Our Relationship with Abundance
Sermon Link: https://youtu.be/aWj4qwRJk6E
Readings: Acts 2:42-47 (An Abundant Community), Psalm 41:1-5, 9-13, Matthew 6:1-4 (how to give)
How we relate to the material world is very important? God is more than just our spiritual lives. It should be obvious that God cared for the physical world, because he created it, he has been shaping it, he tells us to care, but the most obvious way he showed us his care for the physical world was when he became physical. God became flesh in Jesus, he walked beside us, ate beside us, healed us, then he died a very physical death. God also wants to transform our relationship with the physical, which he shows us through His teaching, but especially through his resurrected body. What comes to light through all of this is that our relationship with the stuff of the world is very important to God, because it naturally parallels our relationship with Him.
A lot of people believe that the church cares too much about money and to some degree I would agree that the church has put the wrong emphasis on our talk about money. We can get so wrapped up with our day to day expenses and our church building that we lose track of why we give and what it means for our relationship with God and one another. Every relationship whether it be with someone or something is an opportunity to show our love and appreciation for God.
In our reading from Acts we get this idealistic and harmonious vision of a Christ-centred, self-sacrificial community. Oftentimes, we can look at a passage like this and think about how impractical it is, or how difficult it would be to get there. I think those are very natural and important feelings. God’s new world should challenge our expectations and faith. We find a story like this impractical because we put so much trust in our wealth and not enough in God and one another. Most of us live in a mindset where savings, equity and retirement plans are our safety net. This challenges us to ask, “What would it look like for God to be our safety net?” “What would it look like for us to depend on one another more and truly share?” In a modern mindset it is impractical because it is beyond us, but that is exactly why we need to let it challenge us. You might ask “how do I protect my future?”, or “how do I look out for my family?” and the question comes back to us, “how much are we willing to trust?”
In today’s world we are actually dependent on so many things. We are dependent on farmers, truckers and the food industry. We are dependent on the Canadian dollar, on our bank accounts and our jobs. We are dependent on our schools, our government, our law. These things can and have fallen terribly short of what we need. Currency just puts a distance between us and our dependence so that it creates a facsimile of independence. The truth is we always needed one another. We put our trust in so many things, but are these things actually the most worthwhile things. Are these the things that by trusting in we grow, or does our trust in them help our society become what it needs to be, does it help us to become closer to God? I would argue that our current patterns of trust are not leading us in the right direction
For the Acts 2, resurrection community, something different was happening. They had just witnessed Jesus die as a traitor, robbed of everything he was and had, but only a few days later everything changed. Jesus was alive. What seemed like absolute loss, actually became our infinite gain. They first experienced that immense loss and then they saw the world flipped upside down. If we really lived in this reality, it would transform our relationship with everything that is physical. For us and them it can create a new kind of trust and hope, where God is at its centre with the belief that he can and would overcome any loss, but more than that God could and would do wonders with any gift.
We see that within this new community too. They trust enough to give of their time, energy and wealth and the result is that everyone is in awe, they see miracles and more and more people are added to their number every day. Do we believe enough, trust enough, hope enough to see these miracles and speak to them, to experience this awe and to be attractive with our profound and beautiful faith? This passage should challenge us. It should challenge us to rethink our relationship with God, with stuff and one another.
What a Christ-centered, self-sacrificial community should look like today, might very well be different than this vision, but I think we are meant to learn some things. The first thing that seems to begin it all is their devotion. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer. This is the first thing we are meant to give, our devotion. Where is your devotion? Is it to learn from those that are closest with God, is it to spend time in the community of faith and find mutual edification, is it to eat together at communion and otherwise and is it spending time alone and together on our relationship with God. All of these are fundamental and the bedrock for anything else we do or give. We need to know God to serve him and share him. We need more of our Christian community so that we can confidently be Christlike in the world. We need to eat together to share in and be nourished by the bounty of God. We need to pray to invite God to be present in our lives and relationships.
So they are grounded in a Christ-like community. Only then do we hear about the awe and the miracles. It is this grounding in faithful devotion that makes the seemingly impossible, possible.
There are two things in this passage that you are probably still wrestling with - 1) that whenever there was a need, they would sell everything and 2) that everyone had everything in common. It is interesting that the majority of people I have talked to struggle more with these two ideas, than the idea of continuous devotion. This should tell us that we have an inappropriate relationship with and trust in wealth. We already have such a hard time taking time and making space for God, but if this idea of giving everything is even harder, what does that mean? Important to think about as our devotion and willingness to give are probably quite related to one another.
There are some possible misconceptions here. We know that Jesus and his disciples had a shared purse. Whether that is the case here is not for sure. Instead, having everything in common, seems to present more of a blurring of ownership, property and stuff. As they later ate in their homes, we might ask, whose homes? It seems likely to me that as people sold homes they began to live together and share resources in a way that it was hard to tell whose was whose. It also says that as there was need, people sold what they had, yet there were still homes and there was still a sharing that meant no-one went without. Lastly, it doesn’t say that anyone gave up their jobs, we know many disciples did, we also know that they spent a lot of time with God, but the definitive thing is that they all made time to spend with one another and God a priority. They didn’t forgo their trust on things, they just trusted God and one another more.
Though this Christ-centered self-sacrificial community spent a lot of time together it was also very public facing. They spent time in the community serving. They spent time in the community praying in the public part of the temple. They spent time in the community being a public witness to the work of Christ. This was another way in which they gave. As they were founded on the greatest gift that is a beauteous relationship with God in Jesus Christ, they knew the greatest gift they could give was to share the reality they met in Christ - so teaching, prayer and service all became an important part of this. Our giving is not about us, or even necessarily about the need, it is about God. So the result of this is that they lived with thankful and generous hearts.
Where does that leave us now? Well, I think as we come back together as a community we should really think about our fellowship and how we can edify one another in faith. As the world shifts, we should concentrate on carving out time for Christian community, learning, prayer and eating together. If you have any ideas or desires to make this happen, please let me know. Secondly, I think we need to practice trusting God more and rethink how we relate and put our trust in things, even our own talents. Sharing is one of the first difficult learnings for kids, but it is essential and we would do well as adults and as a Christian community to learn how to share a little better. Lastly, I think we need to think about how we face outwardly, caring for and sharing with those around us. I would urge you to think about what is happening around the church and your home. Look at the towers going up, the kids going to school, the community or the lack of community and ask how we can be present and care for these people by sharing Christ’s love. Again, I would love to hear if you have any ideas or desires to make this happen. Our community may not be the Acts 2 community now, but with faith in Christ we can be something just as beautiful and life-giving. AMEN
