each other. We all need encouragement from time to time. I can truthfully say there are some meals where I have completely forgotten what I ate (no offense Donna) but I remember the spiritual food – the encouragement I received long afterward.
The “A” stands for ACCOUNTABILITY. It’s there that the family all keeps one another on track. My sister and I grew up in the late sixties, where testing your parents’ limits seems to have been the number one goal of all teenagers. If I remember one meal, I remember 100 where there would be a confrontation (translate that blow-up) in our household over the length of my sister’s skirt, or the tightness of my pants, or the amount of eye makeup my sister was wearing, or the length of my hair.
In fact, I remember pondering all sorts
of crazy ideas in those days about my dress and appearance, only to remember
that no matter what I did, that evening I was going to have to sit down at the
dinner table with my Dad, the Colonel, and face inspection. And if things
weren’t right I’d hear that inevitable line, “Young man…as long as you’re
going to put your feet under MY table, you’re not going to …..”
Of course, today I realize I needed that accountability, and I try to give the same to my own daughters (without sounding too much like my own parents I hope).
Finally, the “T” stands for TEACHING. I learned a lot about life at school and church and from my friends. But I can truthfully say that I learned more about life and living at the kitchen table than I did anywhere else in my life. I learned about relationships, politics, religion, and more. All right there with the family at the kitchen table.
Now you’ll note that in the notes and up here on the screen it says we are taught to grow more Christ-like. I did learn that there, but the main reason I wanted that point in there is because it brings it all back together for us this morning. You see, everything I’ve just said about my own personal family life around the kitchen table – which I hope resonated with your own experience – relates even more to the church.
As we gather in the church this same kind of kitchen table fellowship including encouragement, accountability and teaching can happen. If we miss it, we’re missing out on one of the most important – and rewarding – aspects of life in Christ.
The third question we need to ask is, “How did this hanging out and eating and sharing make these early Christians feel? Acts 2:46 says, “They ...ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”
First of all it says they ENJOYED it – it made them glad. There’s a great lesson in this. What we can gather from this is that the first sign you’re not experiencing true biblical community is that you don’t enjoy it.
As much as I love the Lord, one of the biggest reasons I come here every Sunday morning is not because God is going to show up (I’ve already been with Him at home), and it’s not because I “have to” because I’m the pastor. It’s not even because I just can’t get enough “church coffee” and Wal-Mart donut holes. One of the biggest reasons I show up is cause I love to be with you guys and I’d miss you to death if I didn’t get to see you every Sunday. I LOVE this community and what we share together. I ENJOY being together with you. In fact, I can’t wait until this afternoon when we get together again over at the Cole’s house for the baptisms.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have other things to do – I do. It doesn’t mean I’d rather be with my own family – I’m with them anyway, we’re just here together. What it means is I ENJOY the fellowship, like the early church did.
The second way it made them feel was sincere. That’s because they were AUTHENTIC with each other.
As far as I’m concerned, here’s where the rubber meets the road. Here’s where we in the church have it over all the other groupings people can find themselves in. I’ve discovered that most people, including myself, don’t want or need more meetings to attend. What people are really looking for are authentic relationships. And that’s something you’re not normally going to experience in the PTA, or standing on the sidelines while your kid plays soccer, standing around at a business social.
People genuinely want to let their guard down – to be really real. Again, I hate to harp on it, but that’s what Cheers and Friends and Seinfeld are all about.
In a plastic world of people who act like mirrors, reflecting back to you want you want them to be like, there’s nothing like the fresh air of relationships where people have crooked teeth, and where their kids occasionally get in trouble, and where you celebrate birthdays by singing happy birthday to you in unison, off key, as loud as you can, and mean it, and then laugh about how badly you all sing.
The final question we need to ask is this:
According to our verses for today this deep community lead to at least two things. “...praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people” Acts 2:46
First their fellowship led to God getting the GLORY. The Westminster shorter catechism, which Protestants were made to memorize for centuries, describes what it calls the “chief end of man” and says it is to glorify God forever.
That really is our mission you know. Here in our church our mission is “to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.” But the mission behind that mission is to help people into their most significant contribution as people, namely to glorify God.
I just read a book and the author says he has adopted something out of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount as his daily prayer. Paraphrasing Matthew 5:16 he prays, “Lord, let my light shine before others in such a way today, that they see my good works and, and glorify my Father who is in heaven.”
Whenever Christians gather in true community it’s not the preacher that gets the glory, or the Elders, or the biggest givers. The result of true Christian community is that God gets the glory.
The second thing that happened because of the wonderful community that existed in the early church was that the people were showered with the FAVOR of others. I love the Phillips Bible translation of this verse. He writes that the people “enjoyed the respect of others.” The Good News Bible uses the word “Goodwill” there.
You know, the media often seems to delight in poking fun at Christians, especially those at the fringes of our movement. But you know what? The reality is, most people who aren’t a part of a community of faith where genuine community exists have a deep longing in their heart to belong to one. And in times of crisis, where to people turn? To the church of course.
We live in what has been described as a whitewater world. Change is swirling around us, danger besets us on every side. What people are looking for are the still waters that run deep. There is great energy in that healing stream – healing and admonishment and love and intimacy and forgiveness and affection and care and accountability and unity and focus and a host of other aspects of life that everyone needs.
Every week when my wife Donna goes to the grocery store she buys some pretty cut flowers to put on the kitchen table and other places around the house. I am so thankful for her loving touch around the house. I was looking at some of these flowers that had been there a while the other morning. I realized that with cut flowers you’ve got flowers that look and smell pretty for a short time, especially if you put them in water. But after a few days you’ve got flowers that are….well, pretty ugly.
A church or an individual Christian who is cut off from the Christian soil of genuine community is like a cut flower.[i] Though the flower will hold it’s beauty for a time, it is destined to die.
Each one of us here today is blessed to have the free choice of whether or not to become involved in true community. It is neither loving nor wise for me or this church to try to coerce you into something you aren’t ready for. But I believe this with all my heart. If we can move to the type community the early church exhibited there isn’t a problem in the world that we can’t conquer – either as individuals or as the church.
It’s not easy…it’s sometimes messy, but there isn’t a more rewarding, or more significant, or beneficial way to invest your life on the face of the earth, than in each other as the family of God. Let us pray.