Grace Powerfully at Work (Acts 4.32-37)

Introduction

How would you feel if you were told you have won a big house with a swimming pool or a new Porsche 911 in a competition? Or how would you feel if you heard from your solicitor that you have inherited a million pounds from a distant relative?

The Bible teaches that the way we think about the money and possessions that we don’t have, and the way we use those we do have, has a direct effect on our level of happiness.

Do you want to be happy? Of course you do. We all want contentment. Well, that word ‘contentment’ appears 7 times in Scripture and 6 of those 7 references are about money and possessions.

We’ve all read stories about lottery winners have gone on to become thoroughly miserable as well as fabulously wealthy. And how many insanely rich celebrities are still happily married 25 years after tying the knot? Or even 10 years?

Many of us feel uncomfortable when someone talks about money and possessions in church – “Oh no, the preacher’s going to make me feel guilty, I should have stayed in bed…”

But preachers keep telling us that Jesus spoke more about money and possessions than he did about heaven, hell, salvation and eternal life put together.

The Bible as a whole says a lot about money and possessions. That’s because God wants us to know his will about earning, and saving, and budgeting, and spending, and giving and sharing. Why is God so interested in such mundane, everyday things? Because the way we see the money we earn and the things we own has a direct impact on our spiritual health.

For example, Jesus said this, “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”

Attractive Community

You might find the Amish communities in Pennsylvania a bit weird. I do. I find their rejection of modern fashions, and transportation and technology quite strange.

But their commitment to godly community is absolute and they are amazing people.

You’ll probably remember the news story from 8 years ago. On 2nd October 2006, a shooting occurred at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County. A lone gunman called Charles Roberts shot ten girls (aged 6-13), killing five of them, before committing suicide in front of the class. The first week after the shootings, the Amish families who had suffered this trauma responded in four ways that shocked the world.

Firstly, some of the elders visited Marie Roberts, the murderer’s wife, to offer comfort and forgiveness.

Secondly, the families of the murdered girls invited Marie Roberts to their own children’s funerals.

Thirdly, they requested that all relief money collected for those grief stricken Amish families be shared with Mrs. Roberts and her children so they could enjoy all the benefits they would have done had their father been alive to provide for them.

And fourthly, dozens of Amish families attended Charles Roberts’ funeral.

OK, they might be a little off the wall in their dress sense but these people are beautiful because they are so like Jesus. That’s what Israel and Gaza need. That’s what Syria and Iraq need. That’s what Ukraine and Russia need. The local church, when it gets it right, when it just does what Jesus would do, is the hope of the world.

We were in South West France three weeks ago, in Cognac country, which is full of sunlit vineyards on rolling hills. I love looking at fields of vines. The way God has designed the vine is very instructive; not once did we see a single grape growing on its own on the branch of a vine; grapes only grow in bunches. And God has used the same template for Christians. Perhaps this is why Jesus said “I am the vine.” If we are going to be in him, it’s not as isolated individuals but as communities – churches. Like grapes in a bunch, we only grow together with others, never alone.

We’re looking at Acts 4.32-37 this morning and it is a sketch of Christians living, believing, and growing together. Let’s look at the passage now.

This brief extract starts a new episode in Acts. As Kathryn was explaining last Sunday, the section from 3.1 – 4.31 makes up one story; the healing of a crippled beggar and the subsequent aggro from the authorities who found it annoying that people were going round doing signs and wonders in the name of Jesus. That’s what we want to do; be as much of a public nuisance as possible by doing the kind of wonderful things Jesus did.

The story ends by saying that these Christians, under great pressure, decided that they couldn’t stop what they were doing just because the clergy said it broke the rules and the government said it breached the peace. So they prayed for more of the same and they were filled with the Holy Spirit again and they spoke the word of God boldly. That’s what we need.

The very next verse, the one our passage begins with, starts by saying that all the believers (note that word “all”); there was no two-tier Christianity… all the believers were one in heart and mind.

Here’s a question I’ve sometimes asked myself. How do you know if you are filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you ever asked that? Well, here the first evidence was their witness to the world. “They were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God boldly.” So one evidence that we are filled with the Holy Spirit is that we talk about Jesus with other people.

It was great to see young adults speaking the word of God confidently all last week at Preston Park in our Camp of Champions, calling hundreds of young people to turn from sin and put their faith in Jesus. The Holy Spirit moved in power.

But there’s a second way you can see if people are filled with the Holy Spirit and it’s right here; it’s the love you find within the church.

“All the believers were one in heart and mind.” That doesn’t mean that there were no individuals, no personalities, and never any differences of opinion. It wasn’t a kind of spiritual North Korea in which all originality was suppressed.

But this verse was written because God wanted us to know that in the earliest church, before religion messed it all up, Christians were one in heart (meaning they all loved the same things) and one in mind (meaning they were all committed to the same faith).

One of the things I watch for as a leader here is loving, harmonious relationships. I look for and pray for deep friendships to develop. I rejoice to see people apologise when they hurt others and quickly resolve their differences with forgiveness and understanding. I like it when people spontaneously do helpful things without being asked. That’s loving. That is a sign to me that people are filled with the Holy Spirit.

I prefer leaders who are kind and humble to leaders who are gifted but argumentative. I tend to trust people who are generous with their things, who are hospitable, who give their time to prayer and to serve the Lord. That is evidence to me that the people in question are filled with the Holy Spirit.

And I find this short description of the life of the early church really appealing. John Calvin said of these verses “We must have hearts that are harder than iron if we are not moved by the reading of this narrative.”

It is a wonderful observation by Luke in verse 32 that “no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” No one was precious about their stuff. The Message Version puts it this way; “No one said ‘That’s mine, you can’t have it.”

And we know that everybody was struck by the quality of their love for each other, not just Luke.

Here’s an extract from a letter that has been found from the First Century. “Christians contribute funds once a month or whenever they wish, without any compulsion. The money does not provide banquets or drinking parties, but goes to support the needy, orphans and the aged, shipwrecked travellers, and Christians who for their faith are working in the mines or confined in prison. Their care for one another can only be offensive to those who hate their neighbours. Unlike their enemies, they share everything except their wives.”

These earliest Christians had radically different values to the world around them and everybody noticed. They didn’t fit in. They didn’t want to fit in. They stood out.

So when Luke says in v33 “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” he isn’t describing just preaching. He is saying that they had real authority because people could see that the gospel was transforming broken people into mended people, lost people into found people, cranky people into sorted people, and needy people into cared for people.

End of v33; “And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no [how many is that? No] needy persons among them.”

Some people wonder if what we see in v34-37 is a kind of Communism. But Communism is an imposed confiscation of freedoms. This is a voluntary sharing of blessings. There is no hint here of seized possessions or compulsory common ownership. Communism is responsible for some of the most soulless and unlovable cities on earth. People risk their lives to escape from it. This was an attractive community that was growing as the Lord added to their number.

We know from later in Acts that churches met in peoples’ homes. So some Christians obviously did not sell their houses but they certainly did make them available for the Lord’s service. God isn’t saying here I must sell all I have and live in a kind of kibbutz. However, I am free to do so if the Holy Spirit leads me that way. And so should we, where possible.

Some Christians today, as then, do choose to pool all their possessions. Two of my friends (they’re sisters actually) have chosen to live in a Christian community in the Midlands and they have a shared purse with others.

Another married couple I know lived for some years with widows and orphans in Watford, and they bought a house together with others as a base for this ministry. They felt called to that and did so gladly and voluntarily.

One of our married children shares a house with another Christian family and they live as a missional community.

But there is no obligation on anyone to live in community or sell all their possessions. Even in this passage it say “from time to time” this happened so it was not systematic or all-pervasive.

But the principle applies to us all. God wants all of us, in whatever way he specifically calls, to share deeply with others and this is about doing, not talking. God basically calls us to a life of giving, not hording.

There’s an old story about a vicar who had a farmer friend in his congregation and they were talking over the fence one day. The vicar asked Giles (because farmers are always called Giles), if you had one hundred horses, would you give me fifty?” Giles said, “Certainly.”

The vicar asked, “If you had one hundred cows, would you give me fifty?” Giles said, “Yes.”

Then the vicar said, “If you had two pigs, would you give me one?” Giles said, “That’s enough of that vicar; you know I have two pigs!”

Amy Orr-Ewing, who is a Christian speaker and author, tells of a local politician, who is an atheist, who came to one of her church’s services. He absolutely loved it. “Wow,” he said, “this is the only place I know where such diverse people get together. You’ve got old people, young people, singles, couples, families, wealthy people and those of modest means, the well-educated and the barely literate, the able-bodied and disabled, people of every political persuasion and none. You just don’t see that anywhere else. It’s just a pity about the God bit” he said.

That’s great isn’t it? But the point is that “the God bit” is not a kind of afterthought. It’s not a detail bolted on to the end. The God bit, having Jesus at the heart of that group of people, is the key to what makes it possible at all.

It’s Jesus who brings people together, it’s Jesus who breaks down barriers and it’s Jesus who shows the world what community should look like.

So people sold off land and houses from time to time, one of them was called Barnabas, and they brought the money from the sales and the Bible says they “put it at the apostles’ feet.”

There are at many ways in which this church lays money at the apostles’ feet to distribute to others in need in this way and I’m going to highlight just two.

Firstly, we have a hardship fund that comes from our own pockets. We started it up a few years ago one Gift Day. We have a few thousand pounds kept aside in the accounts to help anyone in material need and anyone can access it via a request to the pastoral team.

The pastoral team meets and assesses the request and, if we feel it is right, we ask Terry the treasurer to release funds from it. By its very nature it’s discreet and low profile but it’s there. Some who have been helped by the hardship fund have actually put money back into it when they have gone through better times, which is lovely, but we operate it as a source of gifts, not loans.

A second way in which we lay money at the apostles’ feet to distribute to others in need is what we call the parish share. This is not a kind of Anglican tax that we have to pay; it’s a voluntary arrangement whereby we agree to support other Church of England parishes in more challenging areas so they can reach out to their communities with the love of Jesus.

Stockton Parish Church would not be able to remain open – at all – given their circumstances. Alan Farish often says to me that all the blessing they have enjoyed in the last five years would not have happened humanly speaking without the incredible generosity of churches like All Saints’.

Conclusion

As I draw to a close I’d like to tell a little parable that M. Scott Peck shares in his book The Different Drum.

It’s about a decaying monastery that had only five monks left. As the Abbot agonized over the inevitable closure, it occurred to him to ask a holy man if he could offer any advice that might save the monastery - so he paid him a visit.

When the Abbot returned to the monastery, his monks gathered around and asked, “What did he say?” “He couldn’t help,” the Abbot answered. “The only thing he did say, as I was leaving was that the Messiah is among us. Though I do not know what these words mean.”

In the months that followed, the monks wondered whether there was any possible significance to those words: The Messiah is among us?

As they thought about it, they began to treat each other with kindness on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah.

It so happened that people occasionally came to visit the beautiful monastery. The visitors began to sense a powerful spiritual atmosphere. An extraordinary spirit of community now filled the monastery and everyone felt it.

People began to come to the monastery frequently to picnic and to pray. They began to bring their friends, and their friends brought their friends. Then it happened that some of the younger people who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the older monks.

After a while, one asked if he could join them. Then, another and another asked if they too could join the monastery. Within a few years, it once again became a thriving order, a vibrant centre of light and spirituality in the realm. But they never discovered which one of them was the Messiah.

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power they continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was powerfully at work in them all.”

May this be a true description of this church as God leads us into the future, with the Messiah Jesus living amongst us.

Let’s stand to pray… 

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 27th July 2014

Among the Ruins (John 11.17-27)

A funeral sermon for a young husband and father. 

Names have been changed as an expression of care for the family.

Jesus was informed that a friend of his called Lazarus from a village called Bethany had fallen seriously ill. His sisters Martha and Mary sent a message to Jesus asking him to hurry on ahead in the hope that he would heal him before it was too late. But Jesus delayed and didn’t get back in time. And then the Bible says this:

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from [the city of] Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him...

^‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’

Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.’

Some of you here today have the same belief that Pastor Steve and I share that death is not the end. It doesn't have to be.

Christians have at all times believed that there is always hope, not just in life, but also in death and that there is new life in Christ even beyond the grave.

I expect others among us probably don’t believe that (and you are welcome here whatever you believe or don't believe). You might think that after death it’s all over, that’s all there is to it and that's the end of the matter. I respect that point of view – and it used to be my own belief but I changed my mind.

Some years ago, two distinguished lawyers (both sceptics) named George Lyttelton and Gilbert West decided to try and discredit the Christian faith by each writing a book.

George Lyttelton said he’d show that the conversion of St Paul never happened and Gilbert West set out to prove that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was an ancient myth.

Each dedicated twelve months of their lives to painstaking study. Gilbert West’s research into the resurrection was so thorough and scholarly that the University of Oxford awarded him a higher doctorate for it.

When they had completed their studies they met up to find out how they had got on. Lyttelton said “I have studied all the evidence from a legal standpoint, [and] I have become convinced that [Paul] was converted in just the way described in Acts.”

And West, having sifted the data for the resurrection most carefully and painstakingly, became satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus did rise from the dead just as the Gospels claim.

Both men became Christians in the course of their research.

I say all this because if Jesus really did rise from the dead, then death is not the end for anyone.

But beyond academia, some of my friends just say "Yeah, yeah, great - but I don't see that it has any relevance to me in my life."

If I saw that nobody's life changed after coming to Christ, I would close my Bible for good and never mention Christianity again.

But I personally know, in this church, for example, a reformed fraudster, several healed alcoholics and one formerly suicidal woman now completely well in her own skin and mother of a lovely family.

Lives transformed by Christ. Millions of people all over the world share the conviction, through personal experience, that Jesus is alive.

In our reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus said to a woman grieving a close relative: “All who believe in me will live, even though they die.” And then he asked her a direct question. “Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who has come into the world.”

You may remember the film Chariots of Fire about Eric Liddell – a Christian Olympic runner. After his athletics career finished he went to the Far East to serve as a missionary. He was imprisoned there when the second world war broke out and he suffered greatly.

At one point he was offered his freedom in a prisoner exchange but he chose to stay so a pregnant woman could be released in his place.

I mention Eric Liddell because, like Colin, Eric suffered from an inoperable brain tumour.

Like Colin, Liddell died in his prime - a little younger actually, he was just 43.

But Liddell believed all his life that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who came into the world. I believe that Colin opened his heart to Christ in his last days too when Pastor Steve visited him and prayed with him.

And as I was thinking about Colin and Teresa this week I was reminded of something Liddell once said - and I just want to leave you with this in the hope it speaks to you in your sorrow and loss.

He said, “Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives, but God is not helpless among the ruins.”

Every life, including yours, including Colin's, is precious. Precious to those who love you, precious to God. Today I give thanks for the years of Colin's life, all too brief though they were, and I give thanks to the God who give him breath.

His power, I am convinced, will keep all those who turn to him - not just in this life but also in the next.

Address given at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18 July 2014

Growing the Church through Pastoral Care (Romans 16.1-16)

On Tuesday July 1^st Jenny Meadows was commissioned as an Authorized Pastoral Assistant in Durham Cathedral. She has studied for three full years, attending weekly courses in Durham, doing practical and written assignments and getting regular feedback and supervision from Sylvia Wilson.

That is quite a stint but when you consider as well that Jen persisted in her course through a quite draining illness in which she was really unwell, it is a herculean achievement.

Well done Jen. We are very proud of you and greatly admire your tenacity, determination and commitment. Those are hard, tough qualities but they come from a warm and tender heart to care for people in need.

According to the Diocese of Durham’s own website, an Authorised Pastoral Assistant (APA) is someone who is "selected, trained and authorised to serve alongside the clergy, readers, churchwardens and other ministers in a parish or benefice. APAs focus on pastoral ministry.”

We need to understand that pastoral ministry is not a closed shop reserved for the professional clergy. Far from it; there is no trace of that in the New Testament and a sign of a church’s maturity is the strength of its lay leadership.

Pastoral work comes in all shapes and sizes - in traditional activities like visiting the sick, home communions, care of the elderly, the bereaved and the housebound and also in things like offering support to unemployed people and new parents and so on.

Think about this with me; if just one person does all the pastoral care in our church what are the chances that you will be noticed if you’re not quite yourself? And if every person in the church feels responsible for caring for others what are the chances then?

And so APAs do a lot of pastoral ministry themselves but also they encourage other people to become more pastoral as well so that that the whole church cares for the whole church. 

There are currently over 80 APAs in about 60 churches throughout the diocese. 

I wanted to be here today to congratulate Jen and to commend her ministry to you all.

I chose the reading from Romans because I think it shows so well what the church should look like.

What do you think of when I say the word “church”? Some people think of a building, usually quite an old one, inadequately heated, expensive to maintain and desperately lacking a toilet. So when people talk about “our village church” they think about the building – whether it’s empty or full to bursting does not really have any relevance.

Other people when they hear the word “church” think of the hierarchy of clergy. “Attitudes in the church are out of touch” people say. And by that they mean men in costumes using words missing from everyone else’s vocabulary like chancel, synod, chasuble, chorister, absolution and transept. These people think the church means the pope, the cardinals the archbishops, the bishops and the parish priest. They are “the church.”

The word “church” in the New Testament is translated from the word ecclesia from which we get the English word “ecclesiastical.” But it doesn’t mean anything ecclesiastical at all. Ecclesia simply means ‘a gathering together of people.’

In fact, the very first church was a gathering together of quite ordinary people who owned no premises for the purposes of worship (they met in their homes), they had no money to speak of, they held no power, and they didn’t have ordained clergy as such.

What we find in Romans 16 is a great insight into what the church should be like.

It mentions 29 different people by name (some of whom are rather difficult to pronounce) as well as churches that meet in houses, members of households and unnamed “other brothers and sisters.”

By the way, a friend of mine was once getting stressed about having to do a reading in church with lots of strange names. And the curate just said to her, “No one else knows either. Just pronounce them however you like. As long as you say it confidently everyone else will think that only you know.”

Some of the people in this chapter are simply people Paul wants to say “hello” to at the end of his letter. We don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they lived in Rome and Paul knew them or knew about them from somewhere.

But for others, Paul mentions a few things that I think are really revealing about the sort of people we should expect to find in the gathering of people that is the church.

Phoebe in v1-2 was a deacon. The word deacon means servant and she was set aside as a special kind of church leader. In 1 Timothy 3 it says what deacons should be like; worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain. So Phoebe must have been a woman of sound character. Paul says “[Phoebe] has been a benefactor of many people, including me.” So she was presumably a woman means but she used the wealth she had been blessed with to supply others’ needs. She was a generous woman.

Who else does Paul single out here? Priscilla and Aquila in v3-4 were co-workers with Paul who risked their lives for others. They lived dangerously. They laid their very lives on the line. Andronicus and Junia suffered with Paul the dishonour of imprisonment for Christ. These are four people for whom being a Christian was clearly much more than a hobby. It went a bit beyond belonging to the Rotary Club or the Parish Council.

Then what about Ampliatus (v8)? This was a very common slave’s name. It doesn’t actually say that he was a slave but scholars are pretty sure he must have been.

Let’s put it this way, what are the chances that William and Kate would name any future children they have Kylie or Dwayne? I mean, they could, but it's not likely is it? Somebody would make a fortune on a £5 bet if they did.

Similarly, how likely is it that any babies born this week on the most challenging housing estates in our country will be named Hugo or Felicity? Not very likely. Those are names you would hear much more commonly in Kensington and Eton. Different names are popular in different social groups, always have been. In the same way, you just know Ampilatus would have been a slave because of his name.

But isn’t it wonderful that Paul calls him “my dear friend in the Lord” rather than “so and so’s lackey”? And doesn’t it say something magnificent about the church that this man features in the same list as a lady of considerable means?

It’s a lovely sketch of a church in which there is no favouritism, no ranking, no class system, no cliques, no in-crowd and no outcasts.

Then what about Mary (v6), Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis (v12)? These were four women who Paul singled out for having worked hard, or in one case "very hard in the Lord" for other people.

I like that. These women were grafters. They put the hours in. They went the second mile. They worked hard. They got stuck in. I get the impression that Paul was talking about more than serving tea and baking cakes – important though the ministry of hospitality undoubtedly is.

We know Pricilla was a Bible teacher with her husband Aquila. We know Phoebe was a deacon, a recognised member of the church leadership team. Junia is described as “outstanding among the apostles” – that is not something you’d say about someone whose ministry is restricted to giving out the hymn books - important though the ministry of welcome undoubtedly is.

But it’s what Paul says in v13 that most warms my heart. “Greet Rufus” he says, “chosen in the Lord, and also his mother, who has been a mother to me.”

Great pastoral ministry is about knowing we have been chosen by God to belong to him and about being spiritual fathers and mothers to one another. Rufus' mother was a mum to Paul. Isn't that special? This dynamic leader, this exceptional apostle, this energetic missionary, this brilliant scholar sometimes just needed someone to give him a hug and put the kettle on. What do we love about our mothers?

I could look like ‘Exhibit A’ from a circus freak show, maybe I do, but my mum will always think I’m the best looking boy on God’s green earth.

Our mothers went through the pain barrier to bring us into the world, they spent years changing our nappies, they stayed up all night when we wouldn’t sleep, they calmed us down when we were frightened, and they cried when we cried. They taught us right from wrong, they nourished us through life, they nursed us through every illness, they bandaged our grazed knees, they encouraged us when we were the last to be picked for the sports team, they believed in us when we doubted ourselves, they loved us whatever we did, they nurtured us and never left us.

That, surely, is what pastoral care is all about – being a spiritual mother or father, but especially a mother perhaps in the family of God, his church.

And on this day when Jen is recognised as our APA, let’s pray for her that God will equip her to care for us like a mum, but also that she will help us all to become an increasingly caring community.

Sermon preached at Saint Mary's Long Newton, 13th July 2014