"The Church: Where God Sends Us" - Fr. Aaron Damiani - Acts 2:41-47

A reading from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, verses 41

through 47. So those who accepted his

message were baptized, and that day about 3000 people were added

to them. They devoted themselves to the

apostles teaching, to the fellowship, and to the breaking

of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with ore,

and many wonders and signs were being performed through the

apostles. Now all the believers were

together and held all things in common.

They sold their possessions and property, and distributed the

proceeds to all as any had need. Every day they devoted

themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread

from house to house. They ate their food with joyful

and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all

the people. Every day the Lord added to

their number those who were being saved, the word of the

Lord. Let's pray together Lord, what a

holy and good thing it is when you come to visit your people,

as the Word is opened and preached, as ears are open to

listen, to receive, to ponder and to respond in faith at every

step. We need the help of Your Holy

Spirit, so a light upon our minds, our hearts, our words,

our actions, so that we might be the Church today that carries

the torch that was lit on the day of Pentecost.

We pray this in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen. Please be seated.

Hey, good morning, friends. Want to do something this week

to take a moment to speak about something that's heavy on a lot

of people's hearts this week. Just days ago, a man named

Charlie Kirk, who was a political activist and the

leader of an organization called Turning Point USA, was gunned

down on a college campus. And this was just a, it was a

shocking act of violence, but it didn't happen in isolation.

In the recent months and years, we've actually seen a troubling

rise in politically motivated attacks.

There was a fire set at the Pennsylvania governor's

residence, Josh Shapiro, while his family was sleeping

upstairs. Thankfully, they did not die

from that, but that was the intent.

Earlier, two young Israeli embassy embassy workers were

shot and killed in our nation's capital, Washington, DC Not too

long ago, public officials in Minnesota were targeted in their

homes. Some were killed and some barely

escaped. And last year, we did see two

attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump during

the election cycle. Each one of these is is

grievous. We could actually list more

types of violence in our country and more types of gun violence

in our country, not the least of which is violence against

children in schools, which is heinous.

This week's murder feels like a raising of the temperature in

our country in a terrible way. And it just feels like the

darkness is trying to pull people in to a cycle of hatred

and revenge. And so we have to ask, as God's

people, what do we do? How do we respond?

And that's why I want to speak to you briefly first, is that we

grieve. And that is something that all

Christians do in every, every generation, is that we grieve

the loss of innocent life. We grieve the image of God being

treated violently. Charlie Kirk was made in God's

image, and his death matters to God.

Second, we remember who we are as followers of Jesus.

We do not belong to the Kingdom of this world with its cycles of

fear and retaliation and dominance and anger.

We don't belong to that cycle, and we will not participate in

that cycle through the cross. Jesus has, as Saint Paul said,

torn down the dividing wall of hostility.

Hear the good news in that phrase.

He tore down the dividing wall of hostility and he made peace

possible with God and with one another.

Thirdly, we bear witness. We show a different way because

God is perfectly just. We don't need to take vengeance

into our own hands because Jesus forgave his enemies.

We can forgive our enemies because Jesus rose from the

dead. We can be courageous and

hopeful, and we can leave behind the burdens of cynicism and

despair. So I just want to acknowledge

this is a sobering time in our country, but it's also an

opportunity for us to be a spiritual beacon that shines

with gospel light. And so I want to call all of us

to reject hatred. I want all of us to reject

cynicism. During prayers of the people, we

will pray for our nation. We will pray for our leaders.

And we will continue these prayers in the week, won't we?

We will continue to pray, and we'll pray even for our enemies,

and we'll pray for our country. And let's friends walk the road

of the King of Peace, pointing to him who laid down his life to

reconcile a divided and violent world to himself.

Come, Lord Jesus, bring your peace.

Lord, we pray for your peace even now to descend upon us,

your people. Let it descend.

Lord, we give you our hatred, violence, despair, anything that

doesn't belong in our hearts. We pray that you would bring

joy, hope, vision that belongs to the Kingdom to come in Jesus

name, Amen. All right, well, let's continue

on in our Sacred Spaces series. In the book of Acts, Acts

Acts 2:41–47

chapter 2, verses 41 through 47, we're looking at the church.

Karen Mains and her husband David lived on the West side of

Chicago during and after the race riots of the 1960s and the

1970s, and they helped start a church community on the West

side, like the near West Side called Circle Church.

Circle Church. This church was beautifully

diverse and alive and growing. Circle Church helped people put

down roots in the city when so many were fleeing for the

suburbs and beyond. And it became this sacred space

in the city which drew people closer to God and closer to one

another. There was really beautiful,

otherworldly reconciliation happening.

There was community that was forming.

There were lives were changing. But for Karen, who helped lead

this community, there was a growing tension inside of her.

She and her husband did lots of hospitality, and she didn't

particularly enjoy, like, the housekeeping tasks.

You know, that, like, wasn't her favorite thing to do.

But she started to feel like, man, all I'm doing is, like,

cleaning up after people. And there came a point where,

you know, like, after all that, like trying to provide a clean

and comfortable space for community to take place, she

just couldn't take it anymore. And one day, her house was a

wreck. And she was like, I don't feel

like it. Someone rang the doorbell.

It was someone from her church. And she had a decision to make.

Am I going to open the door and show hospitality right now or

not? And so she reached for the

handle. She opened the door.

And she was like, I'm not going to apologize for nothing.

And she just like opened the door, loved, loved her fellow

congregant as best she could and showed her hospitality, opened

her home, opened her heart. And a friend kind of looks

around. It's like, oh, I thought you

were perfect. Now I think we can be friends.

And that's when the real community began to form for

Karen and her community. So here we are, one generation

later. Some of us are like Karen.

We have been opening our lives and spending ourselves to form a

church that flourishes right here in Chicago.

And some of us feel totally spent from that.

It's exhausting sometimes. But others of us are like that

woman ringing the doorbell, hoping for an open door, hoping

for a welcome, longing for that rich, close community.

And the closer we get to to one another friends, the more the

ideal facade and of hopes and dreams for a community will will

fade away. All the hopes and dreams that we

could get it perfect and get it right and do it just right.

The the closer we get to one another, the more we can be

friends and the more we can let the illusion of what we thought

community to be to pass away. The Church is a sacred space

between the ideal community we long for and the messy community

that we have. And so as we explore together in

Acts 2, we're going to see Saint Luke paint a picture of the

early church. And it's sort of, as you read

it, it's like, wow, what a beautiful mosaic, as beautiful

as these windows, you know? But the closer we get to the

mosaic, the more that we see it's made-up of all these broken

shards and pieces of glass and things unformed and rough,

little patches of cement between them.

We realized that like it's messy and broken and Jesus has put it

together. He's the only thing putting

hang. It's the only thing hanging this

mosaic together. But I hope that this can give us

hope for the community that we have, the mess that we're in and

the beauty that Jesus is creating in our midst.

Let's look at the first reality of the early church.

The first reality of the early church is that it was filled

with unformed converts. You see that in your Bibles or

in your bulletins on page 9, Acts 241.

Those who accepted his message, Peter's message, were baptized

and that day about 3000 people were added to them.

Do you know how many unformed converts that?

I mean? Like, OK, the early church was

about 120 people. Did you know that here we are

about the same size? This was the early church size.

Now imagine 3000 people being added to our midst.

That's 25 times growth. OK, That would break anybody's

brain. That would break any community.

It would be so disruptive. In his book You Found Me, Don

Everts tells the story of Russell, who became a Christian

as a college student through the loving witness and example of

Christian friends. Russell described his first few

weeks as a Christian like a desert experience.

Here's a quote from Russell, the new convert.

I was the ugliest person lashing out at people.

I had all this hatred and jealousy in me and it was all

coming out. Past moments of being excluded

were coming out and needed to be dealt with.

I didn't really know how to pray.

I would lash out at God. I was calling friends constantly

with questions like, why am I feeling this way?

Or Are you sure that God is for real?

Is this just an emotional experience?

And that first year was a really tender and confusing year for

Russell. Now, as Everett's noted, people

in Russell's position had had a lot to wrestle with their first

year of faith. Questions like these.

How do I live now? How do I relate with my

boyfriend or girlfriend now? Do I keep cheating on tests?

My grandma thinks I'm in a cult. Like this is what you have to go

through in your first year as a Christian.

Sometimes we forget this. So converts, the 3000 converts

have tons of questions about their life.

Now. This is a big moment of getting

baptized. Could the Messiah really die a

cruel death on a Roman cross? Can I trust and follow that

Messiah and bear a cross myself? That was mind blowing and and

really tough to digest for 1st century Jews from Asia Minor.

What does this mean for the temple?

What does this mean for sacrifices?

Does my grandpa think I'm in a cult?

They did, by the way, and they rejected them.

Or you also go, who are all these strange people that I'm

supposed to call brother and sister?

Do I have to forgive my enemies? Do I have to part with my money?

Imagine 3000 blinkered men and women like asking these

questions. And so how did the church

respond to all the unformed converts?

Here's what they did. They invited these unformed

converts to become devoted disciples.

The unformed converts were then invited to become devoted

disciples. Verse 42.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the

fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

They devoted themselves. This group of people, this

massive group of early converts, became a family through common

devoted practices. And this is how a family is

formed. You know this, it's one day at a

time, doing uncomfortable things together.

We do family dinner together. We have a common culture

together. We do family outings together.

Now, at some point that changes. But for a while, if you want to

form a family culture, you do common practices.

And it's no different for the early church.

They had a they learned a common story.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.

It's story time and this one is Israel's story.

You can see Peter and you can see other apostles opening up

the book of Isaiah, opening up the book of Genesis being like,

here's how this points to your new king.

Here's Israel's true story. Here's how all of your hopes and

dreams find their resolution in Jesus.

Story time. Day after day, they devoted

themselves to it. They lived a common life.

The word fellowship, Koinonia, It was not a cliche for them.

It was, it was a way of living where they were needed and known

and loved and challenged. Your stuff came up and was

exposed and then you were encouraged and your life was

opened up. Your home was opened up.

It was a, it was a, it was a lot of life on life, life.

It was a common life. They lived it.

They shared a common table. Of course, they devoted

themselves to the breaking of bread.

This seems to be both an early practice of the Eucharist.

But as people are getting together in homes, you, you know

you're going to eat. You know this, they're there.

It's lots of eating. It's spiritual food and it's

physical food and it's everything.

They're breaking bread. And like good Anglicans, they

prayed a common prayer, right? They heard a common story, lived

a common life, shared a common table, prayed a common prayer.

Some of it was probably liturgical, like the Lord's

Prayer or some of the early Jewish prayers passed down to

them, seen through Jesus. But also, we see in the book of

Acts, they're praying for needs that arise, like Peter's in

prison. Let's pray together.

Or, you know, we need to be bold and sharing our faith.

Let's pray for that together. They did a lot of spontaneous

prayer, liturgical prayer, all of the above.

And so guess what? It wasn't natural, It wasn't

comfortable, it wasn't ideal. It probably didn't feel good,

but it was formative. They were becoming a new family,

and that's how they stayed together.

And all of it, friends, they didn't.

You don't see them congratulating themselves for

their expansive growth or their ancient practices.

They weren't patting themselves on the back for getting it

right. They were in awe and devotion of

someone else. Verse 43 says they were filled

with awe and many wonders and signs are being performed

through the apostles. And the subtext here is that God

is visiting them. The living God is in their midst

as they're devoting themselves to Jesus through these 4

practices. He is drawing near to them like

we've seen in every other sacred space.

The garden, the mountain, the altar, the Tabernacle, the

temple. God is drawing near to them as

they draw near to him. He's the treasure.

Now here's one thing that happened.

These signs and wonders were not just entertainment value.

Many people walked into the early church and they had

physical ailments and they were asking for prayer and they were

getting delivered many, many others.

This is hard for us in our Western culture, but they had a

they were battling spiritual darkness.

They had spiritual darkness that had come to harass them and

oppress them or or their families.

And a lot of times what would happen, according to there's a

book called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, where a

historian describes this, people's battle with darkness

would come to light in the midst of the worship service.

And the name of Jesus would overcome that darkness and

people would see it and they would be like, wow, Jesus is

more powerful than all the powers of this age.

Maybe I should follow him. Lots and lots of people were

converted that way. And so signs and wonders were

were intersecting with raw human need.

And God was in their midst and they were filled with awe and

wonder and it was binding them together.

You know, one cry I've heard recently in our community is for

more discipleship, more common practices that we can devote

ourselves to as we navigate urban life in Chicago.

Whether you've been a for a Christian for a long time or a

recent convert, guys, I just want to name it.

It's not easy. It's not easy, is it?

It's not easy to follow Jesus in this city.

It's not easy to to have a a spiritual family in this city.

Now, in the next year, we want to see more and more

discipleship happening, especially in the next

generation. I think that's going to include

more classes, maybe even a confirmation process at some

point, which is a mixture of theological, biblical, and

personal discipleship. Lord willing, I'd love to see

like more and more people say I want to be a disciple of Jesus.

I want to join in the common practices of the ancient church

and and be made new like Jesus and be made into a family.

And I'll speak into more of this in our at our family meeting

annual celebration today. So even as these unformed

converts become devoted disciples, there was an issue

that rose to the surface and it's a sensitive topic even to

this day. And that was that there were

unequal resources. There were unequal resources in

the community. Do you notice how people who

have similar resources tend to cluster together kind of happens

And it part of its human nature, like attracts like, and we're

drawn to people who understand our life and our world and

people who understand our limits, etcetera.

But on a large scale, like if you, if you don't confront that

and do something different, it it gets out of hand and all of a

sudden you're cut off from cultures, you're cut off from

life experiences, you're cut off from the enrichment of sharing

life with people who live differently than you and have a

different experience of the world.

Then in our own city. This is a huge problem.

Chicago is is segregated by culture, by economics,

especially by class, by education levels, by ethnic

groups. And it's hurting everybody, it's

hurting every single group for us to be as segregated as we

are. In fact, in 2017, a study was

published by the Urban Institute and they, they found, they

looked at what would happen to Chicago in very practical terms

if Chicago's like integration levels set, like if, if the

segregation levels went down on all these different measures,

economics and culture and, and race and everything.

If that went down just to match the median levels of the United

States, if Chicago got just less segregated, what would happen?

And they found, this is going to be hard to believe, but this is

what they found. 4.4 billion would be gained in additional

income in our in our city and region.

There would be a 30% lower homicide rate just if people

mixed more. And there would be an additional

83,000 more people in our region with with bachelor's degrees

that don't have one. Now, isn't that crazy?

But it's real. You and I know this, that when

we interact with someone who's not like us, who's not from our

culture, who's not from our background, who's doesn't share

our life experience, if we can find a way to connect, is a life

changing, enriching, beautiful experience.

Now the early church gathered people with different resource

levels and the book of Acts doesn't lie about this.

So you see people who are like Barnabas and Lydia, they're land

owners. They can sell land and give it

like most people couldn't do that.

Lydia had a very lucrative business with high level

clientele. They could host larger groups of

Christians in their homes. Not everyone could do that.

Others, like the widows and the servants or the rescue babies

from the early church were marginalized and scraping by and

barely existing. And then some, like probably

most, were working class trace people and merchants and

farmers. And so what's even more

complicated is that they're coming from different parts of

the Roman Empire, different parts of Asia Minor, different

customs, different values, different ways of thinking.

Yet when they came together in Jesus, their unequal resources

became by grace, willing sacrifices, willing sacrifices.

And everyone's got something. They can sacrifice, even if it's

their pride. Everyone's got something, even

if it's just their time or their attention.

Verse 44 and 45 describes this. Now all the believers were

together and held all things in common.

They sold their possessions and property and distributed the

proceeds to all as any had need. So look, some had a need, It's

right there in the text. And they willingly, like, let

that need be known. Some had a resource and they

willingly sacrificed their comfort, their status, their

freedom to give that resource so that a need could be met.

And that's a beautiful exchange right there, isn't it?

Others are opening their homes and sharing their tables.

All of them are sharing their time and their days and their

weeks to to, to hang out together.

You know this in the city, that's a big sacrifice to hang

out together. We talked about this last week.

Some of this is awkward. Some of this is hard.

And just like the woman who said to Karen Mains, look, now that I

see you're not perfect, we can be friends.

And the riches that follow are so much better than the riches

that we give up or so much more than what pride could keep.

After last week's message where I did talk about from

Deuteronomy 12, the sacrifices of worship, I got an e-mail from

a leader in our community. She's a mom.

She's an ESL teacher for refugees making life work in the

city, and here's what she she wrote to me when we moved here

six years ago. I was really concerned about

living in a busy urban city with no family, knowing that my

husband would be traveling a lot for work this summer.

I had been dreading being a single parent during one of his

eight day work trips. But thanks to our Emmanuel

community, it was actually a really encouraging week.

One family had me and the kids over for a game night, a second

family had us down to Lawndale for chili and outside play time,

and I got together with a third family for lunch and trading

child care. She says this.

It meant so much to know that all these people with crazy

schedules were willing to make so much space for me and the

kids during the time when I typically feel vulnerable, tired

and lonely. As you hear that story, can you

hear the notes of sacrifice? Can you can you think about the

people who opened up their home, open their door, their schedule,

their meals to to be there for a single mom for a week?

Can you imagine yourself receiving that kind of grace or

being the one to offer it? And here's one of the paradoxes

of Christian community. Don't miss this.

The more we give of ourselves, the more we gain.

Then that's just true. Yes, it's a sacrifice.

There's something more beautiful that we gain in the process.

It doesn't matter what we're bringing to this, to the altar.

It doesn't matter what sacrifices we're bringing.

Maybe it's a need, maybe it's a contribution.

Maybe it's friendship or, or or the freedom that we're giving

up, or personal space or plate of cheese and crackers.

This is exactly where God meets us to form the new family of

Jesus. It's these, it's these willing

sacrifices. You know, there's no, there was

no law from on high to make this happen.

Thou shalt shall thy possessions and give everything you have.

It was willing. The Spirit had fallen.

The Spirit was moving in people, the Spirit was creating a

community. It was willing, it was free, it

was joyful. What if we became known as a

community where there was willing sacrifices that overcame

unequal resources? You know, Circle Church was

known for that in their day. But one generation later, what

if we took that torch along with all the other gospel churches in

Chicago, and carried it in our day?

There was unformed converts, but they became devoted disciples.

There was unequal resources then that became willing sacrifices,

and then finally there was an unfinished task.

An unfinished task despite friends, the explosive growth of

the early church. They were a tiny percentage of

the population. Most people had never heard of

King Jesus. Most people had never been

invited to receive his forgiveness or share at his

table. They hadn't gone to Judea, they

hadn't gone to Samaria, they hadn't gone to the ends of the

earth, they hadn't grown in love or maturity.

Yet there would be some disputes about who would care for the

widows. And there were in chapter 5,

there were people pretending, pretending to sell all they had,

Ananias and Sapphira, and they were lying to the Holy Spirit

and everybody. It this was a mess.

It was unfinished. The discipleship was unfinished.

The maturity levels were unfinished.

Their mission was unfinished. Mostly.

It was mostly not done right. Yet even still, there's this

joyful overflow, the joyful overflow way before the missions

done. Verse 46 Every day, every day

they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple

and broke bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, otherwise

translated generous hearts, joyful and generous hearts,

praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

Let's just let our imaginations rest on the eating the food with

joyful and generous hearts. This joyful feasting was their

path forward to the mission. That was their way to get it

done, eating food with joyful and generous hearts.

There was a radiance to their gathering.

They're praising God. They have favor with people

outside of the early church. They're they're like joining in

with the other people of God in the scriptures where like when

you feast, you're celebrating that the Lord God has won a

great victory. That's the the best kind of

feasts in the Bible are when God has won a victory and you're

savoring it and you're enjoying it.

And they feasted as if the victory was already won.

But you know what? You and I, we eat at our desks

as if we're already behind. Most days we're shoveling

nutrition in our mouth on our way somewhere because we're

we're behind. There's no time to feast, but

the way into that Kingdom of God, the way into the

completion, the fulfilment of all things, is through feasting.

Robert Capon was an Anglican priest and chef, and he wrote a

theological cookbook called The Supper of the Lamb, and in that

book he notes this quote. Food does not exist merely for

the sake of its nutritional value.

To break real bread is to break the loveless hold of hell upon

the world, and by just that much, to set the secular free.

A picture of those early believers going house to house,

breaking bread, joyful and generous hearts, giving thanks

to God, Eucharistically celebrating all His mighty

deeds. Can you picture the early?

Can you picture Circle Church 50-60 years ago on the West side

of Chicago? West Side's been burned out

after Martin Luther King has been assassinated.

But there they are. They're feasting from house to

house, even as the fate of the city was unknown, even as

neighbors were deciding, should I get out of the city or stay in

the city? The gospel, the victory could be

celebrated right there, right then, with Italian beef

sandwiches and cheesecake and old Style and whatever they had

and the children playing in the backyard, children that may one

day, you know, be a part of another church plant in Chicago.

Most of our work is unfinished at a manual.

The story is still unfolding yet, guys.

In my last count, we have 10 different city groups with

tables for a common life that are opening up this fall to pray

in some cases, to eat together for a common devotion and an

uncommon joy. Yeah.

Isn't that what everyone longs for, to celebrate together, to

have joy together in an uncommon way?

Isn't that why we're taking our feedbags along with us and,

like, just eating on the way? Because we're trying to get to

the time when the victory is won and and we can celebrate.

We long for unity and joy and encouragement and hope and a

sense that we're not alone. So it's no surprise that this

early fledgling group kept growing.

Verse 47, the second-half of it says this.

Every day. The Lord added to their number

those who are being saved. They were unformed converts with

unequal resources and an unfinished task.

Yet in that mess of perfection, friends, was real friendship and

the real presence of Jesus and a sacred space where people from

all walks of life could encounter the living God.

Now look, in conclusion, OK, I know it's hot in here.

Every sacred space we've looked at is more or less a relic, and

we just encounter it. We encounter it through the

Lord. But this sacred space is a real

place you can go, and it's called the local church.

And in the mess of the local church where everything's

unfinished, that's where we encountered the living God.

We can't do it as individuals. Don't believe that lie.

We experienced some of God as individuals.

But you know, the real stuff that needs to come up for us,

for us to be transformed into God's image and the real

community that we're made for that is in the church and that

is available to us. This can be our story.

We, we are the Mosaic guys. We're a bunch of broken and

unformed pieces brought together through Jesus and brought

together through the Spirit, just so you know, around a

table, around the word of God and the prayers and the mission,

filled with gratitude and joy and awe at the presence of God

in our midst. Friends, the church is where God

shapes us. Not because we're perfect,

because Jesus is present. So let us, friends, now be that

mosaic and be that family, in the name of the Father, Son and

Holy Spirit, Amen.