Signs and Wonders

Acts 2:42-47

The Rev. Sara Fischer

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I came that you may have life, and have it more abundantly. (I say this twice because this is the most I may say today about today’s gospel of the Good Shepherd.) Jesus came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. What does this abundant life look like? How do we live, in order to have life abundantly? This is spelled out in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, which we read on Sunday mornings all through the great fifty days of Easter.

Acts is the story of the formation of the early church. It is truly an amazing story. I highly recommend that everyone, at some point in their lives, sit down and read Acts from cover to cover. There are a lot of details in Acts that we don’t get on Sundays, about the work of the first Christians figuring out what it means to be church, what they all agree on, what they are going to disagree on, and many things in between.

Today’s reading from Acts picks up where we left off last week. Remember? “And that day about three thousand persons were added.” Three thousand! Can you imagine what that would do to a worshipping community? Imagine if last week we had about two or three hundred members of St. John’s, with about 140 in attendance every Sunday, the way we do, and this week we had three thousand new members! Of course, most of us probably can’t imagine this. But whether we have three hundred new families or thirty or even three, a community needs to be always open and flexible as members come and go, while being faithful to how we follow Jesus. So what do we do? The answer is the same whether there are three thousand new members in a community or three, and it is found in today’s opening verse from Acts, which continues immediately from last week’s reference to the three thousand: Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. Sound familiar? The first of our baptismal promises asks us: “Will you continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” And the answer is: ….I will, with God’s help.

This is what Christians do: it is what we have done from the beginning. We gather for teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

We do this all the time in lots of ways, but I’m going to take one example: Thursday nights at St. John’s. When I got here, there were about 8 or 10 souls who gathered on Thursday evenings for worship followed by a potluck. One of those people was Chuck Ross, who died a few weeks ago, on Holy Saturday. Chuck was an important part of that Thursday evening service when I first came. Some of you have heard this story before, but the second week I was here, I turned around to face the altar to celebrate the Eucharist and Chuck said in his booming voice to whoever would listen: Look: she’s got new shoes! Chuck brought a sense of wonder to lots of things that most people might think are mundane. Chuck’s presence and his appreciation for what we were doing made our worship feel alive and immediate in a way that that particular service might not have, otherwise.

Over the next couple of years, several people stopped coming to Thursday nights—including Chuck—because they moved out of the area or because failing health kept them away. We lost the regular altar guild help we had. Some nights, people slip in for worship but there would be no food afterwards. Thursday nights became rather dark and sad. Through it all, people never failed to mention how wonderful Thursday nights used to be, back when we had musicians and kids and thirty people every week and other priests who are long gone.

Then little things began to shift over time. Someone started coming and playing the guitar every week, and we began learning some new songs. We changed the way we do the prayers. Different people prepare the altar and the readings each week. Someone sets up the chairs in the parish hall before the service, and we don’t just set up for one table. And now we have a small but vibrant and very faithful gathering on Thursday nights. We have a community that worships together, continues in the apostles’ teaching, breaks bread together in thanksgiving during the service, and then again during wonderful fellowship after worship. The different pieces of what we do—prayer, breaking bread, fellowship, teaching—don’t happen in a particular order, but are overlaid and interspersed with one another throughout the evening. The spirit is alive and well!

Our reading from Acts talks about signs and wonders done by the apostles. The presence of the Holy Spirit in a little Thursday night gathering in a big old church in downtown Milwaukie is indeed a sign and a wonder.

The Acts community we heard about in today’s reading is also a community of signs and wonders. The people we hear about in Acts are that same rag-tag group of disciples who couldn’t do anything right in the gospels. Suddenly after the resurrection, they are infused with God’s power to bring about the miraculous. To build community where there was no community, to show forth God’s love in ways that makes their numbers grow and grow.

One of the signs and wonders done by the apostles that we hear about this morning is that “all who believed…had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and good and distribute the possessions to all, as any had need.” Those were the days, right? We hear something about that and we think, that was the New Testament church. That’s a different kind of life. We do that today, we’re socialists or worse, right? We do do that today. We all hold this church in common; it is a part of us and we are a part of it, whether we have been here for fifty years or five years or five days. We give pieces of ourselves to our common life in wonderful ways. When we have a memorial service or any kind of reception, Cindy makes a couple of phone calls, sends a couple of emails, and plates of food start appearing in the office and in the kitchen, and she is able to spread a table that reflects the abundance of a community that holds all things in common. When someone is hurt and grieving, we all hurt and we all grieve. When someone has something to celebrate, we all share in the celebration. We suffer together and rejoice together, we hold one another in common. Signs and wonders.

When we give of ourselves, as community, for community, we are continuing in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. And more than that, we are doing what Jesus does in the Eucharist: accepting what has been given to us, giving thanks, breaking it open to see the gift in it, and then sharing it. This taking, thanking, breaking, and sharing is what Jesus promised us. This is our abundant life.