"We are all in this together" (a message for May 3, 2020)

One of my long-standing—and much beloved—routines is to wake up early with at least one of our two dogs, let him out while I empty the dishwasher, and then, once he’s back inside, go on a long walk, listening to audiobooks.

Am I oversharing? Perhaps! But, while my routine has remained the same over these last several weeks, my surroundings have changed.

Here’s what I mean. Multi-colored messages in driveway chalk—some of it from children but some of it from quite artistic hands—give uplifting and encouraging messages. “We’re all in this together,” several of them proclaim. “Stay strong! We’re going to make it!”

Lawn signs—for once not displaying partisan political messages—suddenly have started to appear, marking the schools and the grades of the children inside. 2020 Seniors is a common message. But, also, “5th Grader” or “8th Grader" of this or that local school “is inside!”

On Wednesday nights in my neighborhood, several homes put candles in their windows to pay appropriate homage to the healthcare and safety workers who, literally, are putting their lives on line to try and keep the rest of us safe.

It’s really heartening, isn’t it? And, yes, we really are all in this together!

So let me ask you this. I wonder if you were able to hear this same kind of aspirational, inspirational message from today’s first reading from Acts?

Days before, Pentecost had come and, with it, an outpouring—a flooding, actually—of the Holy Spirit upon all the pilgrims who had crowded Jerusalem that day for the Jewish holiday.

People had been stunned by what had taken place. What was happening to them? What was the source and meaning of this spiritual power and energy that was flooding them?

According to the Book of Acts, it fell to Peter to try and make sense of it. And, in these early passages of Acts, he does exactly that in the first-ever recorded Christian sermon.

The power, Peter explained, was that which the prophets had predicted would come at the end of days as God literally shared himself—his life and breath—with all humanity!

And the source from which this gift came, Peter declared, was none other than Jesus of Nazareth who had been crucified and risen and who now had ascended (or returned) to God and given this gift to them!

Given the power of Peter’s words—and the proof all around them—Acts says that 3,000 believers were added to the faith that very day!

And that brings us to today’s reading!

This very-famous snippet from the end of the second chapter of Acts is, probably, more a description of the ideal than it is of the actual reality.

Be that as it may, this passage shows us what the living-but-corporate Body of the risen Lord—otherwise known as the Church—strives to be and become in the world.

Which is this! “All who believed were together and had all things in common …” 

In other words, they were all in this together!

But what does it mean that they “had all things in common”? The text tells us!

“[T]hey would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

Did absolutely everyone sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all? Almost certainly not! After all, as the text will go on to say, the early believers gathered in one another’s homes, which they could not do if absolutely everyone sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds to all.

This is, in other words, a description of the ideal, rather than the real. And it goes on! “Day by day,” the text says, “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,” it says in conclusion, “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

From this entire passage, four traits characterize the ideal Christian community, then or now!

First, as their version of a “Velcro verse” (something to be repeated and held onto), they retrained their brains to regard everything from the perspective of the good news of God bringing life out of death and light out of darkness. They trusted that, despite appearances, God was in control and that both their future—and the world’s—belonged to Christ.

Second, as the title of today’s messages says—and as the chalk letters on many a driveway proclaims, “We’re all in this together!”

I’m so delighted and thrilled that, for those of us on FaceBook, we have a way of keeping in touch with one another and encouraging and supporting the best in each other! We truly are demonstrating that we can “be” the church even when we can’t physically “be” with each other. The early Christian community in Acts described today would approve!

Third—and this has been most difficult for us, perhaps—they celebrated common meals together as well as the Lord’s Supper.

Common meals we have, if we have others at home with us. But celebrating the Lord’s Supper has been extremely hard to do virtually. While we’ve done it from time to time, absence is making this heart grow fonder for when we can finally be together again!

Before I leave this trait, I’m so delighted that, just as the early Christian community recognized that “we’re all in this together,” that also meant that they shared what they had with needy. Just as we’ve been trying to do by working together to fill local food banks with food and resources.

Good job, church!

The fourth trait that characterizes the ideal Christian community—otherwise known as the Church—is prayer. “We’re all in this together!” And we need one another’s help and support to make it through these days.

Above all, we need to help, support, and guidance of God to make it through these days!

Don’t you feel that? Especially when we or a loved one has been seriously sick, it seems to me that we all know how important prayer is right now!

We need the power of Jesus’ resurrection to bring about new life in this old world of ours!

Driveway messages, yard signs, and the lighting of candles in homes all remind us, “We are all in this together!” And that has always been true of the Church.

We are not a building! We are a people—a Body—with a mission to be Christ with, for, and to one another.

For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia and Amen!