Easter 4

This sermon will be given this morning to a congregation where I am the guest preacher.

Acts 2:42-47
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

If we could bottle that last little bit of this passage and sell it, no church would ever have a money or attendance or volunteer crisis ever again! If only we could come up with a plan that would work in this church, at St. Paul, at the many, many churches who are threatened by bills that pile up with not enough support to keep the doors open—a plan that would not only keep our doors open but would also open those doors to the people that the Lord is just waiting to add to our numbers—to all those in whom God’s prevenient grace has been at work all their lives long, and who are now on their way to us in churches everywhere, who may even be here for the first time today.

Yes, if only we knew the secret, the thing to do to get the Lord to add to our numbers. Like in the old days, when things were really good. All of us have those days we remember, to which we travel in our minds when we fear that life in the community of faith has grown stagnant. “Those were the days—when we were brimming over with children, when the youth were all over the place, when there were families spilling into the aisles, when we had activities every night of the week, when things were really alive!” If you’ve ever been part of a church for more than a few years, you’ve probably said these words to yourself once or twice.

And people have made programs, seminars, and money off our memories of what it used to be like. The truth is, there are people out there who have figured out how to make money by teaching us their method of how to add to our numbers in churches across the world. Only I wonder if we look in every place we can find except the way it really was way back when, and by way back when, I mean in the good old, old days of the church: right after Peter’s sermon in Jerusalem on Pentecost.

Think back to that great sermon—when Peter stood before the large crowd of people gathered for a holy purpose. They had miraculously heard about God’s deeds of power in words they each understood although they were from places all over the known world. And then, to continue to describe the power of God, Peter paints for us the first directory portrait of the church: thousands of people so moved by the words of Peter’s mouth that they were baptized, claimed by God as forgiven, and added to the names of all those who call on the name of God for salvation.

Thousands of people were never the same after that day. What they did was start the Church, a church where thousands and thousands of people were saved, as John Wesley says in his commentary on the New Testament “from their sins; from the guilt and power of them.” People were discovering that there was a new way of life to be lived—a life lived in forgiveness, a life of repentance, a live shared together with other believers, a life of abundance in that no one ever needed anything that the body of Christ couldn’t provide, a life of faith in the one whom God had sent and had raised from the dead. They held everything in common, especially their belief and trust in God.

What did they do to add to their numbers? It’s easier than an expensive program, and more basic that many of our church consultants, and maybe all the things we’ve tried over and over in the name of church growth. Here’s what they did:
• They devoted themselves to the teaching of the disciples, which Jesus had commanded them to do.
• They devoted themselves to fellowship, to spending time together getting to know one another and being there for one another in their hours of need.
• They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread, the meals shared for the remembrance of Christ as he had shared with them just before his arrest.
• They prayed together.
• They shared each other’s lives.
• The shared everything they had.
• They sold what they had and gave what they made to those who needed money, again, following the teachings of Jesus as the apostles must have shown them.
• The praised God daily in their homes.
• They concerned themselves with the goodwill of all, or with how the lives of the community around them were—difficult or easy—and pledged themselves to ease the difficulties and celebrate with the joys people experienced in the life of the community.
And God added to their numbers, so they had to get more chairs, build bigger buildings, wear nametags, ask for names every time they got together, and burst with pride at how they were growing.

So, here in the book of the Acts of the Apostles is a free-of-charge plan for growing the church:
• Teaching the faith with integrity to children, youth, and adults—how do you teach here?
• Spending time together for the purpose of getting to know everyone—not just the folks you already know—so that whenever there is a need of any kind, the whole congregation will want to respond.
• Have Holy Communion together as often as you can, and be present at the Lord’s Table. Encourage one another to come, and delight in receiving the bread and the cup in each other’s presence as Christ did with his disciples.
• Pray. Pray in your homes, but pray also together—and not just in worship! Pray in small and large groups. Meet together for the sole purpose of praying together for the needs of the body of Christ.
• Share. Share not only your material possessions and your money, but share also when someone needs your support or, in some cases, accountability.
• When the things you accumulate in your life take away from attending to the body of Christ, then get rid of them. And any profit you make should come back to the body. The very idea of our United Methodist Apportionments is based on the idea of the body of Christ sharing the load of serving the needs of the world.
• Praise God all the time, even at home.
And I think in the time and culture in which we now live, this last thing might just be the most important:
• Be concerned about the good of the community in which you live and thrive. Be so concerned, in fact, that you lose interest in the building up of your own life in favor of the building up of the lives of others. Somewhere in there you’ll discover what Jesus meant when he said that those who want to save their lives must lose them.

So, that’s it. Easy as pie. Most of us in most churches are already doing these things—some, most, or even almost all of them. But it was when they checked off the whole list that God added to their number every day. It is, then, our task as members of the body of Christ gathered in every place, to figure out what it is that we need to work on. Which of these things are you doing well here? I suspect you fellowship and teach and pray well! What else are you doing that is good? What do you need to work on?

It’s easy to read or hear this story outside the context of the hard work and hours of laboring that the earliest members of the Church were putting in and to think that it sounds rosy and sweet and then to dismiss it and say, “Well, the world is different now.” Certainly it is, but human need is not different. Prayer is not different. Sharing with others is not different. And the power of God to re-member and continue to build the body of Christ is not different. God is as powerful as ever. Christ’s call is as compelling as it has ever been. The urging of the Spirit in our hearts is as strong now as it ever has been to be faithful to how we began this thing we do; this life we live called “Church” in the first place.
It doesn’t cost us any money. Christ has saved us from having to pay our own way and given us grace to turn around and give to the world, not as the world gives, but as the Church gives: with all things in common, with the goodwill of the people first in our hearts, with praise to God for helping us see the new lives that can be changed by the work we do together.

So, my brothers and sisters, now we have the list. Now we know the secret. It’s been right here in the book of Acts all the time. It is our task to call on the Spirit’s power within us to have the courage to live life together as the earliest Christians did, to whom God was faithful and who showed us that it has nothing to do with what buildings or programs we have. God will bring people to us in salvation; that is God’s work. It’s what we do for and with them next that is up to us! May the many lives that will come through these doors and halls and through your lives be richly blessed by your commitment to bringing to life once again the caring, saving, forgiving, graceful Body of Christ.

Amen.