Witness: The Community (Acts 2:42-47)

All By Myself

Don’t want to be all by myself. We’ve all been where Eric Carmen is. But that kernel thought that we do not want to be by ourselves is at another level these days. Health and sociology researchers are increasingly aware of a new pandemic that can be found in every corner of our culture. It not only threatens our health, but threatens our social fabric. It is a silent killer. We spend billions every year trying to keep it in check and it doesn’t seem to be working. In 2018, 1 in 10 Americans said they were dealing with constant isolation and loneliness. By 2021, another Harvard research project showed that that number is now over 4 in 10 Americans, thanks to the COVID pandemic. Loneliness and isolation are not only factors in the rising suicide rate, now the number 2 killer of young people, and the leading cause of depression, anxiety, addiction, accelerating dementia and Alzheimer’s, and higher risk of heart disease. 20 percent of millennials report having no friends and no acquaintances. All this in spite of the fact that both Gen Z and millennials average around 4 hours a day on social media.

Most alarming is another research project that suggests that while the problem of loneliness and isolation are accelerating, Americans are increasingly less inclined to engage with others. The University of Chicago released a report just last month that shows only 27% of us believe that “community involvement” is very important, down from 62% just four years ago. A survey of 1200 non-profits last year shows community engagement has decline more than 50% in the last four years.

This is exacerbated by the way our individualism affects the way we connect with one another. Mass transit advocates find their plans typically go nowhere because we’d rather ride in our cars alone to work rather than share our space with others on buses, trains, or even carpools. We just don’t like being around people we don’t know, outside of the football games. For years, developers have made billions building neighborhoods filled with cul-de-sacs, an arrangement that sociologists say does build cohesion between neighbors inside the cul-de-sac, but that cohesion tends to be tribal... and instead fractures connections with the larger neighborhood and community. We all admit that we were never meant to be alone. But we are our own worst enemy when it comes to building a society where loneliness and isolation are kept in check.

Is church the answer?

At the heart of the Acts passage we read moments ago, is the answer for the epidemic of isolation and loneliness. But even as we look at this passage, and we consider what it means to be the church, we have to put it right up front that the fracture of community includes the church. Is church the answer? Has it been? Almost 40% of the people who live around us, used to go to church and they stopped going to church and they are not coming back, even with our explanations that we’re different than the church they gave up on. They’ve been burned by church, they’ve been hurt by church members who lack love. The two biggest reasons people are de-churched are beliefs that the church is full of hypocrites and hateful people.. that’s where the lack of love is reflected… and the church is irrelevant to their daily lives.. also where a lack of love is reflected. And too often, the church blames the victim for not putting a high enough priority on church.

We have to own this as we consider this question: What is it that makes a church, the church? Historically, the most common and well-known answer is one found in the older confessions…

“a church is where the Gospel is faithfully preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered.”

This is a helpful starting point. Certainly, this is what we aim to do here at the Table… we preach the Word because it is here Christ meets us. And we administer the Table because it is here that Christ feeds us.

But presumed in this formal definition of "church" is that this is a gathering of people around the Word and sacraments. A gathering of people who are connected to Jesus connecting other people to Jesus. Both here in our services and beyond our gathering. "Church" is not a building… it is people.

Jesus came to earth to save his people from their sins. That was his mission. And that mission has been given to those who are His. But notice… he came to save people. Plural. He doesn’t just save individuals. He saves people. When he saves, he places people into community. He has been doing this since the very early stages of the church. That passage we read follows one of the biggest events in the story of the Bible.

Pentecost: A New Community

The Holy Spirit descends in tongues of fire and St. Peter, the same Peter who denied Jesus when Jesus was on trial.. Peter preaches a sermon to thousands who are gathered at the temple in Jerusalem. He tells the crowd a story about God making promises in the Old Testament to send Israel a savior… a Messiah… a ruler who would bring about the salvation of the nation and set up a rule on earth. Israel had been waiting for this Promised Champion for a couple of thousand of years… going all the way back to Abraham and Moses and Joshua and David. And Peter says in just the past few years, God finally sent the champion. And instead of embracing the champion who was promised, Israel killed him. Crucified him. They crucified the very guy who had been promised for thousands of years.

That crowds of thousands is stunned. They are convicted. They are full of remorse for their sin. And they turn to Jesus. Just like that. Here’s what Dr. Luke tells us in Acts 2:

Those who accepted his message were baptized and that day about three thousand people were added to them.

3000 people are connected to Jesus through baptism that day. And this is the beginning of what we know to be the church… the community of believers. For the past 2000 years, people have been connected to Jesus the same way… over and over and over and over… accepting in faith the Good News that Jesus has died for their sins and being baptized.

But the story doesn’t end there. The natural question that arises from this story or any other story like it is this… now what? Once Jesus saves us from our sin, what’s next? Our Bible lesson from Acts is the answer to that question.

Here’s what that passage tells us:

Those who had accepted the message and were baptized then devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Whatever you think you know about church, whatever I think I know about church, right here is what those who know Jesus do. Four things that characterized these 3000 plus in Acts, and what characterizes us here at the Table. The very first characteristic is that they:

Devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.

They focused on the Bible. If they somehow read their Bibles wrong and missed the fact that Jesus was the One who had been Promised in the Old Testament, they were going to make sure they knew Jesus better in their Bibles. The apostles who had spent time with Jesus now teaching and preaching all the things Jesus had taught them regarding the Good News of forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Jesus.

The second characteristic is that they:

Devoted themselves to the fellowship.

They gathered. There’s a fancy word here called Koinonia. This is the first description of church. Before the church was known as a gathering, they were known as a fellowship. They didn’t isolate themselves. This passage later describes them meeting together every day of the week. Eating together. Doing life together. Sharing what they had with each other. “All the believers were together” this passage says. This is a new community coming together with a new identity and a new focus. They not only hear and study and teach the Bible together, they serve others together… sharing and caring for those who had needs.

The third characteristic is that they

Observed communion together.

They were devoted to the “breaking of bread”, which is how the early Christians talked of the Lord’s Table or the Lord’s Supper. To get together to focus on the Word and to be with one another in a community was to feast at the Lord’s Table. To be at the Table was to belong to the community.

The fourth characteristic is they

Devoted themselves to prayer.

This new community that gathered around the Word spent time talking to the very One in whom they had placed their faith. Prayer is simply talking to God, talking to Jesus about all of life… our concerns, our hurts, our blessings, all the good things that happen, our requests, our desires, letting Jesus know. And doing it together. As a gathering.

These four things became the mark of the community.

The Word, the fellowship, the communion, and prayer.

Wherever those who had been saved by Jesus were meeting, this is what they were doing. This is the model and pattern for all that we do.

When we are connected to Jesus, Jesus places us in a community, a community in which we continue to tell our story through the Word and through communion. In this community, we encourage each other and talk to God together through prayer. It is in this community we get to know Jesus better, a place where we find continually find grace and life and forgiveness of sins. A place of hope and rest.

The end of this passage in Acts ends much like it began:

Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Every day. Every day they gathered around the Word and communion and prayer. And every day Jesus placed more people into their community through the gospel. The upshot is this: a community gathering together around the Word and communion and prayer leads to Jesus continuing to place people in that community.

This is his design for his people. To be in a community. Here in the very early minutes and days of this new community we have a window into what they considered was important for their community.

We use the word “church” to describe what is happening here, but over the past 2000 years, the word “church” has taken on all sorts of extra meanings, some of which can’t be found anywhere in our Bibles. I don’t know what you think “church” is. I often say, “church” is not a building. The “church” is a community of people who come together to do these things… listen to and learn from the Bible, received life and forgiveness in communion, prayer with each other and be on mission and serve others together. It’s all here. If we, as The Table, are going to be what Jesus designed us to be, we will be teaching and preaching and learning the Word and receiving communion, and praying and serving and connecting others to Jesus, being a Witness to Jesus… doing all of this together. As a community.

Jesus designed His people, those who are identified as sons and daughters of the King, to live in community as a Witness to the world. Together. Not in isolation. There is no isolation for Jesus’s people. All those stats… the church must be and will be a place of hospitality and healing for our neighbors. The brokenness of our society and isolation finds healing in the community. A safe respite where Jesus provides his love and compassion to us through people, through the community, through each other.

We are not perfect. We are just as broken as anyone else. We don’t do these things well. We continue to work on these things. We gather as sinners. We serve together as people who need Jesus to forgive us and heal us. We aren’t great. We aren’t the experts. What we can promise is that Jesus is here. And Jesus brings us together to find grace and mercy and life in His Word and the Table. And he brings us together to serve each other and to serve others.We are “Loved by Jesus”, brought together “For the love of Los Fresnos.” Not in isolation. But together. We have no building. But we have Jesus. And we have each other. That’s what a church is. That’s what a community is. Life together with Jesus.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

From the very beginning of the church, central to its life was the Table. Twice in our passage, “breaking of bread” is mentioned. It becomes quite clear that the Table and communion is central to the identity of the gathering. In those days, there was no such thing as “membership” per se… you knew who was part of the community by who was at the Table. And in those days, more often than not, they weren’t simply putting together a table of wine and bread. No… they ate full-course meals and during the meals would celebrate communion with the bread and the wine. Over the course of 2000 years, the rest of the feast went missing and now we simply have the bread and the wine. Regardless of how it comes to us, what we do know is that the Table was the centerpiece of the community. It is where the family gathers to feed from Jesus himself, taking a cue from that very first night when Jesus told his 12 followers to continue to eat the bread and drink the wine in his name for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.