They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone,
because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who
believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their
possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day
by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at
home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having
the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number
those who were being saved.
Followers of the law from every nation had gathered in
Jerusalem, had witnessed the descent of the Holy Spirit, the miracle of
Pentecost.
Three thousand of them had been baptized and become
followers of Christ. And now they were living together in harmony under the
law. They had declared a year of Jubilee and those who owned much had sold it
and all had been redistributed. They went to the temple devoutly, prayed the
traditional prayers with full hearts. Any Prophet of Israel or Judah would have
walked into their community and found nothing wanting, nothing to rail about,
they lived fully into both the spirit and word of the Law. Their works were a beautiful
utopia on earth. A beautiful self sufficient insulated egg.
And God, the brooding mother hen, she looked down and said
its time for that egg to hatch.
I am sure at the moment, however, it felt more like God the
Master Chef looked down and said, time to make an omelet.
Because where is God’s action in this passage… “the Lord
added to their number those who were being saved…”
Uh Oh
God’s Grace, the Full Gospel, enters stage left and
everything falls apart. God’s Grace, the Gospel shown forth in full, is not an
easy thing, its not a happy thing, it is a terrible thing, a terribly good
thing, but a terrible thing none the less.
Kumbayah time is over for the first Christians… because the
Full Gospel is arriving. The Lord is sending them those who have been saved.
And those who have been saved by God’s grace are not always
followers of the law. They will be non-Jewish widows, uncircumcised men, gender
non conforming Ethiopians, a man who sought their complete annihilation, and so
many others.
The comfort zones of the early Christians will be violated.
They will have to eat odd disgusting food with odd disgusting people. They will
find themselves forced to touch and comfort menstruating women. They will be
forced to look down at their genetalia and ask “wait that is not what defines
me as God’s?”.
This is God’s grace, this is the movement of the Gospel.
This is God breaking into the laws and rules we surround ourselves with to make
ourselves feel good and righteous and comfortable. This is God destroying our
self-assurance and calling us to something fuller, the Assurance of Grace.
As the Gospel became manifest, as the Grace of God abounded,
fighting and struggle came into full bloom within the early Christian
community. The book of acts, the letters of Paul, report again and again the
struggles, friction, and pain involved in entering into the Grace of God, of
taking part fully in the Gospel. These times of struggle, the places where
conflict occurred, is again and again where God was and where the church was
growing.
Throughout history we find again and again humans laying
down laws to make themselves feel comfortable and righteous: free will or
predestination, real presences or remembrance, homoousios or homoiousios.
Grace, the Full Gospel, attempts to break through, fighting breaks out. Sadly,
more often then not, at the end of the fighting what results is two groups of
humans less open to grace but more feeling very comfortable and righteous
within their laws.
Our churches have seen so much fighting over the past years.
The comfort zones of many have been violated. Why? Because for centuries we had
gotten comfortable, gotten righteous, in our laws, in our insulated egg. A
self-sufficient community dependent on certain turns of phrasing in the English
language, dependent on a certain form of gender conformity, dependent on
defining relational love in a very limited way. It was time to make an omelet.
And God, the Mother Hen, she knew it was time for that egg
to hatch.
And so Grace is breaking through… it is not comfortable… it
is at points terribly frightening… but it is also terribly good… it is the sign
of a world relating more and more to the Full Gospel…
The question before us now is that can we keep fighting, can
we keep struggling, can we keep getting uncomfortable… or will we simply start
feeling comfortable in our new laws around the turns of phrase in the English
Language… feel assured by not allowing those who do not fit into our new laws
of gender conformity to have a place… feel righteous in our new limits on
relational love… will we simply seek some consensus that creates some new self
sufficient insulated community all nestled and happy and kumbayah…
Or will we continue to be a community that struggles, that
fights, that at points gets a bit violated… so that we can continue to be
sufficient on a Grace that comes from a place completely beyond us.
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