A Beautiful Community

This morning, this morning we're going to talk about a beautiful community, kids.

I know that you probably come from a family that you love.

We're going to talk about the greatest family, the greatest family that has ever been, as

we talk about a beautiful community.

The United States, many of you know this, the United States is increasingly becoming

what we refer to as a majority-minority country, meaning that minorities make up more than

50% of the population.

We continue moving further and further in that direction.

And it raises lots of questions and lots of challenges for how a country with such diversity

can hold together.

And the fact is that there may have never been a society in history that is more culturally,

religiously, and politically diverse as the United States is today.

What we need to understand is that our degree of diversity is historically very rare.

And we are struggling to hold things together in our society.

We're deeply divided along the lines of politics and race and class and wealth and religion.

Our society is increasingly fragmenting into smaller and smaller factions.

And there are very few models out there for how such a diverse community can sustain itself.

But here's what's humbling.

History is filled with examples of failure of countries that weren't able to do that.

The only other society in history that comes close to the U.S. in terms of diversity is probably

the Roman Empire.

And even as the Roman Empire crumbled, what we see in history is that there was a community

that emerged from this crumbling empire.

And this community was diverse beyond anything that had been seen before in the world.

And of course, this new community that emerged from the ashes of Rome was the Christian church.

And in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, we catch our first glimpse of this newly formed community,

Acts 2:42–47

the newly formed church.

And this is a place where Luke sort of pauses in his telling of history.

He zooms out and he just gives us a summary of life in the early church.

And it's a very famous passage for that reason.

And so as we look at this very famous passage, we're wanting to know how to be the same kind

of church in a highly diverse city like Washington, D.C.

If they could do this in Rome, what would it look like for us to be a similar kind of community

in Washington, D.C.?

And this will break out into two parts.

First, we're going to look at this beautiful community briefly.

What made it so beautiful?

And then two, we're going to look at two ways that we can go about building a beautiful community

like we see in Acts.

Two opposite ways that we might go about trying to build such a community here and now.

So let's pray and then we'll dive into God's Word.

Lord, we thank You for Your Word and we thank You for the fact that it has a power all its own.

That You say in Your Word that when You send Your Word out, it never returns to You empty and void and

unable to accomplish what You intend, but rather it always accomplishes what You intend.

And so, Lord, we know as we open Your Word that there is a divine intentionality behind this time,

that there are things that You want to do in us and through us, and You're going to do that through Your Word.

And so, we pray that You would do Your work through Your Word for Your glory, Lord.

In Your Son's name, amen.

So, first of all, the beautiful community.

This is a very famous passage and for very good reason.

At Pentecost, for those who were here last week, we saw that the apostles received the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is poured out in fulfillment of all of these Old Testament promises.

And part of what happens as a result of that is the apostles begin to preach the gospel in many different languages.

And all of these people are gathered together in Jerusalem, all of these Jews from different cultures

and who speak different languages, different ways of life.

And they all miraculously begin to hear the gospel being preached in their own language.

And Scripture tells us, this is where we left off last week, that there were about 3,000 people who heard this message.

They were cut to the heart.

They said, what should we do?

And the apostles said, you need to repent and be baptized and become part of this new community of Jesus followers.

And that's what happened.

And so, we have the establishment of the very first ever Christian church.

And over the next couple of hundred years, the church experienced extraordinary exponential growth.

Kenneth Scott LaDourette, the Yale historian, he's a great church historian, writes, here's what he says.

This is kind of his historic, one of the big quandaries in history.

Why among all the many cults and philosophies which competed in the Greco-Roman world, and in spite of more severe opposition,

in other words, all these religions and philosophies, probably the worst persecution at that period of time came upon the Christians.

And he says, why in spite of all of this, did Christianity outstrip them all?

Why did Christianity grow more quickly?

And he says, in significant part, Christianity's success is to be found in its inclusiveness.

That's a really big word by today's standards.

We're all talking about inclusiveness.

But he says, Christianity's success is to be found in its inclusiveness.

More than any of its competitors, it attracted all races and classes.

Christianity gloried in its appeal to Jew and Gentile, to Greek and barbarian.

Christianity drew the lowly and unlettered multitude, yet Christianity also developed its own philosophy,

which commanded the respect of many of the learned.

Christianity, too, was for both sexes, whereas at least two of its main rivals were primarily for men.

The church welcomed both rich and poor.

No other religious community, therefore, took in so many groups and strata of society.

I mean, you read that description and you think, this is the kind of community that diversity and inclusion officers dream about when they go to sleep at night.

This is the kind of community that everybody wants in modern times.

And when we call this a beautiful community, to come back to what I said to you at the beginning, kids, as great as your family is,

imagine a kind of family where you can enter into this family even if you weren't born,

or even if you weren't in any way biologically related to anybody in this family.

You could enter into this family, and you could come in speaking any language from any walk of life,

with any cultural or religious background.

You could be rich or poor, educated or uneducated.

You could be from any ethnic background, and you could come in,

and this family would become your family.

And you would be received as a family member.

And all of a sudden, you would have thousands of brothers and sisters who would receive you in.

And that's what made this community a beautiful community.

It was the kind of community, particularly, that people in society who didn't have families,

who didn't fit into the normal family structure, for the first time ever they could have a family.

That's what made this community beautiful.

And so it raises the question, how do we go about building a beautiful community like this in our day and age?

And what we're going to see are two basic approaches that people take.

The first approach is what you might think of as the outside-in approach to building the beautiful community.

These days, nearly everyone believes in ideas like universal human rights and justice and equality.

Most everybody you talk to believes that racism is wrong.

Most everybody we talk to believes that it's wrong for the strong to trample the weak.

You meet very few people who will openly admit that they disagree with that.

Most everybody believes that we should care for the poor and the marginalized.

So we live in a society filled with people who believe these things.

And the story that is being told in popular culture is that all of those values came from the Enlightenment.

And the idea that a lot of people have is that before the Enlightenment, there was a lot of ignorance and darkness and oppression.

And the Enlightenment came and human beings began to wake up.

And all of these values sprang out of that kind of awakening.

And as a result, in kind of popular culture, the Enlightenment is seen as the kind of beacon for these values.

And the Christian church is seen as one of the great enemies of these things.

Most people out on the street who believe in these values would point to the Enlightenment as their source.

And they would say, you know, the Christian church is a source of oppression.

The Christian church is a source of racism and bigotry and patriarchy and all other forms of oppression.

And so in many ways, the modern secular progressive project is an attempt to liberate our society from the oppressive stranglehold of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

And any of you who are in university, undergrad, grad school, this is a common narrative that you'll encounter, especially in places like that.

And so the mission is, in order to build a more just, equitable, and inclusive world, we have to liberate society from the stranglehold of old, dead religions like Christianity.

And this is an approach that relies heavily not on religion, but it relies heavily on government involvement, on education, on legislation and policy,

and on social pressure to accomplish its goals.

You know, if we're going to build this kind of beautiful community and transform our cities into these kind of beautiful communities,

it's going to take the government and education and policy and social pressure, all of these things,

to liberate our society to become more just, equitable, and inclusive.

And the reason that I would call this the outside-in approach is because it focuses entirely on external factors.

It's an approach that says, with enough government oversight and education and legislation,

we can accomplish these goals, and then sooner or later, people's hearts will follow.

But we establish it externally, we get it into the policy, we get it into the warp and the woof of daily life,

and then people's hearts will follow.

And certainly, let me say this, you can do a lot through legislation.

Some of you work on policy, very important.

You can do a lot if you get the right leaders in government.

You can do a lot through education.

All of these things are extremely important.

But here's the point we want to make.

At the end of the day, this approach, no matter how well intended it might be,

is never going to produce the kind of beautiful community that we read about in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And you ask, well, why not?

And the answer is this.

And this is what we're going to spend the rest of our time on.

Because you cannot have the fruit of a tree without the roots of that tree.

You cannot have the fruit of a tree without the roots of that tree.

There's an overwhelming amount of scholarship.

Scholars like Brian Tierney at Cornell or Kyle Harper, I think he's at Oklahoma,

who clearly show how all of our modern values around universal human rights and justice and equality,

those did not come from the Enlightenment.

They came straight out of Christianity and its influence up through the Middle Ages.

So, Jürgen Habermas writes this.

He says, universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom,

a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation,

the individual morality of conscience, human rights, democracy.

He says all of that is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice

and the Christian ethic of love.

That's where we gained these ideas.

And the thing that we need to understand about the early church is,

the early church was wildly diverse before diversity was a thing.

And that's what's so impressive about this community.

These days, organizations all around the country are scrambling for more diversity.

For those of you who work, I guarantee you,

your organization's leadership is scrambling to build diversity,

because diversity is a very high value in today's world.

What we need to understand is we've got to get in the minds of the Greco-Roman world.

This was not a value in ancient Rome.

It wasn't a value at all.

Right?

Nobody cared about diversity and inclusion and equity.

One of the ways we know that is because in Rome,

one in three people would have been a slave.

Right?

Nobody cared about these values in the ancient world.

This was a culture that was absolutely obsessed with strength and honor.

That's what it's like to be a Roman in ancient times.

It was all about your personal strength, and it was all about your honor.

And this was more of an honor-shame culture than we realize.

And their entire morality, like why do you do the right thing in ancient Rome?

Their entire morality was driven by what philosophers call a self-regarding ethic.

I do the right thing because that's what a strong person would do.

I do the right thing because that's the honorable thing to do.

I gain honor and I gain glory for myself and my family by doing the right thing in society.

It's a self-regarding ethic.

So, of course, in a society that values strength and honor and glory,

of course the strong are going to trample the weak.

If you are strong enough to trample other people, that brings you honor and glory.

And that's the way the world should be.

You say, well, how could a third of the community have been slaves?

Right?

That's exactly what many people thought should happen in society.

You have the strong trampling and ruling over the weak.

That's what we should have.

And all of a sudden, in a community like this,

here comes another community that embodies a completely different ethic.

What you might call an other-regarding ethic.

This is something the world hadn't seen before.

Because we're not just talking about Rome.

All of the ancient societies operated this way.

It's about strength and glory and honor.

But you have an ethic in this Christian community

that's defined not by glory, but by humility.

Right?

Not by strength, but by love.

Not by power, but by self-sacrifice.

It's a radically different ethic.

An other-regarding ethic.

And that is why historians say the church in the early days was so diverse.

Roman society was a place where the strong trampled the weak.

But in the church, people found a community

where they were treated with dignity.

Where they were treated as equals.

Where they received the same rights and the same privileges as everyone else.

You could be out in Roman society,

and there were very few people of privilege,

and there were a whole lot of people that got trampled on.

But you could come into the church,

and everybody had the same rights.

Everybody had the same privileges.

And this is why it grew.

And this other-regarding ethic, you need to understand,

began to work its way up through history.

Right?

So we move from the Middle Ages, right?

And then as history progresses,

we have Christian monks interacting with pagan Anglo-Saxons.

Right?

And the pagan Anglo-Saxons had this self-regarding ethic

of strength and honor and power.

And the Christian monks had this other-regarding ethic

of humility and love and self-sacrifice.

And they began to interact, and guess what happened?

Over time, the Christian monks influenced the pagan Anglo-Saxons

more and more and more until this other-regarding ethic

took hold firmly in the West.

And then as history began to progress even more,

this other-regarding ethic began to shape

the Western imagination as a whole.

And so you fast-forward to today,

we could pause the service right now,

I could say, go out on the street,

the first person you find, I want you to ask them,

chances are the first person you find,

no matter which direction you go,

is going to believe in universal human rights,

justice, diversity, equality, freedom.

Nobody really in ancient Rome would have affirmed these

as high-priority values.

Everybody on the street would today.

Why?

It's because of the influence of the church

and the Christian tradition on Western imagination.

The Enlightenment did not produce these values.

It cherry-picked these values

off of the Christian tradition,

off of the tree of Christianity.

And now we live in a society

that unabashedly wants the fruit,

but without the roots.

Now somebody might be hearing this and say,

okay, well, great.

Let's assume that's true.

Who cares?

Who cares?

Now we have the values.

Now everybody understands these things matter.

We all agree.

We'll give you the credit.

But why do we still need the church?

Right?

Can't we take it from here?

Can't we do this through government

and legislation and policy and education?

Can't we take it from here and make it happen?

The answer is no.

Why?

Because all of these values

in our secular progressive society

are like cut flowers.

Right?

You clip some flowers

and you put them in a vase

on the dining room table

of the secular humanist progressive house.

And they look really great for a while.

They brighten up the room.

Everybody who comes in the door says,

man, I really love that.

I want to be a part of it.

But over time,

they're going to wither and die.

Why?

Because they're cut flowers.

They're not rooted in any source of life.

And so eventually,

they're going to fade and die.

We all remember back in 2006,

the story of the Amish community

at Nickel Mines

when a man came into a schoolhouse,

opened fire,

took the lives of five young girls,

and then took his own life.

And what most people remember about that

is the fact that within hours,

within hours of that terrible tragedy,

the Amish community was pouring out support

for the family of the shooter.

Right?

For his parents,

for his immediate family,

outpouring of support for the shooter's family.

More than half the people who showed up

at that guy's funeral

were from the Amish community.

An Amish spokesperson announced,

on behalf of all of the families

of the victims who were shot,

we forgive this shooter.

And people were all abuzz

about this extraordinary act

of forgiveness and grace.

And then,

and I remember hearing Tim Keller

talk about this

and making this point,

and I thought it was so fascinating.

Within, you know,

days of this happening,

you have all the press

starting to generate all these articles.

And they all said the same thing.

This is what America is capable of.

This is how great we as a nation can be.

Look, when something like this happens,

these are Americans at their best.

Look, look how we just stepped up

and rose above this and go us.

And there was a lot of kind of

patting on the back of

this is the best of what we have

as Americans to offer the world.

Right?

A few years after this,

a book comes out

called Amish Grace.

It's written by three sociologists.

One of the main points

they make in that book

is this.

Not so fast.

Not so fast.

They say an act of forgiveness like this,

what we see in the Amish community,

this is an extraordinary example

of an other-regarding ethic.

Of people who prioritize

the good of the community

over themselves.

Of people who are steeped

in a culture of forgiveness

and self-sacrifice

and self-denial.

Right?

And what the authors of the book

essentially say is this.

Something like this

is only possible

if you are completely immersed

in a tradition

and a community

that embodies these values

of self-denial

and sacrifice.

Right?

And they say,

we should not expect

to see our country,

our society,

continue to form people

in future generations

that do this kind of thing.

In fact,

it's going to become

more and more and more rare

to see this

as a fruit of the American culture.

Why, they say?

Well, because the American culture

doesn't embody values

of self-sacrifice

and self-denial

and other-regarding ethic.

They say increasingly

what you see in our society

is self-aggrandizement,

self-promotion,

right?

Self-actualization.

You know,

the most important thing

is me and my discovery

and expression of myself

in an unfettered way.

And they say,

that kind of culture

that is rife

with a kind of hyper-consumerism,

a hyper-individualism,

that's not going to produce people

who do this.

It's going to produce people

who are filled with outrage

and who cancel one another.

Right?

And that's exactly

what we're seeing.

And culture,

since that book came out,

has only proven their point

more and more and more.

So what we see

in the Amish community,

what we see

in the early Christian church,

what you're looking at there

is the same fruit

precisely because

both of those communities

have the same roots.

It's the same fruit

because they have

the same roots.

And that leads us,

finally,

we're not going to spend

as much time on this

because it's a lot clearer,

the only other option

we have for building

a beautiful community

in Washington, D.C.,

in the world,

is the inside-out approach.

Not the outside-in approach,

but the inside-out approach,

meaning you start

with the roots.

Right?

The community,

and here's really the point,

the community everybody wants,

this beautiful community,

the community everybody

out there wants

is only possible

because of the man

that no one wanted.

Because of the one

that no one wanted.

All right,

Kenneth Scott Ladurett,

in that same piece,

he goes on to say,

no other religious community

took in so many groups

and strata of society.

Here,

the query must be raised,

why did it appear

in Christianity?

Why the diversity?

Why the inclusion?

It is the uniqueness of Jesus

which seems the only

tenable explanation.

Without Jesus,

Christianity would not

have sprung into existence

and from him

and beliefs about him

came its main dynamic.

That's the only reason

they were able

to do what they did.

Because they had Jesus

who had all the power.

He had all the strength.

He had all the glory.

He had all the honor,

more than any Roman

could ever possibly

imagine having.

It was all his.

But because of his profound love

for human beings,

even though we rejected him

and despised him,

he gave away his glory.

He gave away his honor.

He gave away his power.

He humbled himself,

as Philippians says,

and became in every way

like a servant and slave

for humanity.

And then he sacrificed himself

on the cross,

taking the full weight

of sin on himself.

And what you see in that

is the ultimate act

of self-love,

of an other-centered ethic,

an other-regarding ethic.

And this was, I believe,

the birth of this ethic

in the world.

And when Christians realized

that the God,

that the central defining reality

of existence,

the God who made all of this,

has this kind of heart,

that radically transformed

their hearts.

these are all people

who grew up

with this self-regarding

glory, power, honor, ethic.

What changed them so radically?

It was not a class.

It was not a class

where somebody was telling them

how they should think about people

who were different from them.

It was the God of the universe

dying for them

that radically reoriented

their entire way

of seeing themselves

and everybody else around them.

This is a spiritual transformation.

It's nothing less.

You can't have the fruit

without the roots.

And Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2:42–47

verses 42 through 47,

shows us

what a church looks like

when it is deeply rooted

in Jesus Christ

and bearing this kind of fruit

in the world.

And I want you to imagine

Church of the Advent

one year from now.

Five years from now.

Ten years from now.

And as we look at this

list of characteristics

of the early church,

we recognize that

there's no church

out there today

that's going to fully live out

all of these things.

This is sort of the archetype

of what all churches

want to be when they grow up.

But what it does do for us

is it sets us a kind of

north star vision,

ideal of what we hope

to see our church become.

And it helps us understand

the ways that we are

maybe further along

and the ways that we need

to really grow.

And it gives us a direction

as a community.

And so as we look

at these characteristics,

and I think that you can see

them up on the screen,

if we look at these characteristics,

this would be my hope

for Church of the Advent

as we move forward

into the sort of coming season

of our life together.

And we're drawing these

all out of this passage

in Acts,

and I'm only going to

just briefly hit

on each one of them.

This is what we see,

and this is what a church

like this looks like.

First, I pray that we would

be known as a place

where there is always

a constant emphasis

on biblical teaching.

That there would be a sense

in our church

like there was

in the early days

that we are people

who are devoted

to the teachings

of the apostles.

And that's more important

now than ever before

because as N.T. Wright

once said,

without constant,

lifelong Christian learning,

people quickly revert

to the worldview

or mindset

of the surrounding culture

with their minds

shaped by whichever

social pressures

are most persuasive.

So if you're not anchored

in the teachings

of the apostles,

you will very quickly

revert to the exact

same way of thinking

that everybody

around you shares.

That's the first thing.

The next thing

that I hope and pray

for our church

is that we're a place

that is known

as having

what you might think

of as thick community.

Thick community.

Thin community

as I see you

once or twice a month,

hey, how you doing?

We're not really involved.

Thick community

is a high degree

of overlap, right?

Between your church relationships

and your neighborhood relationships

and your work relationships

and your Saturday

recreational relationships

and all of your kids

know each other

and the kids have

a sense that they have

maybe 10, 15 sets

of spiritual parents

in addition

to their immediate parents,

right?

And that's what

a thick community is.

Right?

And a thick community

is absolutely vital

because we live

in a society right now,

if you're a biblically

faithful Christian

and you're living

in a place

like Washington, D.C.,

then you're living

in a cross-cultural environment.

And I actually think

that we in some ways

would have more in common

with our neighbors

if we lived

in a Muslim country

than we do living

in Washington, D.C.

And so we need

thick, interdependent,

formative community

where we have

a high relational overlap

across multiple spheres

of life

to be forming one another

in line with Scripture.

The next mark would be

that we are a church

known for Eucharistic celebration,

that that's the absolute center

of our spiritual life

because it's the meal

that unites us to God,

it unites us to one another,

and it unites us

to God's unfolding story

of salvation history

in the world.

And that that is the thing

that we come back to

again and again and again.

That church is serious

about the Eucharist.

I pray that, number four,

we are a church

that is known

as a praying church.

It has been famously said

that prayer is the engine room

of the church.

And if you really want to know

the health of a church,

do not look at its Sunday attendance,

but look at how many people

come to the midweek prayer meeting.

I'm not even sure we have

a formal midweek prayer meeting.

What I'm thankful for

is that I know many of you

are people of deep prayer.

And I want to see that grow

and grow and grow

in our community.

Fifthly, that we would be known

as a community

of joyful praise and worship.

Right?

That we are filled with joy.

That we are excited

and eager to worship the Lord

in our homes

and together

when we gather.

That we are known, number six,

as a church

that takes the ministry

of the Holy Spirit

very seriously.

Right?

That the Holy Spirit,

that we are constantly seeking

to see more and more

and more of the work

of the Spirit in our midst.

that we come

and we gather together

with a sense of awe.

We recognize that we're

in the presence of God

and we have a sense

of excited anticipation

at what the Holy Spirit

might do.

That we are known

as a community, number seven,

that is marked

by generous justice.

You know, you see this,

you see this ethic

in the Acts 2.42 church

that they're selling

whatever they have to sell.

We know in later chapters

that they're not all

selling everything.

There are people

who have nice houses

that the church can meet in

and things like that.

But the point is

is that when they see

somebody in need,

they enter into that need

and if it requires

selling something

in order to help

that person meet that need,

then so be it.

This is a radical,

generous justice

that has been inspired

by the generosity

of Christ on the cross.

Right?

And so that we would be

a church that is known

for caring for those

in our midst,

for standing in solidarity

with the suffering

or the oppressed,

to confronting injustice

in our community.

That we would be known

next as a church

that is known

for hospitality.

That we're open,

that we're welcoming,

including to those people

who come from different

cultural or ethnic backgrounds.

that we are known

next as a church

of,

who has a public faith.

Right?

These Christians

were not in hiding.

Even though persecution

comes almost immediately.

They were out in public.

They were meeting together

in the temple courts.

People knew who they were.

They saw them.

They knew who was associated

with this ragtag group.

Right?

And a lot of people

suffered as a result of it.

That we would be openly

and unapologetically Christian

in this culture.

That we would have

a public faith

and that we would know

how to engage

the issues of the day

as Christians.

And that we'd be willing

to have a voice

in public discourse.

And then lastly,

that we would be church,

that we would be a church

that is known

for our commitment

to evangelism.

That we would pray

for people

to come to know Jesus.

That we would be

courageously committed

to sharing the gospel.

That we would be

courageously praying

that God might add daily

to our numbers

those who are being saved.

Now you look at this list

and if you're like me,

you sort of look at this list

and you're like,

well it kind of sounds

like you want us

to be Presbyterian

and Baptist

and Anglican

and Pentecostal

and maybe a little

mainline progressive

kind of all at the same time.

Right?

This isn't a very clear vision.

And I would say,

you know,

maybe you're right.

You have a point.

But maybe the church

of the future

needs to look less

like the denominations

of today

and more like the church

that we see

in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Maybe that's the church

of the future.

And maybe

when you give yourself

to the leading

of the Holy Spirit,

maybe you fit

less and less

into existing categories.

Maybe you start

to create new categories

of what ministry

looks like

in the coming century.

But in all honesty,

I care less

about what we look like

and more about

that no matter what,

we are rooted

in Jesus Christ,

we are filled

with the power

of the Holy Spirit,

and we are bearing fruit

for God's glory.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you

for your word

and we thank you

for your spirit.

we have our visions

and hopes

and ideals,

but we can do nothing

without the root

and we need Jesus Christ,

the foundation

of the church,

to give us the life

and vitality we need.

We read

in your gospel lesson

of your promise

to send the helper,

the Holy Spirit,

and you've done that.

And now I pray

that in our rootedness

in you

and in the power

of the Holy Spirit,

we might become

not the kind of church

we want to be,

but the kind of church

that you would have us be

in this particular time

and place

that we would bring you glory.

In your son's name,

amen.