Morning Prayer: Shannon Cook Choral Amen Hymn of Unity *Diverse in Culture, Nation, Race* The Witness of Scripture: Acts 2: 42-47 Anthem *Holy Is the True Light* William H. Harris. FCC Chancel Choir Sermon *A 3G Church* David Spain
Recorded on April 30, 2023
You may know about the revolution…it was delayed a couple of years but is now moving along. It is the 5G revolution, 5G standing for 5th generation global wireless technology designed to connect almost everyone and everything more rapidly, more reliably, with greater capacity and availability, all the while delivering a more uniform experience for more users. 5G technology promises to create a smarter, safer, and more sustainable future for people, business, and society. That’s pretty thorough, one among many revolutions from world history—the Industrial revolution, the French and American Revolutions, the Renaissance and Reformation. The world remakes itself for a variety of reasons—sometimes technical, sometimes political, sometimes economic, sometimes humanitarian.
A long time ago, there was another revolution, one that admittedly might not be as well known but one whose echoes are still heard 2,000 years later and whose vision has not been completely obscured. In fact it is a revolution we still pray for every Sunday, part of the prayer Jesus gave his disciples to pray – ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ The book of Acts tells the revolutionary story of a very early church, one of the first of the now many churches whose name includes the word First. The resurrection has happened, the Spirit of God has brought people together beyond their differences, Peter has preached a most effective sermon based on the 3,000 who were baptized and are part of the nascent community. What these 6 verses from the second chapter of Acts provide is a picture of the way the church began to be the body of Christ present in the world.
In the intervening 2,000 years there have been any number of restoration movements in which people either from an existing church or people claiming to be the true church, seek to restore the church to its first century origins and practices. It is a noble and understandable effort to discern what is most important, affirm the core of the faith, and confirm our purpose. Many expressions of faith through the centuries, including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), claim as their origin to be a restoration movement. At some level this was part of Jesus’ ministry—he was not coming to get rid of the law but to emphasize what is essential, and later when he was asked what is essential, he cited two core teachings from Deuteronomy and Leviticus—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus teaches everything faith does is an expression of love for God and love for neighbor, and as we know Jesus did not simply teach it, he also lived it.
When the time came that he would no longer be among the disciples in body, Jesus told them they would be his Body in the world so that when people look at the church, they will see Christ. It is a high and gracious calling, one that over 2,000 years the church has both embodied and failed to embody. As Paul Tillich simply stated, the church both is and is not the body Christ. But, the command and the calling remains—it does not seem Jesus has retracted what he said, so from First Church Jerusalem to every First Church and every church by any other name meeting today—we gather for the same purpose as told in the second chapter of Acts…devoting ourselves to the apostles teaching, being together, breaking bread, praying, living with awe and reverence, providing from our resources to care for the well-being of others and attending to any who have a need, living with a spirit of gladness, generosity, and goodwill which is what a 3G church is, a church known by gladness, generosity, goodwill.
A church like that, whether it is in the first century or the 21st century will often be swimming against the prevailing currents. Perhaps it has always been this way, but it seems ours is a particularly hyper-individualistic era. To some extent, religion has fed that orientation, framing faith as a matter between God and the believer in which salvation comes down to what the individual believes, a perspective in which the sum of faith is the individual’s experience in which faith becomes isolated and privatized. To be sure, there is always a personal component to faith, but our personal faith is always lived among and with others. Is there such a thing as a private Christian? The first church described in Acts would say no, for we are always working and working out our faith with one another.Jesus was not inclined to say, ‘think about me or let me come into your heart.’ Instead, what Jesus said was ‘follow me,’ and because he knew that at times following him would be difficult even as life is difficult at times, he gave us the gift of each other for encouragement, companionship, challenge, cooperation. As Will Willimon wrote, “It is not that easy being a follower of Jesus, loving your neighbor, turning the other cheek, taking responsibility for the material needs of the poor and giving to those in need. To live that sort of life, to organize ourselves not on the basis of all the things we have in common, but rather because Jesus has assembled us, well, we need help from our friends. Don’t try to live the Christian life solo! We need each other to enable us to be faithful.” (Pulpit Resource, 4/30/23, p. 16)
The first church mentioned in Acts held things in common and we ponder that statement and wonder what holds us in common—it is not political or philosophical similarity, it is not shared religious history, it is not economic strata, it is not vocation, it is not age demographic, it is not style or avocational interests—we might live in Norman but not every closet has crimson and cream in their color wheel! Perhaps what first church in Acts and First Christian Church in Norman hold in common is not what we hold in common but what holds us in common. It is the grace of this Table. Yvette Schock wrote that the gift of communion is in the words ‘given for you’ which “carry the weight of this impossible, unbelievable mystery: that the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, gives a whit about every single person who approaches the table. It is the mystery of the infinite, unknowable, whole, and holy one who yearns for us—and reaches out to us through bread and wine to make us whole, too…I certainly heard these words every Sunday—‘Body of Christ given for you,’ [and when] I was 14 years old, I may have worried about not having the right kind of jeans and whether or not someone would ask me to dance, but I did not worry about being worthy to receive communion. I had never been made to feel unworthy, at the communion rail or anywhere else…I felt loved at church…[and] that is one of the essential early church practices described in Acts 2.”
Schock goes on to identify another aspect of communion, of the grace that holds all of us. “This Table invites and tugs us into new relationships, a sacrament of love wherein we are joined to Christ and to our neighbors; their burdens, sorrows, hopes become ours. This Table, this meal given for you means God’s promises are for each of us and yet not for any one of us alone. It’s not an individual affirmation but an invitation to sit down at a table with all other broken, hungry people.” (The Christian Century, ‘In the Lectionary,” 4/30/2014). We remember this is exactly how Jesus set up his meals—with tax collectors and disciples, with Pharisees and women, with those who never worried about their next meal and those who never knew about their next meal, with the familiar and the stranger. This is the grace that holds us in common.
A 3G church, taking our cue from Acts 2, is a church of gladness, generosity, and goodwill.Gladness, gladness that is born not of our own personal satisfaction but gladness that comes when we recognize our lives are part of something greater than only our lives, only our immediate circle, only our immediate needs. Fred Craddock tells of being in a church parking lot after having preached for morning worship when a van full of youth pulled into the parking lot with ten or twelve teens who got out with their sleeping bags and bedraggled clothes.After having spent a week with others helping to build a church for a community, they were exhausted, worn out, and looked a little rough. They were sitting on their bags waiting to be picked up, and Craddock said to one of the boys, “‘Are you tired?’ He said, ‘whew, am I tired!’ and then he said, ‘This is the best tired I have ever been.’ (Cherry Log Sermons, p. 107-108) That is gladness, born of realizing that grace holds us in common and grace helps us see our commonweal for each other.
This church, along with 6 or 8 other churches, takes part in Norman Housing Ministries whose purpose is to fill a financial gap to help those who are in a crisis and do not qualify for other available funds. Our group met last week and April Doshier, head of Food and Shelter and through whom the Norman Housing Ministry funds are allocated, told of Amy a 36 year old Norman neighbor who had been homeless for 10 years. Various efforts to house her had been made, but with her drug addictions, the housing situation would fall apart. She began to stay in A Friends House at Food and Shelter, but her health and her addiction grew worse, until she relied on a wheelchair to be mobile. One morning while waiting for a ride, she overdosed and the staff at Food and Shelter were able to revive her with Narcan before the ambulance arrived. Admitted to the hospital, she realized her near death moment and her need to renew and repair her life. She began treatment, after which in need of housing, Food and Shelter was able to secure a sober living facility. Norman Housing Ministries, which we support with our regular outreach giving, paid her first month’s rent to get her stabilized. Now healthier, she no longer needs the wheelchair and is three months sober and doing as well as she has done in over 10 years. Our generosity and goodwill, along with sister churches, is helping raise this young woman from the dead.
For the last few years, a 5G communication revolution has been going on and it may change our lives. For 2,000 years a 3G communion revolution has been going on changing lives through gladness, generosity, and goodwill. Thanks be to God, First Christian Church is part of it!