Message from the Moderator – Our Story Our Song: Church

Our Story, Our Song: Church

Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, Moderator

Throughout the Biblical Story, God repeatedly reminds the people to remember the Story. As God’s people, it is important for us to remember and tell God’s Story and to sing the songs of our faith—in good times and in bad times—so we don’t forget who we are and whose we are. When we forget who we are and whose we are, when we fail to remember and tell God’s Story and to sing the songs of our faith, we run the risk of allowing our identity and lives to be shaped by the prevailing stories of society. God’s Story must not simply be remembered (recited and heard), it must be re-membered (pieced together and retold in ways that connect intimately with our lives), understood, and embodied.

So as we continue to move through this year, I invite you to join me in an ongoing exploration of the overarching Story of God and God’s people—a story that continues to unfold through us today. To provide structure for this journey of remembrance and reflection, I am drawing on The Story of God, The Story of Us: Getting Lost and Found in the Bible by Sean Gladding.

So grab your hymnal and your Bible and join me in exploring the Story that reminds us who we are, whose we are, and who we are called to be and become.

Sing: O Holy Spirit, Making Whole (Hymnal: A Worship Book, 300)

Read: Acts; 1 Peter; 1 Corinthians; Philippians; Colossians

As we pick up our story this month, Jesus’ disciples are waiting in Jerusalem as Jesus had instructed. For forty days after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples in a variety of settings, continuing to teach and prepare them for their ministry. Just prior to his ascension, he told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem to receive God’s promised gift of the Holy Spirit to inspire and empower them.

For ten days the remaining eleven disciples (minus Judas) gathered in Jerusalem with over a hundred other faithful followers of Jesus—both men and women—to pray. During this time, they also called Matthias, who had accompanied Jesus and his disciples “from the baptism of John until the day when [Jesus] was taken up”, to replace Judas as an apostle (Acts 1:22, 26).

The crowds in Jerusalem grew continually during this time as Jewish pilgrims arrived to celebrate Shavuot (Hebrew for “weeks”). The Festival of Weeks marked the seven weeks or fifty days between Passover and the start of the second holiday in the annual cycle of holy days. Originally a harvest festival celebrating the first fruits gleaned from the fields, Shavuot evolved into a celebration marking God’s gift of the law on Mt. Sinai, God’s covenant with the Israelite people (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/).

On the Day of Pentecost (the “fiftieth day”), as had been their practice in the preceding days, the disciples gathered with the other faithful followers (about 120 in all) for prayer.  “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (Acts 2:2-4). While not a direct parallel in terms of symbolism, the rush of the wind and the appearance of tongues of fire marking the arrival of the Holy Spirit echo the descriptions of the moments in which “the glory of the Lord” filled the tabernacle after it was completed (Exodus 40:34-38; Leviticus 9:22-24) and later the Temple at its dedication (1 Kings 8:10-13). “The Holy Spirit is the living presence of God among us, no longer “restrained” by a building” (Gladding, 205). With the gift of the Holy Spirit, “the glory of the Lord” filled the new temple, the gathered body of Christ.

As those gathered were filled with the Holy Spirit, they began to proclaim the Good News in a variety of languages. This caught the attention of others and a crowd gathered as pilgrims from all over the world caught snippets of their own languages floating through the open windows and doors of the room where Jesus’ followers had gathered and drew near to hear what was being said. In this moment, God’s people experienced a reversal of the chaos that ensued when God “confused the language of all the earth; and…scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth” in response to the arrogance that led God’s people to build the Tower of Babel in an attempt to reach heaven (Genesis 11:1-9). Wonder and amazement filled the crowd.

Then, Peter rose to address the gathering crowd, drawing on the words of the prophet Joel, embedded in their own story as God’s people, to reassure them that they were not drunk or crazy: “I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. When the time comes, I’ll pour out my Spirit on those who serve me, men and women both, and they’ll prophesy” (Joel 2:28, The Message).

He continued, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection: God’s love incarnate; God’s vision and mission embodied; God’s promised Messiah. The Good News that so many, blinded by preconceived ideas, failed to recognize was living in their midst.  Moved by the power of Peter’s message reinforced by the signs of God’s Spirit moving in the midst of Jesus’ followers, many in the crowd answered Peter’s call to change their lives, renew their commitment to God, and be baptized. About three thousand were baptized that day and the church—the ekklesia, those called out of the world to belong fully to God and one another—was born.  On a side note, it is interesting that this number—3,000—parallels the number—3,000—who were lost because they broke the initial covenant between God and God’s people by worshipping the golden calf at the base of Mt. Sinai (Exodus 32:25-35). “Here, on the day that the first people are drawn into the new covenant, about three thousand are added to the disciples’ number. Sinai [was] not…forgotten; God [was and] is faithful to God’s covenant. What was lost was…reclaimed (Gladding, 207).

But back to the story…From that day forward, the apostles continued to proclaim the Good News in word and deed: preaching and teaching, healing people, casting out demons, even raising Dorcas from the dead. As was the case in Jesus’ own ministry of healing, not only did those they touched experience personal physical or emotional healing, but also a restored relationship with God and just as importantly, a restored relationship with their community. As a result, the church continued to grow. Those early faith communities committed themselves to koinonia (a Greek word for communion), “fellowship created by intimate participation in each others’ lives” (Gladding, 213).  They worshipped together in the temple, broke bread together in one another’s homes, devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching, prayed together, sang together, encouraged and supported one another, held all things in common, provided for the needs of all, enjoyed fellowship with one another, and lived a life of praise and thanksgiving, constantly building up the body of Christ.

But this doesn’t mean that life in the early church was without risks and struggles. The early Christians faced persecution, imprisonment, even martyrdom.  Just think about the stories of Peter and Stephen and Saul/Paul. The early Christian communities experienced internal conflict. Acts tells of the conflict within the church over the inclusion of Gentiles and the letters the apostles wrote to the early church were often written to address conflict. Further, as evidenced in the conflict the early church experienced, many (including the apostles) were slow to embrace God’s vision of a faith community that extended beyond the cultural community of the Jews, who had historically claimed the identity as God’s people, to include all people: Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female (Galatians 3:28). But the stories of the early church emphasize the importance of this vision. Consider Peter’s vision (recorded in Acts 10) or the many accounts of “outsiders”—Gentiles, slaves, women—who committed their lives to Christ, claimed their identity as “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” (Colossians 3:12), and became leaders in the early church: the Ethiopian eunuch, Cornelius, Lydia, and Priscilla.

The early Brethren modeled their life together as the ekklesia after the patterns and practices of the early church. Do we experience koinonia in our own faith communities, that genuine communion with one another rooted in intimate participation in each other’s lives or are the relationships we share shallow and trivial? Do we balance liturgical worship of God, with worship expressed through our love for one another and our neighbors in need? Do we reach out and welcome those who are different from ourselves? Do we fully embrace the blessings and the risks that come with living as the body of Christ in the midst of a secular world? As congregations, as a district, as a denomination, as the church universal, are we constantly striving to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love”? (Ephesians 4:15-16)

As Brethren prepare for and gather in Greensboro for Annual Conference, June 29-July 3, and as we prepare for and gather in West Des Moines for District Conference, let us pray for the church that we might find deep hope and profound joy in our communion with God and one another and in being part of God’s ongoing work of new creation.

“O God who has called men and women in every land to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood, the Church of your dear Son; unite us in mutual love across the barriers of race and culture, and strengthen us in our common task of being Christ and showing Christ to the world he came to save. [Amen.]” (John Kingsnorth)

Sing: Renew Your Church (Hymnal: A Worship Book, 363)