I suppose we each have a picture of how the church ought to be, including this little congregation of it.  No one’s picture looks just like the church as it is.  As the children’s hymn puts it, the church is not a building or a steeple but a people: we are the church.  What, then, ought our lives look like, personally and together?  Luke provides food for thought and prayer about this in what we’ve just heard.  Bible student Luke Timothy Johnson writes of Luke’s description as “an idyllic picture of the first Christian community.”[1]  I don’t choose to take “idyllic” as a fancy way of saying fictional.

Luke soon enough shows that the church is indeed a mixture of the heavenly and the human, the seekers after righteousness, the fallen, and the forgetful.  We must grow into the church.  We must let the church grow in us.  The church at its best is beautiful, inspiring.  We’ve seen it, experienced it.  In the successes we enjoy and the stumblings we must endure, the church also is always holy.  We haven’t yet been able to keep the church in that place of holy beauty, because you and I are still in the world; the church is situated in the world.  It’s not an utterly horrible world; it sure is messed up, and we can get messed up in it.  God will establish His kingdom, the perfection of the church, on the day He chooses.  It is for us to continue to strive in faith, hope, and love, with a realistic, candid assessment of who we are and faith-full remembrance of who God is.  God is with us; He is for us.  He wants us to be with Him and for Him.  He is teaching us what that means and what that does not mean.

The church continues to strive in this realistic, candid, Spirit-saturated frame of mind in just the way Luke describes.  This is like the blueprint, the roadmap for church.  What were those first believers doing, in the Spirit?  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (2:42).  In the first place, “they devoted themselves.”  Not merely one or another, a handful among a larger number.  They—the entire group.  They devoted themselves.  Devotion—that’s similar to loyalty but more than that.  Maybe in that word devotion you heard that little element vot-: as also in vote and voting.  It all goes back to the word vow.  Devotion, devote, vote—all rely upon the word vow: a solemn, a sacred promise of commitment, of service, to do a thing, God so help us.

Devotion is a decision, a dedication, a focus.  Devotion is Spirit-enabled, Spirit-empowered.  The church devotes itself to God, rather than the pursuits, pleasures, or standards of the world: life as we had known it.  Oh yes, we must work; we must eat, provide for our families; we must have concern for our health, physical and mental, and also for the health of our nation, our society and culture—not to mention the health of the church in the world.  The church devotes itself to God.  Not just in the church building for an hour or so on Sunday but, as the Church, you and I and all believers are dedicating our living always everywhere to God.  You and I are expected to be active participants in God’s great project of redeemed living; this is not some dreary chore; redeemed living is the joy of our highest calling.

This devotion, Luke tells us, is particularly evident in key areas.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (2:42).  William Barclay observes that the first church “was a learning Church.”[2]  Just like the apostles, the church learns from Jesus, the Word of God.  If we learn, we learn by the Spirit animating the Word.  Beloved, the church is always a learning church, because we are always learning Christ, God’s Word of creation power, glory power, grace power—possibility, becoming, peace.  What Jesus teaches does not change; what he teaches changes us.

Last year, a member of the church wrote a letter to let me and the session know how tired this person was of me telling the congregation to be daily Bible readers.  My aim had been to encourage us in that discipline; my words, tone, or repetition weren’t received that way.  I hope I’m never a scold.  My work is our upbuilding.  None of us begin at just the same place, and I never will say that I’m further along than any of you.  I still have much to learn.  I can do much better, I know.  We have to begin somewhere, though, and then keep going, keep at it.  It’s a journey of daily devotion.  God’s Word is our guide, our friend, our solace, our hope, our teacher.  Why neglect so great a help?  Beloved, let us make time for God’s Word each day, even if only a verse of it.  If we claim Jesus but don’t make a habit of spending time with him, listening, how do we know him, really?  The large church has enough Christians by report; Christ wants disciples in deed.  Those first believers dedicated themselves, together, to time with God’s Word—devotion, decision.

The teaching happened in the gathering.  What is a church that never gathers?  To be blunt without meaning to be insensitive, in what sense is a person a member of a church who, though fully able to, never or rarely comes?  How is a person a member who, though able to, never comes?  What is that old hymn “We Gather Together” saying, if we can be church—faithful, flourishing disciples—without that boring bother of gathering?  Like family and friendships, church is a group sport that requires presence and participation to play.  Student of church effectiveness Thom Rainer, and others, note that the surge in digital attendance that churches saw during COVID has been steadily decreasing.  The novelty has worn off; people are finding other things to do.  Church is a weekly reminder that we improve by joining in: physical presence matters.  Yes, we know that people come and go, stay and drift away, have vacations, are sick for long periods, or just have crazy busy lives.  One Sunday or another, things happen, things come up.  And the church gathers.  To make a habit of neglecting the gathering is to neglect faith.  Prioritize.  Devotion, decision.

Our focus is to grow in the teaching and the fellowship.  In church we use this word fellowship; Bethel has a Fellowship Committee, ably led by Abigale Whatley—she has many good ideas, talk with her about them!  Together, we can help make them happen.  What does this word fellowship mean?  It’s like friendship, and it’s more.  It’s the tie that binds us in Christ: another dimension of embodied, enacted, shared faith—incarnate faith.

We are in the incarnate faith fellowship of Christ, pledged to common, shared purpose, common, shared life.  The Greek word Luke uses is koinonia.  The simplest translation is common.  Koinonia is what we have in common.  As the church, what you and I have in common is Christ—if we have nothing else in common, we have Christ!  When we experience koinonia, we are experiencing Christ.  When we do koinonia, share koinonia, we are doing and sharing Christ.  Koinonia, fellowship, brings our common purpose, our common life together, into clearer focus.

We can worship together, but, if you’ve noticed, we don’t exactly huddle together.  We opt for elbow room.  An unintended result is that we can worship together for a very long time, years, and never quite know one another.  Devon and I experienced that in Austin: if, after two years of being at that church, five people knew our names (or cared to know them), I’d have been surprised.  Were they too shy, just exhibiting a severe case of Frozen Chosen-ism?  Fellowship is also about invitation.  Elders, young disciples, everybody, please listen—invite.  Invitation takes an interest in someone.  Invitation moves us out of shy silence, out of our closed circle, our closed table, our closed pew.  Invite one another.  Invite others outside to come in.  And keep inviting.  Be a people who live to invite, as Christ was always inviting.  You’ll be turned down, oh, yes.  But not always.

Those first believers, our pattern for life together as this living, breathing, choosing, acting, blessing body of Christ—those first believers also dedicated themselves together “to the breaking of bread.”  In the early days of the church, this breaking of bread was twofold: fellowship meals, which were a bit more than potlucks, and also the Lord’s Supper.  Both are signs and experiences of our unity in Christ.  Luke is describing what unity in Christ looks like.  He doesn’t tell us how that unity feels, though he does say many were coming into the fellowship.  That tells me the church was offering something people just couldn’t find elsewhere: something they were very much wanting to find.  What do you suppose people in our times very much want to find?  What can church offer people that they can’t get elsewhere?

It seems that people prefer to find elsewhere what they suppose church is offering.  Either the church really is offering what those people suppose it’s offering, or the church is actually offering something else.  If we’re offering merely what people can already obtain elsewhere, with less trouble and more pleasure, then we may as well have our going out of business sale and close the doors.  I think, though—I sincerely hope!—that what is being offered here can’t be had outside these doors, out there.  Where the bread is broken, Christ is present.  Beloved, there’s something deeply blessed, even just a little sacramental, in our gathering even at our potlucks, when we remember that our decisive devotion draws us nearer to God and to one another, shows us our unity, assures us of Christ’s presence with us to do and to act according to God’s will, to be light for a darkened world.  We can know and be known, here, love and be loved.  We know God better in the knowing and the loving.  Yes, even eating chili and tamales together can remind us of this, if we would be reminded, if we would be so moved.

Together under the teaching; together in the fellowship; together in the shared meal.  Those early believers also devoted themselves, together, “to prayer.”  The prayer of one is powerful and heard.  So, too, the prayer of many.  Now consider the Church, the big Church, at prayer: two billion believers all over the world, praising God, praying for their own close and immediate needs, praying for blessings upon brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world.  There are people praying for us in California, Brazil, Australia, South Korea, Zambia, and France, fellow believers seriously concerned for the quality of our walk with Christ.  Each of us has at least three things we dearly wish God would do for us, make happen in our lives and the lives of those whom we dearly love.  Prayer is primarily the Spirit’s means of teaching us to get aligned with God’s Word, His Way, and His Will.

More than half a century ago, William Barclay wrote that, “More things would happen if we believed that God and we together could make them happen.”[3]  God delights to work through those who make themselves available for what God chooses to do.  God present with us can make things happen.  We would like many things to happen at Bethel: more people, more children, deeper fellowship, more service to our neighbors near and far.  Happier hymns.  Shorter sermons.  More fun, more laughter, more celebrating.  Maybe we would like things to be the way they used to be; we can feel a little dejected and mystified as to why things aren’t like that now.  We aren’t the only congregation wondering.  We want things to happen.  What does God want to happen here?  We know God can make things happen; we’ve seen it; we see it even now.  What can we, together in this Christ koinonia, help make happen?  If we’d be so glad for things to happen, if only somebody else would make them happen, we’re going to be waiting a long time.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

               [1] Luke Timothy Johnson.  Acts of the Apostles.  Sacra Pagina.  Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical P, 1992.  61

               [2] William Barclay.  Acts of the Apostles.  1953.  Daily Study Bible.  Philadelphia: Westminster P., 1976.  30.

               [3] Barclay, 30.