With Glad and Generous Hearts

Acts 2:42-47

John 10:1-10

The book of Acts is really special to me because it is the only book in the Bible that tries to give us a glimpse of just how it all began. It says to the reader, come along with me and I’ll show you what it was like, how this great thing we call the church got started. As I read it, I feel like I can hear the narrator saying, “Man, wasn’t that a time!” Day by day, wonderful things were happening in their midst.

This reading from the second chapter is in the very beginning of the beginning. The resurrected Jesus has ascended, the Holy Spirit has descended, and the church is alive. Peter preaches a sermon that everyone understood in their own language – and I take that to mean simply that the Spirit was breaking through all the barriers. People were hearing and, as the narrative says, they were “cut to the heart” by this message of salvation. “What should we do?” they asked. What should we do?

The answer is unfolded in the rest of the book. This is the story about how the church became the church.

First, they were baptized. Baptism was the way in for them, and it is still understood as the entry into the church. A rite of initiation, if you will. But, of course, there is more.

There is a sense we have that we will be changed somehow by baptism. That we might feel the power of the Spirit flow through us, or that we might feel cut to the heart as did the Jews who were in Jerusalem on Pentecost. But actually, most of us don’t feel that special something at the moment we are baptized. And most of us were very young when we were baptized, anyway.

I guess if you were looking for a wow factor, your baptism might have been disappointing. It’s not there for most of us. You might not feel a bit different.

But that doesn’t mean that you are the same old person you were before. The real change that comes to you when you are baptized is a change by choice.

If you think of baptism as a doorway – a threshold – then we can imagine that in baptism we cross a threshold into a new home. This is where we live now – in the church.

There isn’t anything magical about the ways we may change when we enter a new place. But we learn new ways of being with others. New ways of being in relationship with others. Because this is who we are now – the church.

And this is exactly what we see in the pages of the book of Acts. All these people have, all at once, stepped into the same metaphorical house together. And they are all figuring out together these new ways of being.

But how can they do that? I found myself wondering, who is there to teach them? They are all new at this thing. You have probably had the benefit of mentors, as have I – elders in the church who taught us how to be a Christian, how to worship, how to give, how to serve. But who was there to teach them at the very beginning?

There was the Spirit, who had descended on them that day in Jerusalem. The Spirit guided them that day and continued to guide them every day after. In the same way, we have the Spirit guiding us every day. And, Lord, do we need her. Because being a Christian is not something you get figured out, but something you are always figuring out. Every single day.

In these few verses from Acts 2 we see a few of the things the Spirit was helping them to figure out: they shared what they had, giving to others what was needed. They broke bread together, prayed together, learned together, and fellowshipped together – they did it all with glad and generous hearts. And day by day the Lord added to their number.

In this Easter season we are discovering the things that lie at the heart of being the church. It begins with recognizing our very foundation of love. Everything that follows is built upon that foundation. We are a community that lives to love God and our neighbors. We take care of one another and we reach out beyond our walls to the greater world.

Here in the stories of the church’s beginnings we see it all unfolding, laying us a pattern to follow. These are the things that matter. These are the things that are at the heart of the church.

When I was growing into adulthood I began to learn about the value of family. Because there were many ways I needed help, even though I didn’t particularly want help. I wanted to do it on my own. But I couldn’t. And there were plenty of times I was blessed to be given help I didn’t even know I needed. There were people who did this for me because I was family. And if everything is working reasonably well, family takes care of one another.

People of all faiths do this – taking care of family is in our human DNA. But when you become a part of the church, stepping over that threshold, through the baptismal waters, you begin to learn a radically new way of being: there are no boundaries around family. Every person you meet can be a member of this family. And we care for them all.

Thankfully, no one has to do it by themselves. Because if the church is everywhere then everywhere you go there are people working together under the Spirit’s power and grace to share what they have, to care for one another.

At least that’s the way it should be.

There are some churches that don’t actually preach the same gospel we know. There are churches that seem to want to make it their mission to persecute people they deem lesser beings. There are church leaders who are more like thieves and bandits than shepherds, to use Jesus’ words.

There is a growing concern now about the dangers of the Christian Nationalist movement and church leaders influenced by that who are doing great harm to the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of them, in fact, will be the keynote speaker at the Salisbury National Day of Prayer Breakfast.

All this makes it that much more important for us to be the church as we know it and lead with love. For each one of us to do our part in supporting and strengthening the church we love. To do it with glad and generous hearts, just as the first church did.

May we follow the voice of our Good Shepherd, who leads us into life abundant.

May we open our hearts to the Spirit who guides us into faithful community.

And day by day, with the Spirit’s help, may we have the goodwill of all people.