“First Century Acts for Twenty First
Century Apostles”
Sermon 1 – Mission
Acts 2.22-47
We are in need of growth, and by
‘we’ I mean we the Church in this country and also ‘we’, Holy
Trinity/Christchurch; and by growth I mean two things also – growth downwards,
putting down deep roots that tap into the riches of faith, or to change the
metaphor and use a parable of Jesus, building strong foundations that can
withstand what is thrown at us and capable of supporting strong building.
The Burj Khalifa is the tallest
building in the world. You can see it in Dubai
and it is extremely graceful - all 830m of it. But you can’t see all of it.
What you can’t see is the 50m depth of foundations that enable that great
height to be reached. Much of the cost was probably expended on that fifty
metres also. That kind of growth is
important for it is about deepening spirituality.
But we need to grow outwards also,
grow numerically. And that might make us feel a little uneasy. Yet shying away
from that issue is part of our defensive strategy. Without growth there will be
less opportunity to affect the social change that we long to see as part of
that prayer ‘thy kingdom come’. How can God’s kingdom come if there aren’t enough of God’s people to
fashion the bricks for him to use? We need to grow.
Part of what we need her is a cultural
shift to looking at how we are as a church through the lenses of ‘growth’, in
both senses. A recent well used phrase
puts it well. We should be saying that
‘The God of mission has a church rather than the church
of God
Why Acts? Well maybe because the
Acts of the Apostles starts with just 11 men and unknown number of followers
very naturally engaged in mission and starts too with a rather unlikely mission
field of a society openly hostile to Jesus (they had just crucified him) and a
wider empire teeming with alternative philosophies and gods, an empire which was
not very tolerant of those who working to affect a kingdom where the emperor
definitely not in charge. There were many obstacles and through it all, this mission
grows. And so Acts charts the spread of the gospel across the Mediterranean .
It shines a light on a fledgling church trying to establish itself and rising
to the different challenges both internal and external; so I believe that the
Acts of these first century apostles can reach out and connect to us their
twenty first century counterparts – what should Christian leadership look like,
what happens when Christians disagree about what God might want for his church,
does welcoming everyone and moving with the times mean that Jesus’ message is
being watered down.
We begin, appropriately with Peter,
Jesus’ best friend, the one on whom Jesus famously promised to build his church
and with Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost, a classic evangelistic call. Peter
seizes the moment, grabs the opportunity to be an agent of God’s mission and
grow more followers of Jesus.
The first thing I am struck by is
that this is Peter speaking, Peter, whose last words in Luke’s gospel to which
Acts has been written as a sequel, were used to deny that he knew Jesus; Peter
the rough fisherman who was always putting his foot in it, grasping the wrong
end of the stick or impulsively jumping to conclusions; A friend of mine once
memorably called him ‘less Peter the rock and more Peter the blancmange’. And
yet here he is standing up before a large crowd not far from where Jesus was
crucified and just a few weeks later to speak confidently and coherently about
the one whom he knew now to be the Messiah.
What has made the difference? –
Nothing more and nothing less than the transforming power of the Holy Spirit of
God.
Our brothers and sisters in Christ
up the hill at Bagley have been praying for and seeking, for some while now,
renewal through the Spirit across the Cheddar
Valley
And do you know that when we come
to our mission and evangelism that’s good news – we don’t have to do evangelism
on our own – phew! We do so in the power of Spirit. It’s the Spirit that can
use our wobbly personalities and inadequate words to make a difference.
The second thing to glean from
Peter’s sermon is the importance of preparation. In one sense his words are
entirely impulsive but one another level they have been a lifetime in coming. He
has prepared for his sermon by those years following Jesus understanding and
not understanding, prepared by learning from his desertion and later forgiveness,
prepared by his investiture. Peter is able to dig deep into his experience for
what he says.
So too with our mission, the words,
the actions, the connections are far more likely to come if have done our
preparation, if we know the scriptures well, have spent time in prayer,
understood our failings, prepared the ground. A little of what I was saying
earlier about depth of foundation.
Joke – Justin Portal Welby
Peter’s sermon was aimed fairly and
squarely at a particular group of people in a particular place at a particular
moment of history. He knows that he is addressing Israelites, Jews, steeped in
the story of their people and able to grasp the different theological terms and
concepts. Peter’s mission is culturally bound and ours is also. What might be
the appropriate way to evangelize the people of Blackford/Theale, the people
you know? There is no one size fits all evangelism and a hard hitting
expository sermon with a call to conversion at the end, such as peter gave is
probably not the tool of choice now. Those who make up the church fringe may
respond to more imaginative and innovative worship; those who once attended but
have drifted away may respond to relational evangelism in genuine friendships;
those with minimal experience of church may be attracted by the quality of
community and its engagement with the all round needs and interests of ordinary
people
One important missionary tool is
that of an attractive church community. The postscript to Peter’s sermon gives
that wonderful little sketch of the nature and character of that first group of
Christians, that first church community. It’s so attractive that the church has
been trying to live up to it ever since and mostly failing.
There’s something about genuinely
attractive communities that is …well…genuinely attractive. If a community
reflects the kindness, the questioning and the radical challenge of Jesus,
people are likely to come and ask what is going on.
Finally all Peter does, in a sense,
is tell the story of Jesus and interpret it for his listeners. He tells them of
a miracle worker, who was crucified both by human wickedness and because of
God’s plan and who was raised from the dead like no other before; and that all
of this points to him being God’s chosen one.
I bet that you have family stories
that are retold and retold. Our kids are already bored I’m sure at hearing
about Granny Neill’s Lenten penances or when Uncle Will got stuck in the
freezer or Aunty Wendy’s far too clever Burmese cat. None of us seem to have a
problem in recounting a good story. And one of the great pleasures I have is
listening to a couple who have been together a long time try to recount a story
– you know how it is - the prompts, interruptions and interjections, the
misremembrances. I think it is all because none of us like to miss out on
telling the story ourselves.
So why is it that we clam up when
it comes to telling our family story?
We have a fantastic story to tell, the story of the one invested with God’s
power, the one crucified and risen, the one whose death is invested with
representative power; the greatest story ever told.
Do you tell it?
Few of us have the particular gifts
of being an evangelist; but all Christians are witnesses. You probably don’t
feel that you are a charismatic giant who changes lives by power within you,
you may not be a great preacher whose words convert three thousand in a day, but
I doubt that Peter felt that either; but you do have a story to tell, the same
story as Peter and it does have power.
St Peter again, this time in his
letter ‘Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an
accounting for the hope that is in you.’
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