See. Practice. Do.
Acts 2:42-47
Reverend Shannon Jordan
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
The FPCA mission statement is that we want people to experience the boundary breaking love of Jesus Christ through practicing radical hospitality, forming deep relationships, and joining in shared ministry. David and I both have shared how much of an impact the vision that this statement cast drew us into wanting to explore FPCA. Almost three and a half years later, I would say that FPCA is one of the few churches that truly embraces its mission statement. We are that church and we are working to stay that way!
For me, Acts 2:42 is the mission statement of sorts for the early church. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Our verses this morning continues and lifts the practice of radical hospitality, generosity, and corporate worship. As I reflected on this passage recently, I saw the pattern that is great for us to see and practice ourselves as we work together to fulfill the vision that God has for us here at FPCA.
See. Practice. Do.
Many of us are familiar with the mentoring or teaching principle to show someone how to do something, help them do it, then let them do it themselves. Acts 2 begins with Pentecost and structurally, these verses are a continuation of the Pentecost story… we will discuss this next week on Pentecost! Most of us know Pentecost for Christians is when the Holy Spirit came down on the disciples and flames were over peoples’ heads and they could speak in all of the languages of those people present. It is often called the birthday of the early church and June 8th we are going celebrate Pentecost with our churchwide picnic!
The verse before where we started this morning stated that 3000 people were added to the followers of Jesus on Pentecost. This new group was a mix of people from all over the Mediterranean who had come to Jerusalem for the Jewish practice of Pentecost, which was to celebrate the harvest, 50 days after Passover. People had different languages, different customs, different expectations from all over the Mediterranean area. It was an incredibly diverse group.
The people were there because the Hebrew Bible said in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy that Jews were to celebrate the Festival of Weeks and if possible to come to Jerusalem to do so. This was a mix of Jews from different synagogues…so they practiced their Jewish faith differently. They had different rabbis, so they had maybe some different understandings of the Jewish Law…and you add this new way of things. Think denominations in some ways. The really faithful would be who came to this festival, and people with some level of material freedom to leave their crops at harvest time. They probably came for the festival and were going to go back home, but they stayed to learn this new way of doing things—this fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures by Jesus of Nazareth who was the Messiah. This group devoted themselves to the teachings so that they could take what they learned back home. They did not come necessarily to stay for a length of time, so it was so important for them to share resources with one another.
These new believers SAW God at work. Through the Apostle’s teachings, they SAW God at work through the life and ministry of Jesus. They SAW God at work through signs and wonders like Galileans speaking in different languages. People pulled together to live out what they learned. They practiced. They worked together. They shared resources. They spent time together putting meals together. Think about the teamwork needed to pull together a big holiday dinner for company. They practiced generosity and collaboration. They practiced kindness and gentleness and learning what it really means to love their neighbors as themselves and who JESUS said were their neighbors.
It reminded me of after Helene when people were much less worried about the divisions and people came together to help out. To help people get food or gas or showers or water. It reminded me of the first week or two after Helene and how amazing things showed up here in our foyer. People would come, see what others were bringing or doing, and then someone else would do it. They would see what things could be brought in and when they went for supplies, they would bring back to share. It was someone seeing and finding a bucket shower sprayer and then buying an extra to share with a friend.
What they practiced. The people in the early church practiced together what they were called to do in their lives. Worshiping God. Studying scripture. Praying. Practicing generosity. They practiced that in the diversity of the early church so that they could go back and tell their own worshiping communities what they had learned and they could see changed people. Being the church with others and serving together towards a common goal gives us the opportunity to learn to serve with love, grace and forgiveness. For me coming to worship on Sundays is practicing what God tells us to do during the week. We practice worshipping God, receiving and giving forgiveness through confession, we practice reading scripture and applying it to our lives, we practice generosity through our giving. We practice rest and sabbath by prioritizing being at church and just being—not multi-tasking. In our sacraments we practice—in baptism, especially of infants, we see that it is all God who does the work, we don’t have to be able to do ANYTHING to be welcome into God’s family. Christ has done the work.
In Communion, we practice sharing a meal with people we know and don’t know, people we like and don’t like, people with whom we agree and don’t agree because we recognize it is God’s table, that all are welcome who want to come and that it isn’t up to us to decide who is in or out. Who is good enough or who isn’t. It is God’s table. The early church saw what God did through the life of Jesus. They practiced it with one another. Then they practiced radical hospitality. They were incredibly generous. Verse 45 says, “they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” The early church had examples of people who were leaders in this, Barnabas, and examples of those who lied about doing this—Ananias and Saphira.
Generosity was a key part of their identity in the early church. The Didache, written in the late first or early second century, is a great window into the values and practices of the early church. While not in our Bible, it is a wonderful way to better understand the early church. It has several sections dealing with practicing their faith—especially generosity. Didache 1: 4 says Do not turn away from anyone who is in need, but share everything, and do not say that anything is your own. For if you all share in the heavenly things, how much more in earthly things? As I thought about the idea of generosity, I thought about the generosity of not only money and resources, but the generosity of kindness, the generosity of care, of grace. Led by the Spirit, they practiced with people who were so very different than they were to come together to build a new way of doing things.
Those of you who know me know I am passionate about helping people become engaged using their gifts for the glory and service of God. I love how God has used so many pieces and parts of who I am to help others and I want others to receive the same joy and sense of purpose in their lives. When I started in ministry the rule of thumb that I heard over and over was that most churches only need 20% of their people to volunteer to run their church. That’s why they say that 20% of the people do 80% of the work and in some ways shame others for not volunteering within the church. The reality is that then opens up the rest of our congregation to go out and serve in our neighborhoods and community.
What I love about FPCA is how many of us support the ministries at FPCA and then our gifts, talents, passions, and interests overflow into the community—demonstrating radical hospitality—demonstrating the boundary breaking love of Jesus. We come together in community at FPCA, we see ways to serve, we practice serving, then we serve others. It is an amazing thing to watch!!
I want to invite you to think about where you are in your See—Practice—Do Loop. Are you doing what you have done for years and still loving it? Awesome! Are you doing it because it is a habit and you can’t imagine not doing it? Fantastic! If you are doing it but feeling a bit ho-hum, I invite you to find ways to see things differently. Expose yourself to new ideas, new people, new conversations. Sit somewhere else in church. Try serving on a different team. Ask the person beside you what they have seen that has changed their perspective.
Do you need to see a new vision? Do you know what your next new vision for what radical hospitality might look like? What might it look like to deepen relationships at church? Not just names and how are yous, but actual relationships? Where are you going to see something new? The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings. They were learning a new way of doing things. A way of being motivated by love, by grace, by compassion. Not by rules or fairness or tradition.
This summer we are going to have a Summer Book Club where we have picked several books that we hope will offer new or different ways to see things so that we can see, practice and do in our own lives. One of the books is Greg Boyle’s new book Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. You may or may not know Father Gregory Boyle. He is a Jesuit priest who became a pastor in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. This neighborhood had the highest concentration of gang activity in LA. He saw the violence. He saw 1,000 gang related killings in He saw that that the practices of suppression and mass incarceration were not working and he with his parish responded with radical hospitality—the decided to treat gang members as human beings.[1]
He saw. He practiced. He acted.
In this book, Boyle calls back to Christianity’s origins as a spiritual movement of equality, emancipation, and peace. Early Christianity was a way of life—not a set of beliefs. Boyle’s vision of community is a space for people to join together and heal one another in a new collective living, a world dedicated to kindness as a constant and radical act of defiance. As one homie, Marcus, told a classroom filled with inner-city teenagers, “If love was a place, it would be Homeboy.” They set up job training and provided places to practice the skills they were learning. I love that when he travels, he often takes one of the Homeboys or Homegirls with him so they can see a new way of doing things—practice doing them—so that they can do them on their own.
This is just one of the books offered that will help us learn to see others as God’s beloveds and to find places of peace and wholeness in a chaotic world. Many of you have noticed the new Bibles in our pews, including new children’s bibles called Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible. This is one of our five choices. Our thought was that regardless of your age to read and think about one of these stories each day this summer could give you a new perspective on God’s love. It is simple, but profound. Families could choose to do it or couples could read one and discuss.
There will be several other choices for the Summer Book Club…more information will come out this week on it. Stay tuned! I do hope you and your family will consider reading one and then coming to a luncheon at the end of the summer to sit with others who read your book so that you can discuss it and how it helped you see things differently and maybe how you have practiced something you learned.
For those who have more time or interest and want to meet several times to discuss the book you have chosen, if you want to give me your name, I can connect you with others who are also reading that book and you can work out a time to meet. If you have been in a Koinonia Group, this could be a great way to connect over the summer.
The early church devoted themselves to seeing a new way of doing things, practicing those things and doing those things through the power and leading of the Spirit. They practiced with one another and then went and did these things in the community. Verse 47 says that they had the goodwill of all of the people and the Lord added to their numbers every day. It has literally changed the world. It has transformed individuals and the individuals have lived lives differently with an incredible ripple effect. That’s what it means to experience the boundary breaking love of Jesus—you live differently. Our church is at an exciting inflection point. There is so much going on that is amazing and incredible. It is exciting to come and see and hear what God is doing in this place. The Spirit is at work, thanks be to God!
1 https://homeboyindustries.org/our-story/father-greg/