An Apostolic Community

Preaching on Acts 2:42-47

Like much of scripture, the Book of Acts is retrospective. The early church looks back on the apostolic community as a lost golden age, to aspire to and to reflect upon as they teach one another about who they believe themselves to be.

After the Jewish people went to war with the Roman empire, and the city of Jerusalem, with all of its flowering of strange new religious movements – including the early Jewish-Christian community – had been all but destroyed, the writer of Acts (as well as the Gospel of Luke) wonders how the remnant of that community ought to be.

They look back, over a historical gulf, an event whose material and psychological impact is unbridgeable, and wonders what might be salvaged from the ruins of that time – a world away, if not actually that long ago.

What emerges is a vision of koinonia (‘fellowship’) – one of those all but untranslatable words. Community is the closest, in my opinion, with its connotations of the neighbourhood commons, and communion, and communication, and so on.

Koinonia points to a tightly interconnected people participating together in the mysterious interconnectedness of the divine.

Here, the community looks back over the chasm of an event whose impact will shake them forever; casts about in the shattered stones to see what they can use. They remember gathering daily for the Torah’s traditional prayers at home and temple and for the special meal in which Jesus had asked them to remember him with gratitude.

They remember how thousands seemed to join them everyday, and how they worked hard at hospitably balancing the different cultures and traditions of those who were joining them. Of the practices that Jesus taught, what were crucial, and what were simply cultural norms that others might take or leave?

They remember how important education had been to them, and how they had carefully listened to the teachings of the apostles – ordinary people, without much education of their own, who had nevertheless been with Jesus and could reiterate his teachings, in a mirror that was, perhaps, a little bit cracked.

And they remember how they shared their goods in common – that all those who gathered ensured that one another had their needs met, that no one went hungry, and that all of them were united by a generosity and a willingness to live as equals.

Of course the rest of the Book of Acts will tell the stories of the real conflict between Hellenistic and Jewish cultures, between the apostles’ teaching and Paul’s revelatory insights, between rich and poor within the community, between those who donated generously and many, in fact, who did not. The presents nostalgic vision of the past, in fact, reveals the past’s own shortcomings.

*

I feel good about the fact that we have figured out how to transition Sunday morning worship onto Zoom, to gather together and to retain our fabric of common life.

That said, Sunday morning is not what church is about. In my mind, really, it is our weekly hourlong reprieve from figuring out how to be the church in the world, where we can just sing, and pray and rejuvenate in the presence of the sacred. When worship is done, and we return to our families, and workplaces, and friends, we also return to the ‘church,’ the project of trying – again and again, knowing that we will fail – to be a place where that just and vital divine source interacts with our ordinary world.

That is truer than ever in the midst of crisis. We hold ourselves to an ideal of feeding the hungry, befriending the lonely, liberating the oppressed. The FoodHub at Glen Rhodes needs us, and there people on VolunteerToronto & MyShoperon who need us too.

It feels good to be able to gather on Zoom, but I am also noticing the pernicious way it offers a semblance of connection – enough to ignite desire, but not enough to satisfy. I really feel like we have a need for embodied and embedded engagement with our community, not just a purely mental connection.

I feel like this also the case for our faith – we do not simply intellectually assent to a set of propositions, our faith is a way of life that we have chosen to engage in. As a discourse, theology emerges when someone witnesses our peculiar commitment to loving our neighbour and asks us what we are doing and why.

Do you feel like you’re living out that calling in this crisis? I don’t, really.

That is, at least partially, because I know that I am feeling the emotional weight of crisis and isolation. I miss my friends, and feel listless and unmotivated. I explained that to a friend who said, yeah, Daniel, we’re in quarantine right now. Took you long enough.

Even before this quarantine began, though, there were already barriers to living out that vision in our community. As we remember how rich our communal life used to be, that nostalgic ideal actually illuminates the past’s limitations.

As we celebrate essential workers, for example, we forget how often they have been underpaid, underappreciated and overlooked; how few protections they receive.

We are preoccupied with work that seep into all aspects of our lives, as we already were; a media ecosystem that profits from siphoning attention away rather than contributing to a public consciousness, as it already was; and neighbourhoods without common spaces. Our experience of quarantine exacerbates pre-existing disengagement.

In crisis, we long to respond with rejuvenated neighbourliness, but are stymied. We want to serve our community, but we have always struggled.

*

In Acts, the wild abundant koinonia community of the early Christian movement isn’t the independent capacities of the disciples – it is preceded by the events of Pentecost.

Pentecost is a big story – with fire and drama and prophesy and miracles. “This is the moment foretold by the prophet Joel! I will pour out my spirit on all people! Your sons and daughters will prophesy! No, we aren’t drunk – it’s only 9:00 am!”

It is also a small story, in which a group of people who have been trapped inside for a long time because they are afraid, and because they have experienced both traumas and life-giving encounters that they don’t think that anyone will ever understand, leave the house and tell the people that they meet about what they experienced.

The work of the Spirit is awesome – it is fire dancing over their heads as they speak a multitude of languages. It’s also quite intimate – a nudge in the right direction, elbow to elbow, saying maybe now is the moment, I think you can do it, why not give it a try?

And the presence of the Spirit is alienating – it is both the great other alongside the Creator dancing over the waters in the first age of chaos on earth and the spark of the divine present in all people – and the presence of the Spirit is familiar – it feels like Jesus, who they have walked with for years, and shares his fundamental character.

It is a small moment – a familiar and intimate nudge – that leads the disciples to leave their enclosure and to share the wild story of what has happened to them. That small moment is all that it takes to set the ball in motion – that story precipitates other stories, that openness precipitates other openness, and the disciples – now apostles! – find themselves at the heart of a wild social movement.

The Spirit doesn’t dissipate the impact of intersecting Jewish and Hellenistic cultures, nor the class discrepancies and the discrepancies in generosity in the early Christian community, nor does it dissipate the impact of intersecting claims to authority between the learned wisdom of the Apostles and the revelatory insight in the theology of Paul.

They are still working in the shadow of the Roman empire, and there are more crucifixions to come.

There are still massive barriers to be overcome by that nascent movement.

But the apostles have received a small nudge that is enough to lead them into a self-reinforcing cycle in which their vulnerability precipitates other vulnerabilities, and in which their authenticity about their wild narrative sparks koinonia.

As their descendants look back, over a gulf, wondering what can be salvaged from an imperfect world – they experience a small nudge and encounter a cycle of authenticity through which communion arises.

*

There is no denying that things continue to be tough right now.

As we think about life seven weeks ago, we look back over an unbridgeable gulf. We remember how wonderful it was to experience community with one another.

In looking back and lifting up that ideal, we might recognize the barriers that kept us from ever truly living up to that ideal.

But we might also recognize a pattern. When the vagaries of fate, a moment of luck, or the intimate nudging of the spirit led us into a small act of vulnerability or authenticity, it would be reciprocated and reinforced, and would precipitate a cycle of care and positivity.

Someone on the internet recently wrote that they had texted their mother that they were in feeling down. Their mother wrote I hear you, and in about twenty minutes wrote back eat a banana and go sit outside. That made me laugh. I think it would help!

That said, earlier this week, I was walking the dog up Clinton Avenue at 7:30 and experienced, for the first time, folks out banging pots and pans. I was in quite a low mood, and found the drumming pervasive and intimidating and overwhelming. I felt besieged. I also saw a bunch of the kids who were participating in it, and I saw how happy they were. I believe that if I’d participated, I would have felt that happiness too.

Perhaps I did not acknowledge the spirit nudging me in that moment.

We know that God sees hunger. We know that God is on the side of the poor and has lived a life of poverty. We know that God does not turn away.

We know that God is communal. We know that God is the process of interconnection. God is love and love is of God. We know that God does not stop weaving us together.

We do, sometimes, when our battery runs low and the barriers look high. Sometimes for a long time. It's okay. God does not stop, and we are always invited back.

I would invite you today, to extend your spirit in vulnerability, awkwardness and authenticity. I would invite you to go to a wild place, to express gratitude, to pray and eat the celebratory meal, share what you have, ensure that the hungry have food, to clap your pots and to advocate for the marginalized.

I would invite you to accept the nudge of the spirit, when it comes.

We never know what barriers that cycle will enable us to clamber over. We never know what a wild communion it will cultivate in our midst.