Sunday, 19 June 2011

How to be the Church 101

Pentecost 1 year A Sermon   Acts series part III

Title slide
Where would you go …to learn how to be the church?

Would you look for books?
How about books on the architecture of great cathedrals  
or on what makes great worship
or books on church growth or the emerging church

Change slide
Would you look on the internet? Do a Google search for
Websites on mission…or church leadership…visit Willowcreek or Saddleback or Spreydon

Change slide
Maybe there is a blueprint to follow somewhere
or some guidelines on congregational systems and
group process… maybe a road map for understanding your community or on making disciples…

Change slide
Hey I know… what about a ‘how to’ manual? I found this on the internet…Church for dummies

Word slide
Where would YOU go to find out how to be the church?
Tell your neighbour ….Discussion

First Christian’s slide
Ok good answers…the Bible…but how do you think
the first Christian’s knew how to be the church?
They didn’t have the Gospels or Paul’s Letters…
or church tradition or doctrines or creeds…or strategic plans What do you think? Discussion

Church 101 slide
What was their vision for being the church and where did it come from. Well, maybe there are clues in what they actually did right from the start.

In the second chapter of Acts after the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost…Peter…
who certainly isn’t known for his preaching skills …just blows the crowd away… with the power of his message and straight awaythe believers start being the church …here’s what Peter told them… and what they did next

Clues slide
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God
has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “what shall we do?”

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all… whom the Lord our God will call.”
With many other words he warned them; and pleaded with them: Save yourselves from this corrupt generation!

Now listen for clues in what they did as to their vision.

Those who accepted Peter’s message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and held everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day…they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily… those who were being saved. [pause]

Slide words 1st text box [put them all up at once]
Ok what did they do?
To be the church… they were baptised in Jesus name for the forgiveness of sins…that took care of any uncleanliness which could exclude them from fellowship with one another.

This was followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit which would soften the hardest of hearts. And immediately they began to devote themselves to learning about Jesus through the Apostles’ teaching...to fellowship in each other’s homes…to the breaking of bread together
with glad and sincere hearts…and prayer.

Did we leave anything out?  [look to slide…Wait….]
 [Ask]

Hey wait a minute what’s this about?
Slide words reveal second text box
They held everything in common and sold property and possessions to give… to anyone who had need. 

Imagine all those people who used to sit outside
the Temple and beg…imagine them being welcomed
into a community where everything is shared. Talk about good news!

Slide ‘what did the first…
Where would they get the idea to hold everything in common and share what they had… with those in needif the Gospels hadn’t been written…and Paul was still Saul … How did they know what the people of God would look like… after the coming of the Messiah?

What did they know? Well from their youth they memorised the Law of Moses and the words of the prophets by heart…they already knew the greatest commandment was to ‘love God’ and the second
to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.  

And for information about the good news the Messiah brought… they had the Apostles who stood before them… those who actually knew the one revealed as the Messiah…in life and death and in resurrection…these Apostles had heard with their own ears…how Jesus taught in the power of the Spirit and what he’d been sent by God to do…
work Jesus had asked them to continue.

They’d been there when Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, when he read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth

Slide words
The Spirit of the LORD is upon me… anointing me to proclaim good news to the poor. Sending me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. And they heard Jesus announce when he sat down
Slide words
Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today…the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled…
not one day…not at the resurrection…not at the coming of the Spirit…not at the end of time…but today
in their hearing...The  beginning of God’s new creation is now … the time for Shalom – wellbeing for all…
is now… the time for salvation is now.

blank slide
Jesus…God incarnate…is the good news and his followers were to live as a sign of God’s new creation…
a new Israel which would truly be a light to the nations…
and in this new creation those who are far off and excluded from worship in the Temple for being unclean…are now to be welcomed into the fellowship by baptism in Jesus name.

Those labelled sinners are to be forgiven and restored to the family of believers.

In God’s new creation in God’s church there is good news for the poor…no wonder they held everything in common and gave to everyone as there was need…they were the embodiment of Jesus’ good news waiting for Jesus return.

And because of this… every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Saved?
Saved from what…well in his Pentecost sermon Peter says…‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’

What corrupt generation is he talking about…

He’s talking about his priestly contemporaries who proclaim Caesar as King and not Yahweh…who see themselves as pure and their neighbours as unclean. Who make up the rules about who’s in and who’s out…who exclude the sick …and extort the poor…
who keep slaves and refuse to share their riches
with the weak and the vulnerable…

No wonder the message of Jesus was received as good news. Anyone would want to be saved from that… wouldn’t they? Unless they had something to lose…but there was nothing to lose…God’s reign had broken in…and what was needed was a new Israel who would love God with all their hearts and minds and all their strength… What was needed was a new Israel who would love their neighbours…
as much as they loved their own kind. [pause]

River Slide
Two weeks ago we began this series on the Book of Acts by reflecting on how the great river of the Holy Spirit had wound its way through the centuries …down to today… around obstacles and resistance to the grace of God…through the lives of those who proclaim Jesus Christ as the good news.

Two weeks ago we heard Jesus send his disciples to create a new people who would continue his work…to make disciples of all nations…
and we heard Jesus promise the coming of the Holy Spirit to empower them to bear witness to his good news

Last week Heather helped us understand how the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost and how today the Holy Spirit can work in every part of our lives if we allow it…to strengthen us and bring us life in all its fullness

Today we learned what it means for a community of Spirit filled believers…to act out the good news in their life together…

And two thousand years later as a community of believers in 21st century Otago…we have our own context to deal with. And we must continue to ask salvation questions as the first Christian’s did…Questions like
who needs to hear the good news of Jesus Christ?
Who needs forgiveness? Who’s been rejected…and needs to be welcomed and restored to the family and the community? Who’s lost and needs a light for their path? Who needs to be released from slavery to self-abuse or the abuse of others? Who’s imprisoned by poverty or illness? Who’s invisible and outside the gates because of their age or their infirmity?

To be the Church we must be willing as Peter said
to save ourselves from this corrupt generation.
To proclaim God’s reign against other powers and principalities. To share what we have together in prayer and in fellowship and in the breaking of bread…and in loving our community…as much as we love ourselves.

Let us pray…
Beloved God unite us by your Spirit as we worship that we might one with you and effective as a colony of your new creation…the church in this place.
God who weeps with us at the enslavement and corruption of this world…strengthen us to act out your good news that the world might be saved.

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Series on Acts 1: Ascension


Easter 7 year A Sermon 
Title slide
Imagine… we’re standing there on that hilltop called the Mount of Olives…standing with Jesus and his friends

and waiting just beyond… and invisible to us…
the author of all creation
is the source of the river of life…
waiting for Jesus as he says his goodbyes to his disciples.

And then mysteriously Jesus moves from our dimension of time and space…into another reality… beyond Creation
where the Creator and Source of love is waiting. [pause]

This movement is Jesus Ascension…the ascension of the Christ…and today is Ascension Sunday.

As Jesus leaves his friends behind
he joins the source…the one he calls Abba… Father
and in a few days to come…the Holy Spirit will pour out from them both…just as Jesus promised

And from the flowing of the Spirit…
there will grow the great… wide…. braided river
of the witness to Jesus…with wide banks and many streams

This river of witness will flow…from the mountain of the LORD to the East and to the South into India
through the witness of the disciple Thomas…
And this river will flow out from Jerusalem
to the west and to the north
through the witness of Peter and Paul… and others
through the Greek speaking regions of northern Africa
and Europe…and up into the Celtic speaking northern isles…

Down through the years…empowered by the Spirit
this river of witness to God’s love
will weave its way ‘round mountains of resistance where the good news of forgiveness and grace
were not welcome

Down through the centuries this… flowing of the Spirit
will gouge out… new streams… where there’s fertile ground… for the good news of Jesus Christ…
and it will open up new channels
through which can flow the peace Jesus taught…
peace with justice and compassion and mercy and wellbeing for all humanity.

A river of witness to Jesus and his teaching
flowing on and on just as he commanded ...
a river empowered by the Holy Spirit
working in the lives of his followers.

Slide words
from Jerusalem, and all Judea and into Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth …[pause]

and here we are… at the ends of the earth
not a building called a church…
but a community of witness to Jesus Christ

Blank slide
Of course on that day when Jesus left his disciples
they had no idea how long and how wide…
this river would actually be.

To all intents and purposes… this handful of men and women were all that existed of a church
yet to be born…They had no doctrine of the Trinity… nor the Apostles Creed

no gathering places but their homes…and maybe their synagogues…the Gospels and Paul’s letters…
hadn’t yet been written…[pause]

But one thing they do have… is the certainty
of their experience with the Risen Christ
and what they know…beyond a shadow of a doubt
is that now…post resurrection…they can absolutely trust what Jesus said… even if they don’t fully understand.

Having walked and talked and dined… with the
Risen Christ…they can take Jesus at his word

Somehow they would be…his witnesses
to the ends of the earth…somehow this small band of once fearful and… unfaithful followers would become Apostles…sent out from Jerusalem by Jesus …
and empowered by the Holy Spirit… [pause]

Ascension slide
So when Jesus leaves them…there’s no mention at all
of panic or grief
they only stand there stunned until…
two strangers in white shake them out of it.
And they remember what they have to do

Prayer slide
For this is the in between time…the waiting time
And Jesus had instructed them not to set one foot
out of Jerusalem…till the out pouring of the Holy Spirit

For now…they have to wait patiently in faith and pray …and I tell you what…if the risen Christ asks you
to wait patiently and pray…you do

Parchment slide
How the disciples finally get the good news out of Jerusalem is such an complex and amazing adventure
that a Greek speaking Gentile doctor named Luke
decided to write the whole story down in Greek
beginning with the birth of Jesus…in an ancient form of biography we now know... as Luke’s Gospel. As he writes in the introduction

slide words
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who…from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word."

Luke uses Marks Gospel like Matthew did …
and some sources of his own.  

New parchment slide
And there’s a sequel…the story isn’t over…
and the sequel is about what happened
from that day Jesus left his disciples behind.
This… development of Jesus’ story… comes to be known as the Acts of the Apostles…And we know it’s a sequel… because of Luke’s opening line…

Word slide
Dear Theophilus, the previous book which I wrote
had to do with everything Jesus began to do and teach.
I took the story as far as the day when he was taken up … once he’d given instructions through the Holy Spirit … to his chosen apostles.

Slide words
He showed himself to them alive after his suffering
by many proofs. He was seen by them for forty days
during which he spoke… about the reign of God.

Slide words
As they were having a meal together…
he told them not to go away from Jerusalem,

Slide words
but to wait, as Jesus put it, ‘for the Father’s promise, which I was telling you about earlier. John baptised with water, you see, but in a few days from now you
will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.

Blank slide
With his opening sentence… Luke’s telling us one of the most important things about the book he’s writing.
This book is all about what Jesus is continuing to do and to teach.

The mysterious presence of Jesus fills the whole book of Acts… Jesus is proclaimed as King and Lord…
not as an increasingly distant memory
but as a living and powerful reality…a person who can be known and loved…and obeyed and followed…A person who continues to act in the dimension of time and space.

And Luke wants us to know right up front
that this sequel… has to be read on many levels.
Yes on one level its

Text words [reveal]
the story of the early church…but it’s also clear in Luke’s introduction… that he wants us to read it all the way through… as the story

reveal words
of what Jesus is continuing to do in the world…

And there’s another level…a third level …for the reader… from the very opening scene Luke wants us to know it’s our story too…it’s a story in which

Reveal words
we are called to take part.
So we can read the book of Acts on three levels.
As Church History, as Jesus’ continuing story
and… as our story.

Blank slide
And Luke is also keen that we get two things right
from the very start.
Two things that are fundamental not only to the book of Acts but to Luke’s whole view of reality.

First… the sequel to Luke’s gospel… we call

Slide words reveal
The Acts of the Apostles…is all based on the resurrection of Jesus…

and second
Slide words reveal
It’s all made possible by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Blank slide
Already in the first lines… Luke wants us to recall
that the spirit is present when Jesus teaches
about what is to come…and how the spirit
will be a new and powerful reality in their lives.

Remember that Jesus says instead of being plunged into water you’ll be plunged into the Holy Spirit.  Instead of a renewal restoring Israel to its rightful power
with God as its King… you’ll experience a renewal which will form you as restored humanity
celebrating God’s reign over the whole world.

And remember…that as channels for the work of the Holy Spirit…as channels of God’s love for the world…
you will recognise this reality within your own being.

River slide
In the river that flows from the mountain of God…
Jesus followers would be channels
of God’s love for the whole world. [pause]

At the very heart of the Acts of the Apostles
is that one day… this powerful movement…will catch up in its flow…every man every woman and every child …in its stream.

That’s why today I’ve chosen the biblical image of a great wide braided river flowing from the mountain of the Lord… to help us better imagine the global community of witness to Christ of which we are a part…

And what about us slide
And what about us…well…this river of grace still
flows freely here… beneath these mountains and beside these lakes and we’re invited by Jesus to get in on it…
and we’re instructed like the first disciples…
to wait and to pray for the pouring of the Holy Spirit into our lives...that we too might become channels of grace … in witness to the Christ...

Let us pray our prayers of confession.





Series on Acts 1: Ascension

Easter 7 year A Sermon 
Title slide
Imagine… we’re standing there on that hilltop called the Mount of Olives…standing with Jesus and his friends

and waiting just beyond… and invisible to us…
the author of all creation
is the source of the river of life…
waiting for Jesus as he says his goodbyes to his disciples.

And then mysteriously Jesus moves from our dimension of time and space…into another reality… beyond Creation
where the Creator and Source of love is waiting. [pause]

This movement is Jesus Ascension…the ascension of the Christ…and today is Ascension Sunday.

As Jesus leaves his friends behind
he joins the source…the one he calls Abba… Father
and in a few days to come…the Holy Spirit will pour out from them both…just as Jesus promised

And from the flowing of the Spirit…
there will grow the great… wide…. braided river
of the witness to Jesus…with wide banks and many streams

This river of witness will flow…from the mountain of the LORD to the East and to the South into India
through the witness of the disciple Thomas…
And this river will flow out from Jerusalem
to the west and to the north
through the witness of Peter and Paul… and others
through the Greek speaking regions of northern Africa
and Europe…and up into the Celtic speaking northern isles…

Down through the years…empowered by the Spirit
this river of witness to God’s love
will weave its way ‘round mountains of resistance where the good news of forgiveness and grace
were not welcome

Down through the centuries this… flowing of the Spirit
will gouge out… new streams… where there’s fertile ground… for the good news of Jesus Christ…
and it will open up new channels
through which can flow the peace Jesus taught…
peace with justice and compassion and mercy and wellbeing for all humanity.

A river of witness to Jesus and his teaching
flowing on and on just as he commanded ...
a river empowered by the Holy Spirit
working in the lives of his followers.

Slide words
from Jerusalem, and all Judea and into Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth …[pause]

and here we are… at the ends of the earth
not a building called a church…
but a community of witness to Jesus Christ

Blank slide
Of course on that day when Jesus left his disciples
they had no idea how long and how wide…
this river would actually be.

To all intents and purposes… this handful of men and women were all that existed of a church
yet to be born…They had no doctrine of the Trinity… nor the Apostles Creed

no gathering places but their homes…and maybe their synagogues…the Gospels and Paul’s letters…
hadn’t yet been written…[pause]

But one thing they do have… is the certainty
of their experience with the Risen Christ
and what they know…beyond a shadow of a doubt
is that now…post resurrection…they can absolutely trust what Jesus said… even if they don’t fully understand.

Having walked and talked and dined… with the
Risen Christ…they can take Jesus at his word

Somehow they would be…his witnesses
to the ends of the earth…somehow this small band of once fearful and… unfaithful followers would become Apostles…sent out from Jerusalem by Jesus …
and empowered by the Holy Spirit… [pause]

Ascension slide
So when Jesus leaves them…there’s no mention at all
of panic or grief
they only stand there stunned until…
two strangers in white shake them out of it.
And they remember what they have to do

Prayer slide
For this is the in between time…the waiting time
And Jesus had instructed them not to set one foot
out of Jerusalem…till the out pouring of the Holy Spirit

For now…they have to wait patiently in faith and pray …and I tell you what…if the risen Christ asks you
to wait patiently and pray…you do

Parchment slide
How the disciples finally get the good news out of Jerusalem is such an complex and amazing adventure
that a Greek speaking Gentile doctor named Luke
decided to write the whole story down in Greek
beginning with the birth of Jesus…in an ancient form of biography we now know... as Luke’s Gospel. As he writes in the introduction

slide words
"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who…from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word."

Luke uses Marks Gospel like Matthew did …
and some sources of his own.  

New parchment slide
And there’s a sequel…the story isn’t over…
and the sequel is about what happened
from that day Jesus left his disciples behind.
This… development of Jesus’ story… comes to be known as the Acts of the Apostles…And we know it’s a sequel… because of Luke’s opening line…

Word slide
Dear Theophilus, the previous book which I wrote
had to do with everything Jesus began to do and teach.
I took the story as far as the day when he was taken up … once he’d given instructions through the Holy Spirit … to his chosen apostles.

Slide words
He showed himself to them alive after his suffering
by many proofs. He was seen by them for forty days
during which he spoke… about the reign of God.

Slide words
As they were having a meal together…
he told them not to go away from Jerusalem,

Slide words
but to wait, as Jesus put it, ‘for the Father’s promise, which I was telling you about earlier. John baptised with water, you see, but in a few days from now you
will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.

Blank slide
With his opening sentence… Luke’s telling us one of the most important things about the book he’s writing.
This book is all about what Jesus is continuing to do and to teach.

The mysterious presence of Jesus fills the whole book of Acts… Jesus is proclaimed as King and Lord…
not as an increasingly distant memory
but as a living and powerful reality…a person who can be known and loved…and obeyed and followed…A person who continues to act in the dimension of time and space.

And Luke wants us to know right up front
that this sequel… has to be read on many levels.
Yes on one level its

Text words [reveal]
the story of the early church…but it’s also clear in Luke’s introduction… that he wants us to read it all the way through… as the story

reveal words
of what Jesus is continuing to do in the world…

And there’s another level…a third level …for the reader… from the very opening scene Luke wants us to know it’s our story too…it’s a story in which

Reveal words
we are called to take part.  
So we can read the book of Acts on three levels.
As Church History, as Jesus’ continuing story
and… as our story.

Blank slide
And Luke is also keen that we get two things right
from the very start.
Two things that are fundamental not only to the book of Acts but to Luke’s whole view of reality.

First… the sequel to Luke’s gospel… we call

Slide words reveal
The Acts of the Apostles…is all based on the resurrection of Jesus…

and second
Slide words reveal
It’s all made possible by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Blank slide
Already in the first lines… Luke wants us to recall
that the spirit is present when Jesus teaches
about what is to come…and how the spirit
will be a new and powerful reality in their lives.

Remember that Jesus says instead of being plunged into water you’ll be plunged into the Holy Spirit.  Instead of a renewal restoring Israel to its rightful power
with God as its King… you’ll experience a renewal which will form you as restored humanity
celebrating God’s reign over the whole world.

And remember…that as channels for the work of the Holy Spirit…as channels of God’s love for the world…
you will recognise this reality within your own being.

River slide
In the river that flows from the mountain of God…
Jesus followers would be channels
of God’s love for the whole world. [pause]

At the very heart of the Acts of the Apostles
is that one day… this powerful movement…will catch up in its flow…every man every woman and every child …in its stream.

That’s why today I’ve chosen the biblical image of a great wide braided river flowing from the mountain of the Lord… to help us better imagine the global community of witness to Christ of which we are a part…

And what about us slide
And what about us…well…this river of grace still
flows freely here… beneath these mountains and beside these lakes and we’re invited by Jesus to get in on it…
and we’re instructed like the first disciples…
to wait and to pray for the pouring of the Holy Spirit into our lives...that we too might become channels of grace … in witness to the Christ...

Let us pray our prayers of confession.