Back to the Basics, Part 2

INTRODUCTION

We are on part 2 of an examination of one of the most earliest passages of Scripture detailing the life rhythms of the early church. Specifically in Acts 2:42, Luke (the author) details that the church devoted itself (lit., they steadfastly persisted) to four things: the teaching of God’s word, the sharing of their possessions, the breaking of bread, and prayer. That’s it. It seems simple, almost insufficient. But this dedicated life rhythm became the bedrock foundation for the church, and through it, the Spirit moved and animated and empowered God’s people. In my journal this week, I wrote down the words “ordinary awe.” I think that’s the vision statement of the church: to be captivated, day in and day out, by the Gospel’s saving power and Spirit’s sustaining joy. It’s ordinary because it’s not structured around these huge events, these once-in-a-lifetime moments or explosions. The church had no smoke machines, video screens, or sound systems. They just listened together, shared together, ate together, and prayed together. It was decidedly ordinary. And yet, in the midst of the ordinary, there was awe and wonder, there was joy and sincerity. There was worship and love. It was unlike anything they had ever known before, and it was all the time. Ordinary Awe. I'd suggest that we are not only capable of experiencing this in the church today; we ought to expect it. We ought to live as though ordinary awe is something we can experience 24/7, if we believe that the Jesus the King dwells in our midst right now, drawing us near, gently urging us to drop our bitterness, our distractions, our frustrations, our selfish ways, and to see him and each other through the lens of a gracious gospel.

PRAY

Last week, we looked at teaching and fellowship (sharing our haves and our needs with one another). Today, we finish up by looking at the breaking of bread, and prayer.

BREAKING BREAD

Acts 2:46 CSB

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts,

They devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and breaking bread in their homes. This a daily rhythm of Christian community. Put yourself in the shoes of a first-century Jesus follower. You’ve just surrendered your life to a risen King who rules from heaven, whose throne is not of this world. Everything about who you are and what you value is different. It has to be. You can’t look at your life the same way again. You can’t order your life according to things that make sense from the values and vision of this world. Not anymore.

So what do you do? Where do you go?

You go to the temple, the sacred space. And these men are there, teaching about Jesus, reading the Hebrew Scriptures and pointing every truth to the reality that Jesus is God made flesh, come to rule and reign. A huge crowd of people has joined you to listen. You are all in awe hearing about this Jesus. Then you go off to work, and you keep thinking about what those apostles were saying. On your way home, you run into a few people you saw at the temple with you. They’re talking about Jesus, they’re sharing about what they saw, there is a spark in their eyes. They see you and wave you over. They are heading over to someone’s house to eat and drink, and they invite you to join them. You think about all your old friends and neighbors. None of them understand the change that has come over you. But these people seem to understand, and they don’t care about your past, or the things you’ve done, or the family you came from. They seem to genuinely care about you. So you go with them. You enter the house and walk over to the table. There is a diverse group of men and women standing there, from different backgrounds, different generations, different socio-economic strata; but no one seems more important than the other, there’s no judgment, no pretense. Everyone is here for one reason: they love Jesus, their lives have been changed, and they love one another. The table itself covered in an array of foods; it seems that whatever anyone had, they shared. They brought what they could—some brought more, some brought less. For a brief moment, you feel a bit ashamed, because you didn’t bring anything, but no one seems to mind at all—they are just glad you are here. The smell of the food and the joy on everyone’s faces lifts your spirit higher than it’s been in a long time, and you can’t wait to dig in with your new friends. But before you do, a young man reaches toward the center of the Table and picks up a freshly baked loaf of bread. Everyone pauses their laughter and chatter for a moment. The young man breaks off a piece of bread and passes it to his left, and he says, We are here because Jesus is our king, and his body was broken for us. Our life is found in him. We are nourished by his spirit, we are fed by his truth. His presence dwells with us, and by his death, we have found life. One by one, everyone takes a piece of the bread and hands it to the next. As you break off a piece of the body of bread, you hold the morsel in your hand, thankful for the king you all serve, and you realize that somehow, in some way that you can’t quite understand, Jesus is here with you all right then, uniting you all by his broken body. Then an older woman takes a flask of wine and pours some into a cup. She says, We are here because Jesus is our king, and his blood was poured out for us. That blood runs in our veins now, filling us with life. We are made clean by his blood washing over us all. The cup is passed from person to person, who takes a drink and hands it off. As you hold the cup, you think of Jesus’ blood pouring out from his side, and you realize that you should have died that death, that your sin should have condemned you, but instead, you find yourself here, surrounded by loved ones. Your hand shakes as you lift the cup to your lips. The wine is sweet and sour at the same time. Tears fill your eyes as you are at once humbled, grateful, and overflowing with joy and love. Every smiles at each other and starts eating and laughing and sharing their lives, where God found them and saved them, and how their lives have never been the same. As you leave for the night and head back to your home, all you can is, I can’t wait for tomorrow.

The breaking of bread is about community, it’s about eating and drinking and enjoying one another, kind of like the ancient art of pot-lucking. But it’s also the forerunner of what in the church is called “communion” (or the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist, or the Table). Historically, biblically, the Table (the bread and the cup) is an act of remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice, one of two sacraments that mark believers as distinct from the world. Communion is the sign of salvation, and baptism is the sign of covenant membership. Both of these acts are unique and exclusive to the Christian community; if you are not a believer or are not sure where you stand with Jesus, I’d encourage you to observe Christians, watch how they partake and participate, but these signs are not for you, they mean nothing too you. The sacraments are signifiers, they are symbols, but they are also signs of a deeper reality, the very presence of Christ dwelling among his people. The Bread and Cup were typically taken at the start of a meal, to acknowledge the truth that the community of people we are with is our family bought by the broken body and spill blood of Christ. This happened daily, because daily, the people met to share meals with each other, to eat together, to enjoy one another’s company. They freely admitted as they came to break bread, that there commonality, their unity, was not something they came up with, but something Jesus did for them. They didn’t worry about whether the bread was leavened or unleavened, whether the wine was red or white or Welsh’s. They didn’t worry about whether they got the script just right. All that mattered is that Jesus was in the room with them, that everything they had, every ounce of joy and beauty, was from him.

As a church, we have recently committed to sharing Table Fellowship (or Communion) every time we gather as church for worship and teaching. I think that’s good, and I think it’s important that we continue to give the practice of communion a higher pride of place in our gatherings. I think it’s important that we remain faithful to that. But, at the same time, I think we can be faithful to the practice of communion and still the mark. Remember that phrase, ordinary awe. I have often observed how the church, in trying to do everything just right, will either give up on awe in pursuit of the ordinary, or give up on the ordinary in pursuit of the awe. What we end up with, on one side of the spectrum, are Christians who go through the motions, attend gatherings every Sunday, do daily devotions, take communion, and pray prayers, but Christianity has become a lifeless ritual, devoid of life or joy or compassion or love. On the other side are Christians who can’t sit still for thirty seconds, who are seeking that rush of energy and excitement, the freshest and newest teachings, the coolest ministry toys, and the hippest pastors. On and on they search for awe, forsaking the simple, forsaking the mundane, ignoring the ordinary. And you can imagine what happens to each these extremes, which I think we all experience at some point in the Christian life. The ordinary becomes unbearable, devoid of divinity, and is left to collect dust. Similarly, the thrill-seeker falls short of his next fix, loses hope, and departs from the path of Jesus in search of something newer and more spectacular.

I urge you to pursue the path of ordinary awe among the community of the church. Break bread in your homes. Invite each other into the mess of your lives. Bring whatever you can to share with one another. Laugh together, play together, spend time together. And recognize the grace of God that makes it all possible. Dwell in the richness of mercy that unites you. Look, what’s the attitude of the church as they broke in bread in homes? They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts. They were truly satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ. He was all they needed. The word for sincere here (the only time it’s used in the whole Bible) just means simplicity. This was all they needed. This was all they wanted. Their love was pure, simple, easy, uncomplicated. It was Jesus, and it was each other.

I want that for us. I want the love we share to be simple. You and me and Jesus. We come together as often as we can. We break bread, we share a cup, we eat and we laugh and we share. And Jesus pulls us in and gives us joy and peace and satisfaction.

PRAYER

Acts 2:46–47 CSB

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Finally, the church prays together. they praised God, they enjoyed the favor of people. Prayer here is praise, it is thankfulness, it is communion with God. In teaching, God speaks good news to his people. In Communion, God speaks good news to his people. In prayer, his people speak gratitude, fear, joy, praise, worship.

Throughout the book of Acts we find the church praying (Acts 4:31; 12:5; 13:1-3). Our prayers show our dependency on God. Our prayers glorify God, who is the source of all our blessings. One of the great joys of meeting together is praying together.

Not only that, we sing. Our songs are prayers. Do you realize that? At least, they can be. I’m not sure we always remember that.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book entitled Life Together while serving the church in Germany in 1938. He has some powerful reflections on what is and what is not authentic Christian community. In it, he writes about the importance of singing within the church. It is meant to unify. In his opinion, everyone sings in unison; that way, no one takes center stage, no one shows off their skill. People sing badly, it doesn’t matter. People sing beautifully, it doesn’t matter. People sing quietly or loudly, and it doesn’t matter. What is heard is not twenty voices or a hundred voices. It’s one voice, lifting up the same prayer, the same song, the same response of praise and glory and honor.

The prayerful praise of the church is absolutely vital to the life of the community. In intercession, we invite God to lead our prayers, to show us what to say, what needs to be spoken, what words of encouragement need to be given. In supplication, we ask God for our needs, we share our hurts and our brokenness, we expose our lack and our weakness before a God who cares and provides. In praise, we bless God, we give him the glory he is due, we lift him up above all rulers, powers, authorities. In thanksgiving, we tell God how grateful we are, how much he means to us, however everything we have is because of him. Through our prayer, the hearts of men become more joyful, more grateful, more humble, more dependent. As we bless God through our voices, God blesses us. It is a beautiful cycle of blessing and gratitude, a reciprocal dance between God and man. Like the apostles teaching, like the fellowship, like the breaking of bread, our prayer separates the church by means of a great grace.

Again, be wary of ordinary prayer, rote ritual words meant to satisfy the requirements. Prayer should not be bland, boring, or lifeless. You are speaking to the God of the universe, and he is listening. At the same time, be wary of the extraordinarily awe-ful prayer. Prayer does not need to be oratory brilliance, a taking of the limelight to declare to the world how much more you love God than everyone else. Instead pursue the ordinary awe variety of prayer and praise. Sing simply, speak plainly, but genuinely call on the name of Jesus to direct you, to guide you, to bring about healing and hope and salvation. And watch him respond.

CONCLUSION

A couple years ago, we sent one of our church leaders down to San Francisco to visit a network of over 200 house churches to see if there was anything we could learn. And trust me, there is a whole lot we can learn. Normally, every Sunday each church meets in a house, 15-20 people, an Elder and a Pastor in each home. They sing, they pray, they eat, and they study the word of God. But on this particular Sunday, all of the house churches from around the region met in one place. Hundreds of people, normally scattered and collected into small communities, met together as one. The leader told me what he saw. They had no screens for the lyrics; people sang if they knew the words, they closed their eyes and listened worshipfully if they didn’t. There were no handouts, no bulletins. There was one girl with a guitar, and one speaker to amplify the sound. Then they took the mic and gave it to one of the pastors, who gave a message. Then they shared a meal together. They hugged one another, they shared life, they chatted joyfully. As they departed for their homes, they would learn about needs and give so that those needs were taken care of. They don’t own a building. They have no technology, no gadgets. They have shepherds, they have members, and everyone loves, everyone share, everyone learns, everyone encourages, everyone ministers.

You don’t need much to see the church thrive and grow. You need Jesus, you need each other, and you need a healthy dose of ordinary awe.

PRAY