They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
(Acts 2:42-47)
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We're going to take a few weeks during this early part of 2017 to reflect on some issues around stewardship. A few days ago I was talking with someone about the Mission & Service Fund and other ways in which the folks of PVUC support various kinds of missions and it struck me that it's never a bad time to be reminded about such things. In fact, it might be that the start of the year is a good time to reflect on such things. Epiphany was just a couple of days ago. Epiphany is one of those strange and mysterious sounding “church words” that we hear but don't necessarily understand, unless you're well versed in such things. It basically means a manifestation or revelation. For Christians, we always consider the Epiphany to be the end of the Christmas season, and we associate it with the visit of the magi to see the Christ child – which serves as “the manifestation” of Jesus to the Gentile world. We associate Epiphany with light, because it's light that serves to reveal otherwise hidden things to us. And I want to suggest today that we shouldn't be associating Epiphany only with that story of the visit of the magi to Jesus. That binds “epiphany” to a moment in time; to only one relatively small part of the story of Jesus. But epiphanies continue. Every time someone turns to Christ and becomes a believer it's because they've had an epiphany of sorts. And so I wanted to extend the idea of epiphany beyond the visit of the magi and to our own day – and, I want to link it to good and proper stewardship.
In Acts 2, we get what may be the first ever description of a Christian community. I won't call it a congregation, because that word suggests a certain level of organization or structure, and that doesn't really seem to have been the case. What existed at the time in Jerusalem was a small group of people who were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, and who were trying their best to live that belief out in an environment that wasn't all that positively inclined toward them; where most people had far more important things to worry about than technical points of religion, such as whether this person might or might not have been the Messiah. But for this small community living out what they believed was essential – and a big part of living out their faith was stewardship: how they used and shared their resources for the well-being of everyone.
One of the things we learn from this passage is that before the church can properly care for others it has to learn to care for itself. I sometimes hear the phrase “charity begins at home,” and I flinch a little bit, because frankly it sounds on the surface to be self-serving; almost an excuse to not be charitable elsewhere – to simply take care of yourself and not worry about anyone or anything else. But I have to admit that the more I thought about this the more I realized that there's some truth to it. I'm not sure that you can convince others that you love them unless you can first convince them that you love each other. And I really do believe that qualities like love, compassion, mercy and generosity are contagious. Once you start to show them they grow, and they keep growing until suddenly they can't be contained and they overflow, spreading far beyond the original objects. That's what seems to have happened with the earliest Christian communities.
Those Christians cared about each other. They weren't a church as we think of the word. They certainly didn't have any buildings and they don't seem to have had any committees. And, for them, living a Christian life meant more than just gathering together for an hour or so to sing a few songs and say a few prayers and then leave and go on about their daily business as if it didn't really mean all that much. These early Christians didn't compartmentalize their faith. Faith wasn't just one part of their life among many other parts – their faith was their life and their faith guided their lives and their life choices. They lived their faith; they lived it together; they looked out for each other; they took care of each other; they had each other's backs. “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God ...” What an awesome picture. Actually, it's almost an unsettling picture. In some ways it sounds almost cult-like, in other ways it sounds like the epitome of a socialist community. Karl Marx would have approved. In fact, if the church had continued to exist like that Karl Marx would likely have had no complaints and as a result the world would be a very different place today. If you jump ahead a couple of chapters in Acts you come across another description of an early Christian community that sounds almost identical – but the following words are added to the description - “there was not a needy person among them.” Why? Because people shared and people cared. They didn't seek to exploit each other. They just helped each other. Those who had a lot shared with those who didn't have much and the end result was that everyone had enough. You can take that principle and apply it in so many different ways. How different would the world be today if rich nations simply shared with poor nations and expected nothing back? Or if the so-called 1% gave up their positions of privilege and helped raise up the other 99%? What an interesting thing to contemplate. And – it comes straight from the principles that these early Christians lived by! Fear not. I'm not about to lead a Marxist revolution. I'm not saying that we can turn the clock back and suddenly start living that way. The world is different, our society isn't their society, we have 2000 years of Christian history (and some would say Christian baggage) under our belts and sometimes binding us up. But it's a vision. And what a vision. And – for those few decades perhaps when that vision was more than a vision – when it was the guiding principle in the lives of the disciples of Jesus – what a difference it made.
You can see that in the passage as well. Because of the good stewardship they showed within their community, what happened? They enjoyed “the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” In other words – people noticed that Christians were different. In a world that was often cold and uncaring, Christians were different. Christians cared. Christians loved. And Christians lived that out. And that's the root of good stewardship. That's where good stewardship grows from: a community of people who care as much about each other as they do about themselves and who take care of each other and who help to make sure that everyone's needs are met, without judgement and without hesitation. And, that comes from the faith we have in God.
That's the last point I want to make today. Good stewardship flows from the faith and trust that we have in God. If we trust that God will provide for us, then we have the confidence to give of ourselves to help provide for others. This community we're looking at today wasn't just a community of good people who did nice things for each other. It was a community anchored in God and inspired by faith. That's why the description of this caring community begins by telling us that “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.” This was a community guided by the light of God; this was the impact a community of light can have. A few days ago I read in The Guardian newspaper that astronomers had picked up radio waves coming from a distant galaxy. They don't think it's aliens – they think it's probably a powerful neutron star. Radio waves are a bit like light – they're energy, they come from a star, they reveal something. They figured out that these radio waves were coming from a galaxy that's three BILLION light years from earth. I struggle to get my head around that distance. Light travels at about 300,000 km per second. There are a little more than 31.5 million seconds in a year. So in one year light travels 31.5 million x 300,000 kilometres, then you'd have to multiply that by 3 billion to see how far away that galaxy is. I can't even comprehend that number – never mind calculate it. But we got radio waves from that far away. Light is like that. Light shines into even the darkest places and has an impact you can't possibly imagine – and we're called to be light, and a part of being light is being good stewards with what God has given us.
God works powerfully when the people of God are truly committed, and one of the ways God works is by turning our hearts toward the needs of those we see around us. This is good stewardship. It's seeing need, and it's responding to need – not just with money but with love and compassion and grace and mercy. Not just through the offering we take in church every week, but through the offering we make in the world every day. Good stewardship within our congregation will make an amazing difference beyond our congregation, throughout the world and in the lives of people we may never even meet.
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