Wendell Berry’s famous “Mad Farmer” poem (too long to cite in full in a sermon, as I discovered when I tried it twenty years ago!) sums up all its memorable lines with “Practice resurrection.” Here is the Bible’s startling take on how to do so: Acts 2:42-47, hugely important to lay out for modern day capitalists, yet never in a chiding way. We aren’t likely to overturn the economy or convert our people into St. Francises. And yet the vision is God’s vision. And some form of this does actually happen, as with Shane Claiborne, Urban Monasticism, The Simple Way. Hard to think of sharing during Covid-19 distancing, and yet perhaps it's more important than ever?

 

I suspect it’s important for the preacher to tease out the way that the “they sold their possessions and distributed to any in need” is intimately and inextricably related to v. 47, “and the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Any chance for the church to “save” people today must grow from the soil of what we do for those in need — and what are they being saved from? Hell? Their poverty? From their loneliness/isolation? The economics of earliest Christianity is worth attending to in preaching. Jesus and the disciples shared a common purse, and whatever property they had was left behind when they followed Jesus.

 

 

The first Christians, socially and personally, were filled with “reverent awe” (v. 43, which is Greek is “there was fear [phobos] in every soul”). I love the “one accord” (apart from the old dumb joke about the Christians riding around in Hondas…). In “The First Noel,” the last stanza sings “Then let us all with one accord sing praises to our heavenly Lord."

 

“Breaking bread from home to home” is worth noting. The early Christians had no church buildings, but met in various homes. “Those being saved” is a passive participle, so important: They weren’t saving themselves, or being clever enough to believe or being good enough; it happens to them! F.F. Bruce points out “Jesus thus acquired more followers in one day than in the whole of his public ministry” (The Book of Acts, 73), fulfilling John 14:12, that after he returned to the Father they would perform greater works than he did!

 

 

1 Peter 2:19-25 can be jettisoned as byzantine to downright shameful theologically (as we know slaveowners quoted v. 18 to their slaves). “Subordinate yourselves” is intriguing counsel, but it depends on where you’re starting from. In a marriage, you should... or you shouldn’t, depending on whether you’re abused or loved tenderly. This text’s view of Christ’s suffering is theologically interesting, as it’s not redemptive so much as it's an example of how to bear injustice. Do clergy dare ponder their mistreatment by parishoners as allied with Christ’s crucifixion?

 

 

 

John 10:1-10 was my father-in-law’s favorite preaching text. The “abundant life” image pulsated through his preaching; his car’s license tag was personalized: “Live alive!” I love him, and this idea although it’s risky, as this “abundant life” can be confused in Christians’ minds as happiness, or success, or the moral goods the world has to offer. The Greek “abundantly” is perisson, meaning overflowing (perhaps an echo of Psalm 23?). I saw a marquis the other day that said “If someone asks if my cup if half full or half empty, I just feel lucky to have a cup.” If there is an overflowing, an abundance, it’s not things or other measurables, but a sense of God’s mercy, an at-homeness with God, a realizing of reconciliation.