The Beginning of the Church

“The Beginning of the Church”

Obviously, right now there are a lot of discussions going on about reopening. And as I said earlier, we are quickly moving toward that right now. But even so, there have been a lot of conversations this past week about it. And even before that!

I am glad for all those who have given us ideas about how and when to do it. All those other pastors I have spoken with about what they are doing. And those across all denominations!

One thing, though, that I find gets lost in all the discussions of church, is what the church is. Or what it was started to be. I think that it gets lost because we forget. We get wrapped up in what the church means to us - which is all good, please understand! But we get lost in those things we find value in, and forget the value of what the church was to the world right there at the beginning of it all!

So, today, we are celebrating that. We celebrate the culmination of Christ! The final, full, proof of His divinity and the absolute beginning of what we are called to be! Not just a communion. Not just a place to worship. Not just where we get spiritual training! But the church. The movement for which God gave His life.

Acts 1:6–14 ESV

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

Acts 1:6-14

Pray

[Ekklesia]

If we are going to talk about “the church”, then we have to begin with what it really means, at least what it meant. The word that the earliest writers of Christian texts - those that are canonized in the Bible and some that aren’t - points us toward an idea that runs counter to what we think the church is.

The word means literally “to call out.”

Ekk = out of, kaleo = to call

To call out.

And that idea can be found here in the text we have today. At the very root of all that we are!

You see, the disciples are there with Jesus, and no doubt are sensing that His time with them is coming to an end. Some 40 days now after His resurrection, Jesus had asked them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the helper that He would send. All this implying - and quite clearly at that - that Jesus was going away!

And John’s gospel makes that even more clear. Jesus had died, and risen! So naturally, the disciples would want Him to stay there with them! They - like us - would be under the impression that things would go back the way they were.

But that wasn’t what God had in mind. So with the fear of change. With the weight of a world that seems so different from what they knew, and what they want. With everything seemingly crumbling around them, Jesus tells them to wait.

Acts 1:6 ESV

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Acts 1:6

And their reply to that impending difference. That world that is waiting for them beyond what they know and want, is to ask Jesus when He will make things like they want it to be.

When will you restore Israel to like it was in the time of David or Solomon? When will you make things like all those stories we heard about our people? When will you bring us all back together to Jerusalem so that we will know you are God?

As if dying and returning to life - on top of all the other miracles - were not enough!

In our modern context the analogy is clear. Sometimes we offer some interesting nuance to it, but the point remains. We want God’s plan to come to fruition! We ask when God will come and take care of all of this! Some of us look for God to hasten His return and judgement, while others just want to get back to the ekklesia again.

When will you fulfill your promise? When will we finally be at rest from our waiting, or our compromising? When will all this, whatever this might be, be over?

Acts 1:7 ESV

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.

Acts 1:7

That isn’t for us to know. We don’t get to dictate when God moves! We don’t get to know all those things that are God’s alone to know! The how, the why, they why not - all things that we all long to know, but all things that aren’t for us to know!

And honestly, it is just pride and arrogance that stands in our way of living a life unburdened by those feelings! We can be patient! We can learn to accept what we have and live with it!

At the end of the day, it is impossible to dispel ignorance if you retain arrogance.

We aren’t called to be ignorant of that ways of God and to instead just know that stuff that we want to know! Or even to be able to do what we want to do! We are called to be the church. The ekklesia. The very body of Christ!

And today, that has a renewed importance! You see, this celebration of ascension reminds us that Christ left us - but His presence remains! His Spirit, which we celebrate coming next week, is intended to fill us and to make US His presence in this life!

That is what the ekklesia is! The body - or put in a more figurative way - the bodies of Christ!

Not the gathering where we sing old songs! Not the place where we dress up and get to see friends! Not the building where we meet with people to catch up on the dirt and talk about all the stuff that has been happening around town!

We are the church - the ekklesia - those called out of the normal life. And called into a life that resembles, models, and lifts up the life of Christ in all that we do and say and think!

And when we act like we know everything - when arrogance and control are our tools and our go-to, we don’t live like Christ. We don’t reflect Christ. And we sure don’t draw ANYONE to Christ.

I have had several other conversations this past week from people who have unfriended others on social media. They just can’t take the negativity that they reflect into the cyber world. The constant division. The hate. The discord. All things that display the arrogance that stands in the way of Jesus being seen in our lives. And honestly - all things that threaten to be the very end of the church.

[called out]

But we are called out of that life. We don’t have to prove those points! We don’t have to reflect that into the world!

We are called out of it! We are called out of pain. Called out of hardship. Called out of expectations! Called out of the time and place in which we live! Called out of habits! Called out of normal - whatever normal might be!

But we are also called out of comfort, out of conformity, out of our expectations and comfort zone!

We are called out, because to not be called out, to fail to abandon that behavior and to constantly live a life reflecting our wants and arrogance and not Christ’s own Spirit and love is to not be the church at all!

You see, the church is intended to symbolize something bigger than all those things. The church is the living representation of God on earth. It isn’t some holy place to which pilgrimage every Sunday - it is the reality of our lives. Lives lived out for others under the direction and power of the living God!

But we let expectations, traditions, comfort, normalcy, pain, habits - all that stuff were are called out from - we let that inform our reality so much more than we let God. And in our present situation, we even let it inform what we think the church is!

And there, in that translation of what God expects, we lose God’s intentions, and in so doing, lose the very core of what we are.

Let me be perfectly clear about this - so if you are getting coffee or cruising the internet in another tab, take a second and listen up!

[We are the church]

WE are the church.

Not this building. Not the songs. Not even the gathering!

All that we are, is the culmination of the creator’s purpose. We are called out of the normal patterns of creation with the intent to show a new way! A BETTER WAY! The very way Christ claims to be!

We are called out of having to be right. Of having to do this or that, or whatever! And having been called out of having to have our way, or to know the times and dates of God’s plan - having been called out of that arrogance we are called toward a life that is lived from moment to moment!

A life that doesn’t labor or spin! That doesn’t preoccupy itself with the concerns that come when you don’t get your way! A life that is blissfully unmoved by those small bits of drama that we are so inclined to fill our lives with!

A life that longs for what God longs for! A life called out of the depths of us - of what we think and what we expect - and towards a life that experiences God where and how we are! And for us today, a life that begins to reflect and become the very body of Christ!

Church, it is so easy to just go somewhere every week and feel like we have been obedient to God, and SO HARD TO BE THE CHURCH. So hard to be obedient every day. To be the body. To listen to the head and do what it wants!

I think that is something that we have a chance to work through and move beyond. That is a sort of silver lining to this moment in which we find ourselves.

We are called out of all that stuff. Out of ourselves. So that we can be called into the body - the church - the global gathering of those who love God and serve Him and others.

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Acts 1:8

That is our ultimate call after all.

So often we get things so complicated that we forget Jesus’ own words. Church, Jesus offers us so many moments where we can clearly see His goal for us on this earth. And two of them, I feel, are fundamentally the very core of all that He wants us to be!

The first is the Greatest Commandments.

When God in flesh tells us that the two best things we can do in this life are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves - we should probably listen. And love doesn’t divide. It doesn’t lie. It isn’t selfish. To quote Paul, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

Love doesn’t pause when it comes to our driving habits, or our politics, or our social preferences! It isn’t only patient when we’ve had our fill! It isn’t kind only when it is easy! It isn’t selfish - ever!

Love doesn’t have a flexible definition - even if we preachers from time to time overly parse the words used for love. It is purely, and simply, a feeling of deep affection. One we are called to have for ALL people on this earth. Every. Single. One.

We are called out of the behaviors and desires that lead us to love ourselves and called to be the church. The ekklesia.

The second moment where Christ gives us a clear idea of our job here on earth is here in this text.

We are called out of our normal and called to be witnesses for Him.

And this word here, witness, has a lot of difficult implications. The word used is martus - from which the word martyrs is derived.

Not that we are being called to that - please don’t misunderstand - but that is the idea behind this word and our call.

A witness is one who can aver - which means essentially relate in some way - what they know or have seen or been told.

A witness is someone who is changed by something - in our case by the final proof and offering of God! And being changed, they now live for that new thing - or within that paradigm. And if we love Christ, and believe in Him, then we are changed to then become this new thing! An Ekklesia! People who are called out of the darkness and into the light! People called out of preference in the body! A people called to be a witness to the transformational and life-altering power of the Holy Spirit! The very reflection of the God of all things!

We are witnesses! We aren’t churchgoers! We aren’t a social club! We are a part of the earthly collection of the body! And that, church, is so much bigger than this building and even this day!

[The beginning of the church, is the end of ourselves…]

Ultimately, the beginning of the church is the end of ourselves. Of our wants and desires. And the beginning of a life that God redirects towards His goals. A life called out of what it was, and into all that it can be.

That is you. That is me. That is us. We are the body - We are the church! We are those called out to become the witnesses to AND FOR Christ in this world. And in whatever shape the world finds itself and us!

Let’s live into that calling, church. In all we think, say, and do, let us never forget this ascension moment, and this call to be His witnesses. At home. At work. On the roads. At the store. On social media. Wherever we are. We are called out of what we want to think, say, and do, and called to be a witness to the overwhelming and endless love of God.

And that doesn’t just happen here. It is everywhere, and in every moment and every interaction. You are still the church - and still the body. Having been called, let us now live into that calling and for that purpose.