“They’ll Know We Are Christians”

Acts 2:42-47

No sermon is ever written in a vacuum. As I sat down with my Bible, notes, and books on Thursday my mind and heart were heavy with the news that a fellow pastor had been asked to leave his church as soon as possible. The church is torn by intractable conflict. People who should love one another are ripping and tearing at one another and splitting the church asunder.

My mind and heart are also troubled by our ongoing financial issues at Grace. I’m not in panic mode. I do trust that things will work out. But in my soul there remains a tiny but insistent uneasiness.

Then there is the need to prayerfully discern and develop, along with the church’s leadership, a Godly vision for future ministry and mission at Grace. I’m struggling with that. First of all I do not see myself as a visionary. I work much better in the present tense. Secondly, I find it very difficult to envision future ministries when we’re struggling to pay for what we already have.

And yet there is a vision brewing somewhere down in the deepest part of me. And it has its roots in Scripture, more specifically today’s reading from Acts. That infant church was the antithesis of the conflict-ridden church I described earlier. It was a church that took seriously the commandment to love one another that Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper.

If I have a vision, it is God’s vision as proclaimed in his Word. If I were to boil it down to a specific phrase it would be these words from Acts 2:47 “… praising God and having the good will of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

That infant church was a church that prayed, worshipped, and fellowshipped together. It was a church that fed on apostolic teaching and demonstrated Spirit-enabled healing. It was a sharing church, a generous church, with no financial issues. It truly was a fellowship held together by Christ-like love. People really could tell that they were Christians. People could see in them something that they wanted for themselves.

Reality is that as the early church grew and spread conflicts arose. Human sinfulness caused division. Love was often overwhelmed by greed, envy, side-taking, and self-righteousness. If you want a firsthand look at dysfunctional congregations, read Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Corinthians. But if you want a firsthand glimpse of what Christ is calling his church to be, read about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 & 23.

Or listen to these words of Paul excerpted from the 12^th chapter of his letter to the Romans: “Let love be genuine… love one another with mutual affection… Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers… Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another...”

That is God’s vision for Grace Presbyterian Church. There’s not much I can add to it. Let me share, however, some of what I wrote prior to my annual review in December. “The church should be seen as a safe place, a place where the lost can be found, the hurting can experience healing, the lonely can find fellowship, and the outcast can find welcome. Our lives together as a community of believers should reflect hope, joy, mutuality, and servanthood. People really should be able to ‘know we are Christians by our love’.”

In her book Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith Diana Butler Bass highlights ten signs of a congregation that is living in such a way that the lives of others are being changed for the better. Two of these are “hospitality” and “healing.” Hospitality: not changing people but offering space where change can take place. Healing: living without rancor, division, or anger.

Before moving on I want to say a little more about hospitality and that whole giving people “space” thing. In his forward to Doug Bixby’s book The Honest to God Church: A Pathway to God’s Grace Anthony Robinson wrote: “The hospitality of the church is not simply a matter of being nice or of being really friendly. Nor is hospitality accomplished by better signs, name tags, or a really great coffee hour. Hospitality is about grace. It is about welcoming others, whoever they are, wherever they are on life’s journey, because that’s the way God has welcomed us. It is about loving others because God has loved us.”

In the book itself Doug Bixby addresses that giving people “space” thing: “… an ethic of tolerance is not the same as an ethic of love. Tolerating someone is not the same as loving them. Love is deeper and more significant. Tolerance demands only that we give people space. Love demands that we enter into their space. Besides, if on our own we are okay, why do we need to be part of a church? If we are already okay, then why do we need God and one another?”

In the material I gave the review committee I also quoted one of Jack Haberer’s editorials in The Presbyterian Outlook. According to him, Grace must always be a church that “passionately proclaims[s] the wonder of God’s love, the grace of Christ’s mercy, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.” And Grace must never forget that “people need the Lord.”

No church ever consciously strives to end up like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon. But people are people, and people, even Christian people, are sinful. No congregation ever calls a pastor with the intention of despising him or her. No pastor ever knowingly accepts a call with the intention of destroying a church. But there will always be differences of opinion. None of us can like everybody all of the time. None of us is ever likable all the time.

The trick is to prayerfully work at being able to disagree without being disagreeable and to love one another no matter how unlikable folks might be. It’s kind of like marriage. There has to be trust. There has to be openness and honesty in which the truth, even the hard truth, can be spoken in love. There has to be a mutual respect of one another’s differences. There has to be loving, caring space in which to grow and change. There has to be patience in times of transformation. And when times get hard we each need to know that the other will be there for us.

My vision of Grace is that we become and remain a church that proves to the world that a congregation can be a safe, healthy place in which to find the Lord. My vision of Grace is one in which the un-churched around us can intuitively know that this is a good place to be. My vision of Grace is that we be known as a place where people do know that we are Christians by our love.

I cannot make that happen on my own. I cannot force us to love one another. I can model and encourage that love while preaching and teaching what God’s Word demands of us. I cannot harangue you into a state of financial generosity. I can preach and teach about stewardship. I can, along with other leaders of the church, be honest about our financial situation. And I can, without coming across as self-righteous, model faithful financial stewardship.

I cannot force you to be inviting and welcoming. I can preach, teach, and model biblical hospitality. I cannot, by myself, make Grace a safe, non-judgmental place for the un-churched to come and find Jesus. That is a task for us all. I cannot demand that you gather in small groups to study Scripture, pray together, and support each other in your walk with Christ. I can work with the Session and others to create opportunities.

As a multicultural church we have some unique dynamics. I cannot address them on my own. I cannot force an afro-centric style of worship on our non-African members; nor can I expect folks from Nigeria and Cameroon to be totally westernized. We must all open our hearts and minds to the possibility of learning from and sharing with each other the best of our separate cultures. This is especially true as we deal with the always delicate topic of financial stewardship. There has to be a mutual respect for our different styles and understandings. There is no right way to do it. There is no wrong way to do it. There is only God’s way and we must find it together.

That’s true of every facet of Christian living. Trouble is that our ways are not God’s ways and none of us has a monopoly on God’s will. We must seek God’s will together, each of us knowing that this side of heaven we’ll never have a firm grasp on its totality. We are going to disagree, but that’s okay. If you and I always agree, one of us is unnecessary. Some of our disagreements will be prove to be silly. Some of them may be serious. There will always be theological differences. There will be disagreements about biblical interpretation. There will always be the possibility of conflict.

But if we love one another as Christ has loved us, we’ll work through our differences without devolving into rancor, division, or anger. We will be able to let the world around us know that, for all our differences, we are united in Christ. We will be able to show the world that we are Christians. How? By our love. Amen.