Alternatives
The great debate between "nothing ever changes" and "nothing ever stays the same" continues without any sign of resolution. The biblical version can be found in the words from Ecclesiastes and Revelation: There is nothing new under the sun( Eccl. 1.9) and behold I make all things new (Rev. 21.5) It seems to me pretty obvious that things are always changing yet so much stays the same. Looking in the mirror is enough to remind us of change but we look around and the world is still at war, the poor are still poor, and the church can't seem to figure out if it is here to change things or to support the status quo.
This debate continues, as well, theologically, between those who would argue that we humans have free will and the ability to make choices that will actually change what happens and those who argue that what will happen has already been decided and that no matter what choices we make what will happen will happen anyway. At the heart of the theological debate is the question of who is in charge and the complex relationship between the Creator and the created. If our decisions made out of our free will actually change the future are we not trespassing into God's business or is it God's business to call us to be responsible for God's business? And if our decisions are irrelevant in a predetermined world what exactly is it that we are doing here and what difference does it make what we do anyhow?
In Acts we are told that for a while some in the Christian movement radically changed the way they lived recognizing that there was an alternative to the status quo and living only for one's self, creating a community with a vision and a purpose of mutual concern, and actually living for each other within the all-encompassing context of praising God. It was in other words a community bound together in very practical and common ways and at the same time very conscious of being in the presence of the holy. According to the witness of this word anyway the description of their life together emphasized three things that I count as essential in any community that wants to live fully and abundantly life in God - goodwill and gladness and generosity
The thing is the presence of the
Spirit of God will be known because the Spirit bears fruit. Paul described them
to the Galatians as love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal.
5.22) These early communities grew not because
they emphasized growing but because they loved one another and the love was
real enough that it could not be contained. It flowed out into the world where
others could see it and want to be a part of it. As one commentator put it: They did not "devote" themselves to
evangelism but to teaching and fellowship, to worship and to acts of caring.
And the growth of the church was generated out of these activities by the
Spirit of God. (Beverly Gaventa, Professor of NT at
Evangelism according to this model is not marketing. It is not a reflection of what we want people to see of us but is a reflection of what we really are. And what we are is always changing and never changes. Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. Sometimes we do God's will and sometimes we do not. Sometimes we know it and sometimes we don't know it. The only thing that never changes is the love of God which has called and is calling us into being without which (again in the words of Paul) we are nothing but a clanging symbol no matter what choices we make.
We cannot create this for ourselves, we can only open our hearts to receive it. This
is metaphorical language for devoting ourselves to the teaching and fellowship and prayers of the church. When what we do
is guided by our love of God we will discover what God's love is. We will be
glad and generous and kind not because we should be but because God's loving
Spirit has overwhelmed us and has become who we are and at least for a while,
as one commentator said of the community described in our reading today: Their overflowing love of God resulted in an
irresistible urge to express affection among themselves.(Ibid.)
This was the Church of Jesus Christ described in the second chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles.
It didn't last. And yet we are
still here. Charles Wesley wrote 250 years ago now a hymn that is traditionally
sung at the Annual Conferences across Methodism, What troubles have we seen, what mighty conflicts past, fighting
without, and fears within, since we assembled last? Yet out of all, the Lord
hath brought us by his love; and still he doth his help afford . . . ("And
Are We Yet alive?")
They chose an alternative way of living together, of being a faith community. It was driven by an irresistible urge to love one another because of a love for the God they believed had raised Jesus from death and would raise them as well.
Always the challenge is to rise
from death. Death never gives up claiming us. Death is natural. Death is easy. It
is as easy as turning away from the challenge and pain of life. It is as easy
as to quit caring what happens. It must be overcome not just for the end of our
days but everyday. Death shuts us down and leaves us hopeless and powerless. We
must choose to live. It is a choice that we make constantly as individuals and
as a community of faith. I am not making this up. Way back in Deuteronomy God
placed this choice before us in the voice of Moses: I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life . . . (Deut. 30:19)
And how do you do that? Well in
those days, you loved God and cleaved to God. It was about God and nothing else
would quite do. You obeyed God's voice. (That's what it says here.) In our
sophistication we may wonder just how we will know what God's voice is but
Moses had an answer for that concern as well when he said: the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so
that you can do it. (Deut. 30.14)
Of course we do not and will not always get it right but we will know when we do because the result will be a glad and generous people full of good will for each other and the world. and when we get it wrong even then we are not finished because it is then that we realize it is grace that saves us and that we need God do this and are much more likely to get it right if we know full well how wrong we can be when we are wrong.
I believe there are alternatives. Life is not just what it appears to be or what it has always been or what everybody has told you it should be. I would go so far as to challenge the idea that we can predict the future by studying the past. In the first place we don't really know what happened in the past even if we were there.
God really has given to the world something new in this Jesus whose message we still have not fully embraced. Whether we don't understand it or whether we don't want to understand it, we resist the cross doubting that the notion that we must go there; that all that is in us that is holding back from a full commitment to the way of self-giving love must die in us before we can fully live the resurrected life. As long as we hold back we will sputter and struggle and worry and never quite be all that we could be. The alternatives, thanks be to God, are always before us. Like life and death we can choose to devote ourselves to God, to the teachings and the community and to the breaking of bread and prayers gradually by the practice of devotion and love learning and becoming what we love; learning and becoming the very thing to which we are devoted. We can begin by praying for our church and for each other. I call on this congregation of the people of God to pray for God's Church in the world and for this congregation that we will fulfill the high calling of God in our life together. Let us agree today to actually take a moment each day to pray for our Church. Pray for new life. Pray for gladness and generosity and goodwill.
As long as we have breath, we have alternatives. We can serve ourselves or we can serve the community. We can love or hate. We can share a mutual affection or we can be envious and jealous of each other. We can seek justice or we can ignore injustice. We can be kind or mean. We can be forgiving or resentful.
What we learn from the culture we
live in about what is acceptable or expected of us is not necessarily valid. Everything
we have ever been told, everything that we have ever known about what it means
to be God's people on earth, is still not sufficient to describe what God is
calling us to be. We have been given alternatives. The challenge for us is to take seriously the
alternatives and to offer ourselves again and again to the adventure and the
joy of faithful living in community with God.
