Sermon - Acts 2.42-47

Acts 2.42-47

Today’s gospel reading (John 10.1-10) ended with the words “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Jesus is both the good shepherd who seeks out the lost, calls them by name and guides them to safety, and also the gateway to a new way of living which he describes as “abundant life”.

In our reading from Acts 2 we learn what that “abundant life” looks like and the community of the earliest Christians is offered to us as a model of what the church should be like. It might be unrealistic to expect a perfect match, but we should be able draw principles which will help us evaluate how we are doing and some ideas for how we can improve.

Devoted learners

As a result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of Peter at Pentecost, the church suddenly jumped from under 100 to over 3,000 members. This was a huge challenge for this new faith community – teacher/pupil ratios went by the board – and yet the church continued to thrive and grow. The first reason we are given for this is that the people “devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teachings”. They didn’t just have a moving spiritual experience, they used their minds to learn the whole truth from the people appointed by Jesus to teach and reveal it. The Holy Spirit continued to overcome barriers of language, culture and ability to reward these new believers with a growing faith and understanding. Healings and other miraculous signs accompanied the apostles’ teaching, as proof that it came from God.

The principle seems to be that God rewards devoted learners. But does that describe us, or are we more casual and disinterested about our knowledge of what the Bible teaches? Do we want to learn, and are we prepared to listen when the Bible challenges our prejudices and faults?

Loving relationships

The second thing we learn about the community of new believers is that “they devoted themselves to fellowship.” And this went way beyond what we might expect within a normal club, society or community. We are told how wealth was redistributed to improve things for the poor. They still had possessions and homes – but they were in and out of each other’s homes, sharing meals, making sure nobody was hungry or lonely, helping each other to put into practice the example of Jesus and the apostles. Their lives were characterised by gladness, gratitude and generosity. Not surprisingly, this was a community which attracted other people so that they were practically queueing up to join. Again we see God’s hand in this: “The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Here we see both common ground and a radical difference between Christianity and other ways of life. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” might be a fair description of how these early Christians live. But that quote is not from the Bible, it is from the writings of Karl Marx, the founding philospher of communism. Marx also famously wrote “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.” Most atheists and humanists would agree with these statements by Marx, even though their economic and political ideas might be very different from his. In fact all kinds of people, with all kinds of beliefs would aspire to the kind of society in which wealth is redistributed and the vulnerable are cared for, but would insist that this be done without any reference to God. What’s wrong with that?

Well for one thing, history shows it doesn’t work, not on a large scale anyway, because human greed and selfishness and the corrupting influence of power always gets in the way. Its like trying

to grow a tree with no leaves or roots, no source of life and power and nourishment. The early Christians were able to live the way they did precisely because they had a source of power and life that came directly from God.

Of course even the church falls short of the ideal most of the time. Christians are not perfect and often have mixed motives and divided loyalties. We probably see ourselves as a pretty friendly and supportive church, but reading these verses you can’t help thinking there is another level we need to reach. Evangelism would really be no challenge at all if we loved each other like this.

Worship centred community

If we are serious about wanting to live God’s way, we need to stay connected to God. We are told that the way these early Christians did this was by devoting themselves to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Breaking bread could just be a way of saying they shared meals, but it is likely that a simple form of Holy Communion was already taking place. Certainly there were regular meetings where people were praying to God together.

Without assuming too much, it does seem that they got the balance right between joy and formality, spontaneity and order, and it is clear that whatever form their worship took, it was transforming them and attracting others to want to know this God who was being worshipped.

Again, this should lead us to ask questions about our own services and meetings and it clarifies what we should be aiming for.

Open and welcoming

Finally we notice how open and welcoming this first christian community was. It was easy to join, without having to fulfil onerous requirements or sign up to a set of rules. It was enough to acknowledge your need for God’s mercy, help and love. All kinds of people were welcomed into this growing community, day by day.

To sum up we might notice that all these marks of the earliest Christian community are about relationships:

• To the apostles and their inspired teaching
• To each other in caring, sharing fellowship
• To God in the power of the Spirit, remembering Jesus, joyfully thanking the Father
• To outsiders in friendship, openness and welcome

The Holy Spirit was the life force which enabled all of this to happen and as we look back at the empty tomb of Easter, we also look forward to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. May we be open to that same Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. And may we increasingly grow together in the qualities God desires in us.