Easter Power

Acts 4:32-37 - Preached on 4/19/09 at Elkhart Bethel UMC

I love the season of Lent and Easter. That is my favorite time in our church liturgical calendar. In some ways, I like this time of year more than Christmas. I think that is one of the reasons I find myself a little disconcerted and a little sad when Easter day is over. For me, as a pastor, so much time and effort go into the preparation for these times in our liturgical calendar and then the season is quickly forgotten, it seems. The headlines read the same: Economic recession, wars, floods, earthquakes, diseases, death…Does Easter really change anything?

One could get discouraged but then I look at what happens after Easter. We read about this in the book of Acts. This is an amazing book that Luke wrote to tell us about God being at work in establishing the Church of Jesus Christ and its early progression. It is a great book which shows us the power of God and the growing pains as the Church gets birthed. We read of acts which display incredible, beautiful faith; actions which sadden God; the good things, the difficult things…

We have already witnessed incredible things happening: Can the death of Jesus and God raising him from the dead ever become routine?

Amazing things continue to happen. Do you remember Peter, who had denied Jesus three times when Jesus was doing through the most difficult time of his earthly life? The same Peter is now preaching a powerful message. Healings happen. Large numbers are converted.

Well, not everybody appreciates the convicting words and this resurrection thing is a definite stumbling block for many. Peter and John are arrested by the religious authorities and questioned. Peter and John are released unharmed for the authorities fear the people might riot.

Their release triggers an amazing prayer from the believers. They praise the mighty acts of God and ask for boldness in their proclamation of faith. And an incredible thing happens. We witness a second Pentecost of sorts. We are told that, “After this prayer, the building where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they preached God’s message with boldness.” (v. 4:31, NLT) Now, who said prayer does not do anything!

This brings us to our text for today. I have to be honest: I have resisted preaching on this passage. I had, up to now, always preached on the other Lectionary text of John 20:19-31 which deals with Jesus appearing, post-resurrection, to his disciples and the reaction of Thomas.

I am cool with the first verse. I read, “All the believers were of one heart and mind.” (v. 4:32a) and I find myself sitting up and leaning forward because I want to know more about that.
But then, I read the second part of verse 32, “They felt that what they owned was not their own. They shared everything they had.” And I find myself recoiling. This sound like living in a commune or communism or something. I like my stuff. I have some cool books and neat CDs and I am pretty possessive when it comes to my laptop. What do you mean “they shared everything? ”

I know what happens when I have shared before: I don’t get my stuff back or if it comes back, there are grease stains on the pages of my books and leftover crumbs from potato chips or other greasy snacks that were eaten by the reader stuck on the pages. The CDs have come back scratched with the case cracked. OK, I am exaggerating a little but I have had instances like that so I am a little reticent to let my stuff go. I ask for a security deposit and make a photocopy of the borrower’s driver’s license. 

It’s not just books and CDs, it’s big stuff the text talks about: “From time to time, those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (v. 4:34b-35, NIV – Not all versions of the Bible say “From time to time” by the way.)

This way of living was radical then but more so now in our so very individualistic and materialistic society.

God has been working with me and this text. I realize now that what I am reading about is the Easter power at work. This happened because the resurrection is true and God has sent His Spirit to us and His Spirit enables to think in ways and act in ways which would be really hard, if not impossible, for us to do on our own.

I believe that what God wants us to see is THE MARK OF A GREAT CHURCH:

1. UNITY: “All the believers were of one heart and mind” (v. 32) This does not mean that people, all of a sudden, lose their individuality and personality. What I believe this mean is that they are so in love with Jesus and so full of the Spirit, that what God wants becomes more important than what they want. We are called to be so full of the Spirit and so in love with Jesus, that our stuff does not take precedence over someone else’s needs. Giving is not mandatory but it happens out of love.

What would that look like for us to have that kind of unity, that kind of close-knit community?

“British author and theologian C.S. Lewis, wrote a classic, entitled, “The Screwtape Letters.” In it, he imagined Screwtape as being the Devil (or as he describes himself, “undersecretary of the department of temptation”) and his nephew, Wormwood, a “junior tempter” who had been assigned the responsibility of recruiting members for the Kingdom of Hell.
In one chapter, Screwtape is talking to Wormwood. He says, “you will find that the church is fertile soil. One of the best places to find recruits to Hell is in the church.”

Now here is his advice to Wormwood, “Keep them bickering over programs, procedures, money, organization, personal hurts, misgivings. Keep them bickering. Whatever you do, don’t let them see the banners wave, because if they ever see the banners wave, we’ve lost them forever.”

I think that what C.S. Lewis is saying is that the secret to carrying out the great commission of reaching out people for Jesus is that when our vision is fixed on Jesus, and we are so caught up in Him, we won’t have time to bicker. We won’t have time to worry about our little hurts. When we are caught up in carrying His banner to a lost and dying world then the church will march forward in triumph once again. ”

What would it look like for the millions of Christians on this earth to come together, regardless of denominations, to work for the greater good of the Kingdom of God?

On a much smaller scale, what would it look like for our cluster groups to work together? You should be aware by now that we have formed a cluster with Trinity, St. Paul, Calvary, Elkhart First, Jimtown and Hillcrest. We had our first meeting Saturday morning at Perkins. The turnout was pretty good and we spent over an hour getting to know one another. I was sitting by Don Reed the pastor at Elkhart First and facing a couple of his lay leaders. Except for St. Paul’s (Bill Hemmig is on vacation but they had a lay leader there) all the pastors showed up. We talked about the possibility of doing VBS together or maybe having a common men’s prayer group. Maybe a joint youth group. There are several possibilities. This is an initial meeting. This is something that cannot be only pastor lead. It is meant to be lay lead.

Maybe more unity can start at the grass root level through these cluster groups.

2. GENEROSITY: As I said earlier, v. 32b had caused me to pause and decide to preach on something else up to now.
Was Luke thinking like Karl Marx, linking every human attitude and action to an economic source? “No,” says William Willimon, the Alabama area Bishop of the UMC “Luke was not a Marxist, but he was enough of a realist to know that there is a good chance that where our possessions are, our hearts will be also.”

A surprisingly large amount of the book of Acts deals with economic issues within the community, just as much of Luke’s first volume, his gospel, deals with matters of money (consider the parables of the Debtors, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Unjust Steward, the Rich Man and Lazarus and the Pounds. Wealth is not, for Luke, a sign of divine approval — it is a danger (William H. Willimon, Acts [Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988], 52).

In a society which believed that wealth and good health was a sign of blessing from God, this generosity, displayed by some of the early Christians, was as radical then as it is now. They seem to have taken the command of Deuteronomy 15:4, “there should be no poor among you…” pretty seriously.
If we look at the story of the man born blind in John 9, we get an idea that poverty or a disability of some kind was linked to sin. The thought was basically that people deserved their position because of what they did or what their relatives did.
The disciples, in John 9, asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”(v. 2) Jesus turns their assumption upside down, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (v. 3)

Look at the book of Job also for this.

I don’t think that this notion of deserving our fate is too far removed from our modern thoughts. We still believe, too much of the time, that people are in trouble because of something they did or failed to do, because of laziness or some other character flaws.

We might also feel that if we try to help, we might end up being taken advantage of or enabling people to continue in their self-destructive behavior. Jesus does not ask us to leave our brain at the door when we follow him but he asks us to open our hearts to human suffering and need and respond accordingly. It is a challenge for sure.

Here is an exotic tale to illustrate: An Arab prince once owned a beautiful horse which was the envy of all. One man in particular tried to buy the horse, but the prince refused to set a price. One day the prince was riding across the desert. He saw the body of a man lying in the path, apparently exhausted. The prince dismounted and put the unfortunate traveler on his horse. Immediately, the traveled revived, straightened up and rode off. It was the very man who had tried so often to buy the prince’s horse. Now he had obtained the horse without paying anything.
“Wait!” cried the prince. “Please tell no one how you got that horse.”
“Why?” laughed the thief, “are you afraid they will laugh at you?”
“No” said the prince, “I am afraid it might hinder someone else from offering help to some other traveler whose need is genuine.” The eternal dilemma: We see someone in need, but we are afraid that we will be taken advantage of if we try to help or we’re afraid that they are somehow undeserving.

Things were not perfect then either. Read the story of Ananias and Sapphira which follows our story today (Acts 5:1-10). They sold a piece of property but lied, with dire consequences, about the proceeds they were giving to the church.
The distribution of food and other necessities was not always without problems either. Read the story of the distribution of food to the Grecian (Hellenist) Jewish widows in Acts 6. This leads directly to the choosing of seven “deacons” to deal with the situation.

Things are not perfect now but we are called nevertheless to be good stewards of what God has entrusted us with. This might mean, among other things, that we work with agencies like Church Community Services or Salvation Army to help insure that something is done to help the less fortunate.

3. GREAT WITNESS: I have shared with you briefly before that I was loved into the Kingdom. There is something really compelling and attractive about a group of people coming together and doing their best to love one another and impact their surrounding in the name of Jesus.

I told you before that I hang out with a bunch of male pastors who talk sports quite a bit. So I am trying to educate myself some on American sports. I came across this story which made me chuckle. I am assuming it is true. For you football fans, “Tommy Bell, a member of the Southland Christian Church in Lexington, KY, was a NFL referee in the third Super Bowl between the New York Jets and Baltimore Colts in 1968 (Wikipedia). In that Super Bowl, Fred O’ Brien was a player. Now Fred had one good eye and one glass eye. In one play he hit the other guy so hard with his helmet that his glass eye popped out and fell on the dusty ground. So they stopped the game, picked up the glass eye, washed it off and then Fred popped it back into his eye socket.
Tommy Bell, the referee, walked over to him and said, “Fred, I didn’t know you had just one eye. What in the world are you doing playing football? Don’t you realize how dangerous this is? What if someone should poke you in your good eye? You’d be blind. What would you do if you were blind?” O’Brien turned to Tommy Bell and said, “I’d be a referee, just like you.”

I like that story. God gave me two eyes and a body that is only going to be around for a while so I am not going to sit around here with my hands folded waiting for life to get easy. God has given each of us gifts and graces to be used in his name. In John 13:35, Jesus says, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you’re my disciples.” (NLT)

American author and war correspondent Marguerite Higgins (1920-1966) was the first woman to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting what she heard from an old army sergeant in Korea during the Korean conflict. 15,000 of our soldiers had been dug in for several weeks, facing more than 100,000 communist soldiers on the other side of the valley. They had been shooting at each other for weeks. They had been living on K rations, unable to bathe, unable to shave. They just sat there day after day cold and freezing, thinking that today might be their day to die.

Marguerite Higgins climbed to the top of the hill with her notebook and pencil to interview the soldiers. She went from one to another until she came to this tough old army sergeant. She posed this question to him, “If I were God and if I could give you anything you wanted, what would you ask for?” The old sergeant thought for a moment, repeated the question and said, “Well, if you were God and if you could give me anything I wanted, here is what I would ask for: I would ask for tomorrow… I would ask for tomorrow.”

Thanks to Jesus we have been given tomorrow. That’s what one of my favorite hymns affirms as well:
Because he lives, I can face tomorrow;
Because he lives, all fear is gone;
Because I know he holds the future
And life is worth the living just because he lives. (UMH 364)

Easter makes a difference. It did then. It does now. The Easter power is available to us through Jesus. We can live today and face tomorrow thanks to Jesus.

I find it really interesting that we are looking at this text in the midst of the worst economic recession we have been faced with since the Great Depression, commentators tell us.

In times of struggles and uncertainty, there is a strong inclination for us to look inward and take care of ourselves. There is a strong inclination to grow blinders preventing us to see the needs around us. There is a strong inclination to dwell on what we think we cannot do, or on what we think we do not have. There is a strong inclination to forget that we are the Church.

Do you hear: Because he lives, all fear is gone.

Dan Parker shared a great verse from the Bible with the finance committee this past week in his starting devotion:

“Give whatever you can according to what you have. If you are really eager to give, it isn’t important how much you are able to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you don’t have.” (2 Cor. 8:11-12)

Because He lives we can face tomorrow. Amen!