What is the Church For? (3) The Church is For Service.

The video is posted on our fb page, here.

What is the Church for? What is its purpose in the plan of God? We began reflecting on that question two weeks ago when we said the Church was for worship. It is God’s instrument to lead creation in the right praise of the Creator both now, while awaiting its redemption, and in the end when God shall be all and in all. Before the new heaven and new earth, the Church’s worship is a simple pattern. Can you name it? Here we go. Gather. Listen. Eat. Pray. Remember that.

Then came last week. What is the Church for? The Church is for evangelism. It is for announcing the Good News that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. It is an announcement in which all of us are implicated for if we are “in Christ,” then the life that raised him from the dead now lives in us. Announcing the resurrection of Jesus is bearing witness both to a past event and a present reality. We are all evangelists, witnesses to the resurrection.

Now, today the final strand in the braid. What is the Church for? The Church is for service, and service here has a very focused object: service to the poor.

Why does that need to be emphasized? Why must we highlight the object of service? The reason is simple: we live in a time and place where Christian culture continues to have significant residual effect on how governments manage the affairs of our nation, our province, and our local region. And one of their main concerns is the alleviation of poverty. Nothing wrong with that. That’s a good thing.

It was not always the case, you know. In the ancient world to which Christianity came with its radical message that a crucified Jew was God’s end-time King, generosity was a virtue. It was called magnanimity. Great heartedness. It was part of the virtuous pagan life to be a great-hearted person. To give gifts of wealth. But where did such gifts go?

Well, they might go to other wealthy people so that you could “cash in the favour” if you ever needed one. Do you remember the movie, The Godfather? It’s my favorite movie. In the opening scene, Don Corleone is shown giving gifts on his daughter’s wedding day. But the gift comes with a warning: “There may come a day when you will be required to do a service for your Godfather. But until that day, accept this as a gift.” That was one way to be great-hearted in the ancient world: use your wealth to curry favour and buy favours from your friends.

Or, gifts could be given to your city. The construction of great buildings, or public works of art, or even whole cities that would then bear your name, or the name of one whom you wished to impress. This was also an example of great-heartedness.

One thing the virtue of magnanimity did not mean in the ancient world was caring for the poor, that is, slaves, women and children.

And then came the Christians. Either Jewish followers of Jesus or, increasingly, Gentile ones, they came reading Israel’s scriptures. There, in the Old Testament, they learned that the people of God were to care for the widow and the orphan—people with no social safety net. They announced that sin, death, and the devil were defeated and lived accordingly. The strict hierarchical family structure of the ancient was undermined by what St. Paul calls in Ephesians 5 and 6, mutual submission. Slavery—the institution on which the Roman Empire ran—was undermined by a recognition of a common brotherhood in Christ. That’s what Paul’s letter to Philemon is about. The bonds effected by the waters of baptism converted the bonds created by blood and the bonds created by money.

In living the way they did, the first Christians did not erase the virtue of magnanimity, but converted it, so that it came to mean generosity for those who have no means of their own. The early Christians, rich and poor, cared for plague victims in Roman cities when their wealthy pagan neighbors fled to country estates. They did so knowing that they could well get sick and die, and many did. The early Christians cared for children abandoned by parents and revolutionized family structures to raise the status of women. They did so regardless of whether the people they cared for were Christians or not. And in so doing, they sowed the seeds for what, over a millennium and a half, became the modern welfare state. And that’s a good thing.

This is why we need to stress service to the poor: because of our history, we have come to believe that the alleviation of poverty is a government responsibility instead of a Christian one. It was a Christian responsibility first. It became a government responsibility only because governments were first converted. God’s treasures are still the poor and so the Church’s treasures are still the poor. And we are still called, as the Church as the people of God, the Body of Christ, God’s living stones being built into his new and final temple, to serve them.

One more question before we move to the Scriptures. Who are the poor? That’s deceptively simple isn’t it. But we need to camp here just a little. The poor are those who are deemed to have little or no value by their time and place. People who are regarded as inconvenient. So who are those people for us? In our time? In our place? I’ll come back to those questions later. First, to the book of Acts.

Acts 2:43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 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, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Here we have a wonderful description of the common life of the early days of the Jerusalem Church. The Spirit has come; Peter has preached; 3000 were added; they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers, and then this description. This is a community marked by its simplicity. by its joy. by divine blessing (which does not mean comfort—as will become clear very soon in the book of Acts, but that’s another sermon for another day).

What does this passage invite us to consider about Christian service? I want to mention really quickly five elements that I see here.

First, Service flows from worship. Can service be done without worship? Of course. The Rotary Club does lots of good service work. As do the Kinsmen, the Lions, and so on. But Christian service cannot be done apart from worship. Christian service is the public expression of what goes on here. It is the public expression of our worship. If what we say and do here is true, and if we really believe what we say and do here when we worship, that will find a public expression in the way we live our lives.

So it is no accident that we move from a description of worship—gathering, listening, eating and praying, to a description of action: they were together; they shared what they had; they sold their possessions; they gave to those who had need. The two were deeply intertwined and integrated.

Why? Because in their worship, they gave praise to the God who had raised Jesus from the dead. In their worship, they celebrated the kingdom that God had inaugurated when he raised his Son. And in their daily lives, they lived in that kingdom.

So when we say at the end of the service, “the service is ended, Go in Peace.” We’re not saying: “That’s over. Go back to your daily lives.” We are saying: “Go and unleash the Gospel! Live this Good News out there! Serve the King by serving the poor!”

Second, service is marked by generosity. The Jerusalem disciples held all things in common; they sold their possessions and gave to whomever had need. That’s amazing, isn’t it! Or it’s crazy. Or maybe it’s both. But there it is. So convinced were the first disciples that the kingdom of God, the last day, the day of judgment in which the people of God would be rescued and the creation renewed, was at hand, that they gave away their stuff.

While you are thinking, “yes but that doesn’t mean that we should do that today,” a quick reminder. In the 13^th century, God renewed and revived his Church precisely because one man believed that this was exactly what God had called him to do. His name was Francis, from the city of Assissi. He was a wealthy young man who heard the voice of God calling him to rebuild the Church. He sold his possessions, gave to the poor, and became a preacher. And God did renew the Church in Europe through his preaching and living. So let’s not be so quick to foreclose on that radical option. Sometimes God does do that.

But it is not at all clear from the Scriptures that God calls every disciple or every community to do that. There is no record of it in the Gentile communities founded by Saint Paul, for example. But all were called to be generous! In fact, Paul called on wealthy Christians to alleviate the poverty of the disciples in Jerusalem, who by that time had suffered under harsh persecution that included the deaths of many of their leaders. This is how he did it: “Let me tell you about the Macedonians. They are really poor. They begged to give beyond their means to help our brothers and sisters in Jerusalem because they knew they were serving Christ in serving them. Now, Corinthians, you are rich in every way! I’m glad Titus is there and is on board with the mission offering.  I’m coming for your donation soon!” You can read that in 2 Cor 8.

Generosity, even radical generosity, is simply not an option. Martin Luther famously spoke of three conversions in the Christian life: of the heart first, the mind second, and third, the wallet. Luther knew that our priorities would be displayed on where we parked our cash. Are our wallets converted? That’s a sticky question isn’t it. We’re going to talk about stewardship some more in a few weeks. But I’m setting it out here now. The Gospel calls on us to be generous not because the Church needs your money, but because the Gospel is about salvation and life and healing and freedom. Generosity simply is life in the kingdom. It is the life of one who has been transformed by grace. And so Christian service is marked by generosity.

Third, service is marked by gladness. The disciples did what they did not only with generous hearts, but with glad ones! Jesus is alive! The kingdom is coming! God’s has overturned all unjust judgments and shows himself just by justifying the ungodly! That is good news! It made the disciples glad. Does it make you glad?

Now the Jerusalem disciples were not naïve. Tiberius Caesar still reigned in Rome, Pilate still governed in Judea, the religious leadership was cautious and about to become hostile. They had serious enemies. Enemies with the power not simply to embarrass or shame them, or to take away their livelihoods. They had enemies who could throw them in prison and even take their lives. And as we read the book of Acts, that’s what happened. I sometimes wonder about James. James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John. With John and Peter, James was one of the Lord’s top 3 disciples. In Acts 12, Peter and James are arrested and tossed in prison. Peter is miraculously rescued. James is killed. And that’s it.

And the disciples were glad.

Back in 2006, I attended a conference in Oxford that dealt with some of the problems in the Anglican Communion. While I was there, I met an extraordinary man. His name is Bishop Andudu Adam Enail from South Sudan. He told me about the danger he faced every time he crossed the border, for his death could be used by either the South or the North to justify further hostilities. And the only things, he believed, that kept him alive were the grace of God and the mutual suspicion of the enemies. Both could use his death; neither wanted to be blamed for this. He told me this while laughing. And then he said, “Brother, one day you will come and teach us.” And I thought, “I will not.” That man served with Christian gladness. Gladness that was not naïve. Gladness that knew the cost of true discipleship. Gladness that could only have been the fruit of the Spirit welling up within him.

That’s the gladness that the Gospel offers for our service. Is our service filled with that gladness?

Fourth, service creates bridges of good-will between the Christian community and the wider community. Hey how can it not? Who doesn’t like generous, glad people? It is one of the ironies of the book of Acts—this new movement inspires both goodwill and opposition in the wider community. And for the same reason: they proclaimed the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and they lived it. There was no way those watching could say, “meh. Live and let live,” and carry on as though nothing had changed. The new community provoked a reaction.

We talked a little about opposition both last week and above. We don’t need to revisit it again. Let’s acknowledge it and move on. Let’s talk about good will.

One of the things that Dad has been talking about over the last year has been the fact that as he has been forced to slow down, to depend on people, to be more attentive and to be attended to, he has begun to notice a lot of good people in our community. People who may or may not share his Christian faith. One at least who practices another faith altogether. If you ask him, he’ll tell you: “There sure are a lot of really good, nice people around here.”

There are people on the margins of the church, outside the church, inside another religion if you want, whom the Holy Spirit is already leading, forming, transforming. John Wesley called this prevenient grace. The grace the “goes before” (that’s what the word prevenient means), that leads to, that prepares for a Gospel encounter with Christ and his Church.

These are what the Christian faith has traditionally called “people of good will.” People in whom the Spirit of God is already at work, to whom we can build bridges of friendship and common cause, simply because we live what we say we believe. Service creates bridges of good will.

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that if we could just get this service stuff right: if we were more generous, if we were gladder, if our words and works were more integrated in witness, our church would explode in numbers wouldn’t you? I wish that were true. It’s not. We can all point to communities that do all of this better than we do that are struggling more. And so the fifth point: service does NOT grow the community. Luke does not tell us that the Church grew because of the preaching of the Apostles, and the signs and wonders that accompanied their preaching. He tells us rather that awe fell on all the people. Luke does not tell us that the Church grew because of its lifestyle—its generous and glad sharing in all things. What does Luke say? “And the Lord added to their number such as should be saved.”

The Lord Jesus builds his Church. The Holy Spirit is poured into hearts. All whom the Father gives will come. Why is that an important reminder? It is an important reminder that the Church is not the Kingdom. It is an important reminder that the Church does not build the Kingdom. It equips us—or ought to—to see that any earthly utopia is not the kingdom of God and so will, eventually pass away. Our hope is set on another city, not made with hands, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it. We don’t build the kingdom.

We bear witness to it. We do so with words. We do so with works. But we do not build it for God.

Finally, two points to think about this afternoon:

Service is a part of integrated evangelical witness. We spoke last week about evangelism: about the simple announcement that Jesus of Nazareth is Risen from the dead and that we are implicated, involved, caught up, in his rising. Today we spoke about service, about living out the implications of the resurrection day to day, how it flows from worship, is generous, is glad, and creates bridges to people of goodwill. It is vital to get that the two go together.

Just as faith without works is dead, so words without works are weightless and works without words are meaningless. The two come together and it is a disaster if they dis-integrated, if they are pulled apart from each other.

The integrated evangelical witness finds its centre in worship. Worship is what makes the braid of worship, witness and service a braid. Words and works are united insofar as they lead to and flow from what we do here, and indeed, whom we meet here in Word and Sacrament.

Earlier, I talked a little about St. Francis of Assissi. He is often quoted as saying something like this: “Preach the Gospel always. Use words if you must.” There are two problems with this statement. The first is Francis’s own life. Francis was a preacher. Who preached and preached and preached. He preached to beggars, he preached to nobles, he preached to the Pope, he preached to the Sultan of the Caliphate, he is even said to have preached to the birds. He was a man of words. Here’s the second problem: in the words of Francis that have been written down, those words don’t appear anywhere. He never said it. One reason why he never said it is because—listen—it. Isn’t. true.

Francis did urge his followers to watch both their words and works so that they would offer an integrated evangelical witness. He did insist that service and proclamation agree. He was radical about it. He did give away everything and live owning literally nothing except the clothes on his back.

And we are called by our passage in Acts to, with the help of God, worship, speak, and act in an integrated way. The braid all together is what brings glory to God. Worship leading to announcement and service flowing back to worship. That is evangelical witness and that is what the Church—and our church--is for.

And finally, this service is local. Always. Now you might be thinking, hang on. We support mission work in Mexico and in Egypt and in Ghana. And we do. We have a mission line in our annual budget. We have the children take up cup offerings once/month on family Sundays. Like the Macedonians, maybe, we are a small congregation that enjoys giving what God has given us away. That’s great! But listen, what we’re doing when we do that is enabling brothers and sisters who are far away to continue their local mission. We are giving money so that Joe and Jemima Okran can do locally what we can’t do. We are helping other people do local things in their communities. And that is good, but enabling another’s service is not our service.

And it doesn’t get us off the hook from being involved in local service here. Only God can love the world. We can’t. We’re human. Our hearts are too small. It’s hard enough to love our neighbors. So let’s ask the Pharisees question, but hopefully with a better heart. Who are our neighbors? Who are the ones whom God has given to us to serve, and in so serving, serve him?

Would you, with me, set that question before God in your prayers this week?

Spirit of God, fill our hearts with the same life that raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. Increase our generosity and our gladness. Show us whom you would have us serve, and in so doing, serve you. Amen.