Become the Gospel!

Our reading from Acts today urges us to understand well what we are doing or not doing within the body of Christ, and what is the positive result from following what Jesus is asking of the church.

Herbert Miller has summarized the message thus: the church “says the Gospel, does the Gospel, and is the Gospel.”

When and where that is done, the consequence is that the Spirit will have a much easier time stirring up faith in our friends and neighbors.

It is as simple, and as complicated as that.

So what are the consequences of us being baptized?

Whether infant or adult, there are consequences.

Especially when we baptize an infant, it is easy to get caught up in the “cute” factor.

Isn't his a lovely ceremony, and a chance to show off the new baby?

It may show up differently when we baptize an adult; without the cuteness factor we can more easily focus on the fact that this is intended to be a life-changing experience.

And we will be spending a lifetime discerning just what those consequences are.

The picture of the church that we get from our passage from Acts this day may be idealized more than history, but still there are important insights here.

It tries to give the impression that everything just went wonderfully well, they all got along together, without frictions and squabbles, perfectly unified in worship and life.

We have only to read a bit in Paul's letters to the Corinthians to know that such perfection did not last long, probably about as long as it took to describe it, before problems surfaced.

But still we yearn for such a congregation.

It begins properly with worship.

The descriptive verse says: The baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

There are summarized the things we do in worship.

First, we spend time with the apostles' teaching – that is, with the Old Testament which was the apostles' source for text, as well as the letters which soon began circulating among the churches and the gospel accounts which may have been written 30-50 years after the resurrection.

Then comes the “breaking of bread” which is a technical name for the Holy Communion, where God's promise is acted out for us and with us.

Then conversation with God happens in prayer, the give and take in thought and silence as well as in speech.

And finally, there is fellowship, -- the mutual consolation and conversation which is the first stage, the practice stage, for what we will do the rest of the week.

They are the same activities for us today as Luke wrote about 2,000 years ago.

And now we need to talk about the Offering.

It is a graphic reminder to us that ours is an embodied faith, that is, it is about a Lord Jesus who very much is a body in the world, and who continues to do the things he did 2,000 years ago.

He not only calls people to faith in the Lord God Almighty, he also heals the sick, and gives hope to the despairing.

Justin Martyr, one of the very earliest writers we have other than the New Testament itself, tells us that the church used a bit of the bread and wine which was presented as part of their offering for the Holy Communion, but the rest of the money and goods were taken to “the orphans and widows, and those who are needy because of sickness or other cause, and the captives, and the strangers who sojourn among us.”

It is a very real and practical link between what we do here together and what we do together in the rest of our lives.

We can't hide behind beautiful stained glass; we and everyone around us have myriad hurts and need attention in so many ways.

Let Good News be spoken in words and acted in sacraments, and let this be the foundation for all the other work that also needs to happen.

This is not just a “spiritual” affair, but also a very much embodied one.

Since money is a portable and transferable form of our work and effort, how we use money is always a big topic.

It is unavoidable, even though people says things like:

“The church should stick to saving souls and stay out of....” whatever the subject at hand is.

“What a person gives or doesn't give in the offering is his or her own business.”

“The church should be concerned about spiritual matters and not money.”

And there are dozens of variations on those themes.

It reminds me of the cartoon where the person is being immersed in baptism, but is frantically holding his wallet out of the water, not only that it won't get wet, but so that it won't be baptized.

He wants to be committed, but not totally.

We're heard this put in animal terms: the pig said to the chicken “Yes I can see why you're approaching this breakfast in a light-hearted manner, but I can't, since your egg is only a contribution, but my bacon is a total commitment!”

The consequence for Christians is a whole life given; a whole life transformed.

That is what we are experiencing ourselves, and what we offer to others.

We say the Gospel, we do the Gospel, we become the Gospel for others.

How are our lives good news for our companions?

It is a question that will not go away quietly.

It is insistently bumping into our ordinary ways of doing things, and challenging old patterns.

How are our lives good news for our companions?

We need to be clear on the source of the news and discern how to proceed.

We're going to be spending much time on this in the coming months.

One of the memorable images in John's chapter about the Good Shepherd is this verse:

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

He goes ahead of them and the sheep follow because they know his voice.

We hear the union of individual and group: we are called each by name, and then go out together as the flock to our work.

It is more than saying that the church has a lot of people who ought to work together.

Christ has many parts to his body, and we are they, with different functions, to the aim that...

day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

And we celebrate that it happens, because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.