Oh, how good and pleasant it is, *
when brethren live together in unity!
Almost everyday the people of town would see Mamie Adams walking to the post office. It was a part of her daily routine and seldom, unless extreme bad weather prevented it, did Mamie miss her appointed destination. She particularly liked the branch in the center of town because the postal employees there were so friendly. Close to Christmas she went to buy stamps. The lines were particularly long, snaking out of the post office onto the front steps. Someone noticed her and said that if stamps was all she needed, there was a stamp machine in the lobby. To which Mamie replied, “I know, but the machine won’t ask me about my arthritis.”
We understand something about what Mamie Adams was talking about. We all long to be known; to have someone who notices and cares about us.
But in our fast paced world, where most women, men and children work long hours, where most of us live at a distance from our immediate families, where everyone is busy, and technology, though making it possible for us to work and socialize 24/7, often keeps us apart, we too often do not have regular time to gather with a group of people who will care about us at a deep and loving level. In a recent article in the New York Times, Jane Gross talked about being a single adult without children and how she was “haunted by the knowledge that there is no one who will care about me in the deepest and most loving sense of the word” “no one who will advocate for me, not simply for adequate care but for the small and arguably inessential things that can make life worth living.”[1]
Numerous studies are finding that we are increasingly disconnected and isolated from each other. Robert Putnam in his book, Bowling Alone, found that people in our culture long for a “collectively caring community”[2], that will know us and include us in a supportive network and yet these communities are diminishing as our culture becomes more and more enmeshed in pursuits that isolate us. Too many of us live our lives behind locked doors.
In the second Sunday of Easter we hear in the Gospel story that the followers of Jesus are hiding in a room that is locked out of fear. They are together, praying and remembering. They know what has happened to Jesus, the one they hoped would liberate them from their Roman oppressors, that he was crucified, died, and was buried. They have heard accounts from Mary Magdalene and other disciples that they have seen the risen Christ, but they have been unable to trust fully in this promise.
Here at the beginning, these first disciples are far from being ready to share the good news with others. They are locked in the upper room trying to figure out what has happened afraid of what might happen next. And then Jesus steps through this locked door fulfilling their wildest hopes. He shows them his wounds to let them know his triumph, offers them a peace that passes all understanding and infuses them with the breath of the Spirit of life. And John tells us that this is just a glimpse, that Jesus offered so many signs that they could not be contained in the book. But these things that we have received were given so that we might believe and have life abundant.
And we know it was enough. We hear the rest of the story from our reading in the Acts of the Apostles The followers left that locked room and through the “great power” of the “resurrection of the Lord Jesus” go into the world preaching and healing so that thousands have gathered in the name of the risen Lord.
In verse 33, Luke makes it clear that the source of this extraordinary gathering of community is the resurrection of Jesus: “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” The resurrection is the demonstration of the power of God over the powers of sin, death and destruction in the world. It is also the power to transform the lives of those who believe.
In Acts, Luke notes that the small community is unified: “one heart and soul.” This unity does not have at its core an administrative focus. Rather it is through their common mission to proclaim the resurrection gospel and to embody its redemptive truth by caring for one another through the “great grace that was upon them.” Such was the abundance of this grace that “there was not a needy person among them.”
And when we think about it, the quality of the church’s life together is evidence of the power of the resurrection. The most eloquent testimony to the reality of the resurrection is not the witness to an empty tomb or beautiful liturgy on Easter Sunday, but through a group of people who walk together, who worship together, who learn together, who serve together in ways that are radically different from the way that the world builds community. For thousands of years it has been so. There can be no explanation other than something decisive happened in history. As people of the resurrection, we follow the One who came into the world so that the world might know God. God who so loved the world that it is in God’s deepest nature that all may live in the light of God’s grace and abundant goodness.
It is our charge not to get stuck behind locked doors. It can be too easy to come together on a Sunday morning, sit and listen to beautiful music, prayers that open our hearts to the glory of God and then leave without greeting each other in the name of Christ. Or return to our homes and think no more about what we have promised on this day—to go into the world to love and serve the Lord. Churches with buildings in particular can spend much of their time together caring for the building rather than the people outside the walls. We may have known this experience.
Grace Church is here today because a community of followers of the risen Christ looked around and realized that they were becoming locked door people. Their energy and their resources were being consumed by edifices that while beautiful and meaningful, were keeping them from following Jesus into the world.
One community decided to step out into their community and repurpose their building for another use. Another community had their doors blown open when a wall fell, opening a space– that while painful—drew them out to seek and serve Christ in a new way. And here they have found each other and are reaching out to invite people who are looking for hope, looking for a community “who will care about (them) in the deepest and most loving sense of the word.” And together, through the great grace of God to become one heart and one soul. Nothing held back, everything shared, seeking to be that community where no one’s needs are unnoticed or unmet.
Not that we are always perfect in this aspiration. There will certainly be times when our care tank is low, when we already have too many obligations in front of us, when our own needs cloud our ability to see the other. But that is the hope of resurrection. We grow into discipleship and grow closer to God and one another. We learn to love, we learn to serve, and we learn to give. We who come here want to be generous with all that we have been given and we want to follow the gospel command to love God and neighbor. It is often in this time, that Jesus steps beyond our locked door to show us that we do not need to fear. That we are people of the resurrected Christ. We are the people of abundant love. Jesus gives us his peace and breathes his grace into us filling us with great power.
When I was in elementary school I had a group of friends that in some way acted with one heart and soul. We could be found day and night in different parts of the neighborhood. We would spend hours in each other’s houses in sleepovers, listening to music, riding our bikes, playing in the yard—whatever we could dream up.
Different people had different things to offer: one had a great record collection, one had a spare bedroom, one had a big back yard, and one had a playhouse. But the beauty of this group was that we all treated them as if they were held in common. When the group was at my house, we ate the food provided there; if we were at another’s house, we ate there. We shared everything, from clothes and toys to meals and games, so it was like we were all living in abundance. We shared, not out of duty or a sense of rule, but out of a sense of community and grace. It is that type of community that can only come when the members are acting with one heart and soul.
Luke places the grace of God at the center of this passage. This grace implores those in this group to act with one heart and soul; it drives them to respond to the needs of others before tending to their own wants and desires. The whole group of those who believed held everything in common because they each bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power. And great grace was upon them all.”
This is our call as Christians—to be a community where we are all held by God and we all hold each other. Not that we will ever be of one mind on liturgy or theology, or even our call to social justice, but that we hold in common a care for each other as Christ cares for us. That we create a space where we can rejoice in who God has created to be, that we can find love as together we worship, and learn, and pray and rejoice and grieve and then go into the world in faith proclaiming life and love through the one in whom we live and move and have our being. In this way we become one heart and one soul in the risen Christ, where locked doors will never contain our joy or our spirit for service.
Today we offer a time to gather following worship, to break bread with one another and set aside a space to share a part of each of us with someone we may not know well. We are going to have lunch together. I know that some of you have been together as a part of a faith community for many years. But after you get a plate of food, I invite you to take a seat beside someone you do not know well. On each table are baskets with cards inside. Select one card and turn to that person you want to know better and ask the question or questions on the card. This is a time to listen deeply. To allow one other person to be heard and known. Once you have asked the question, listen to the response without interrupting or sharing your ideas or experience. Just listen and if you hear something you want to know more about, follow that impulse to ask another question. After a time, allow the person to ask you a question.
I invite you today to learn a bit more about someone with whom you share worship that you knew when you got here today. Carry that person in your heart and in your prayers. It is in this way that we can begin to grow our community and create a space where we welcome in those who long for a place where they are truly known at a deep and loving level.
Together let us continue to create a space where we and others are known. Where all that we are and all that we have are held in common so that no one goes away without feeling the great grace of God. All will know that we are Christians when we embody the risen Christ through our love and God’s great grace will be upon us all.
[1] Jane Gross. Single, Childless, and “Downright Terrified,” http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/single-childless-and-downright-terrified/
[2] Robert D. Putnam. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000.