Today we’re going to handle TWO WAVES together >
Have you ever been at the beach and you got bowled over by a big wave you weren’t ready for??
Hopefully we’re not getting bowled over today, but we’re going to navigate two waves, the first wave is a quote about COMMUNITY, and the second wave is a section of our 2nd reading today from 1st Peter.
So last week we had ‘The Big 4,’ and now we’ve got another 4 things to look at as we kick off this new series on COMMUNITY.
We’ve had a good set-up last week with a look at The Big 4 things of being and doing church > and they’re always there for us to remember every time we walk into our church building!
Now we get to a different angle that we’re going to explore over the next 4 weeks, another 4 things that church is, thinking about this in terms of COMMUNITY…
With Acts 2:42 we come at that as people who have a bit of prior knowledge > you have to know what the apostles’ teaching is to be able to understand Acts 2:42, you have to have an understanding of fellowship, of breaking bread and of prayer > we bring some prior knowledge to this, it needs some thought, some reflection, some education, some explanation.
But in terms of church as COMMUNITY, things open up a bit more there >
Generally speaking there are people who don’t want a bar of church, they want nothing to do with what happens here. They might have had a bad experience once – that’s a difficult one to come back from!
Or they might be busy doing other things on Sunday morning, they might not really know what goes on here, what this is all about. I think for a lot of people ‘church’ doesn’t even enter their mind, it seems to be thought about less and less in the world around us, whether people have actually experienced anything to do with it or not.
The word COMMUNITY might hit a bit differently to the word church >
Of course when we speak about Christian community we are talking about church, the church is God’s people, on Sunday morning and through the whole week, takes many forms with many different people as part of the body of Christ.
But if were using the word COMMUNITY > who do you know who DOES NOT want or need a sense of community in their lives?
Who do you know who DOESN’T want or need to have a sense of belonging, a sense of being part of something, sharing life together with other people??
People may not want ‘church’ but it’s pretty likely they DO want community…
That bring us to our first wave today, this quote from Jon Tyson, Aus-born US-based pastor.
This quote is found in something called ‘The Marriage Journal,’ something Evie and I do together and have done on and off since we were married, 7 years ago now.
It’s a devotional book, also with guided questions about key themes on looking after your marriage, checking in with each other, all through a Jesus-lens, very helpful, grounding resource for us > come and talk to me if you’d like to know more about the Marriage Journal.
So here’s the quote, and we’re going to sit with this for the next few weeks as part of this series:
‘Christian community is a web of stubbornly loyal relationships in a complex and challenging situation who are committed to practicing the way of Jesus together for the renewal of the world’
There’s a lot in there! Take your time reading through that, I’ll read it again for us…
First thoughts?
We’re in a ‘web.’ We have ‘stubbornly loyal relationships’ going on > that sounds like family doesn’t it! You might ask why this quote? Because it speaks to marriage and it speaks to church community, the two have a lot in common > ongoing relationships, commitments over time, sharing love and life together, plus all the challenges that come with it, we know about this!
Absolutely there are complexities and challenges, and then we get to this bit:
‘Committed to practicing the way of Jesus together for the renewal of the world’
We’re committed, we’re practicing the way of Jesus, we’re together, and this is for the renewal of the WORLD > we might more often say the renewal of hearts and minds, but Tyson opens it up to the world here, not only our hearts and minds but the hearts and minds of the world…
I don’t know about you, but I reckon this is a pretty inspiring quote here, it’s affirming, encouraging and inspiring for us
It acknowledges that yes there are challenges, it’s not easy.
It acknowledges our stubborn loyalty, we all have certain people, certain values and beliefs we are stubbornly loyal to!
And the inspiration and encouragement comes in the togetherness and the renewal parts, not just our sense of togetherness and renewal here in the people among us today but the whole church, the whole body of Christ, all the seen and unseen things going on as part of expressions of Christian community.
So this is good, it covers a few things, good words to be affirmed and even inspired by.
That’s the first wave, and now here comes the second one!
Here’s where Christian community comes from, who’s making it happen, here’s who sustains us in the face of complex challenges:
1 Peter 2:9
‘But you are a CHOSEN PEOPLE, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s SPECIAL POSSESSION, that you may declare the praises of him who called you OUT of darkness into HIS WONDERFUL LIGHT.’
How’d you handle that wave?!
Pretty amazing passage here from Peter, we know Peter is a man who knows what the church is! If anyone’s going to tell us what church is, what it’s all about, it’s Peter!
The man who followed Jesus personally, the man who denied Jesus but was then restored to be the rock on which the church is built. Flawed, foolish yet forgiven, empowered by Jesus for the renewal of the world.
The church is what we talked about last week – where God calls together a group of people and there is commitment and devotion to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread together and to prayer – and the church also gets to be these things:
CHOSEN people, God’s SPECIAL POSSESSION, and not only that but we get to be CALLED OUT of darkness and into HIS WONDERFUL LIGHT.
I don’t know about you but I read that this week and it hits you like a wave, a wave of God’s love >
God telling me I’m chosen, I’m his special possession, I’m called out of darkness into wonderful light. Same for you as you hear it today: YOU are chosen, YOU are his special possession, YOU are called out of darkness into his wonderful light.
How do you hear that today…
Maybe you don’t really feel like you’re chosen, or that you’re anything special, or it seems a bit dark around you right now and it’s hard to see this so-called wonderful light.
If we go back to the web image of the first wave, maybe you feel like you’re STUCK in a web, the negative view of this, being stuck in a web where it’s hard to move, you don’t have control, it’s sticky and messy and someone else is calling the shots > the web of family life can be like that, the web of Christian community can be like that too!
But if we lean into Peter’s words here there is a sense of MOVEMENT >
Moving from darkness to light, so we’re not stuck in darkness but set free into light.
The web image here is about being connected, moving in and out of connection with other people, not a web of being trapped but a web of being connected to the source and to each other > who else is in this web with us?
We look around and we see other CHOSEN people, other SPECIAL POSSESSIONS of God, other people who are like us called OUT of darkness and INTO light, not just any light but WONDERFUL light, other translations are MARVELOUS, ASTONISHING light. Not just a glimmer or a spark, but a high-voltage WONDERFUL LIGHT, a light for us and for all to see!
So we’ve handled two waves there, and as we cruise back into shore we can hear a last word from Peter, 1 Peter 2:10 which says this:
‘Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’
More movement there, from NOT a people to THE PEOPLE OF GOD, from NO MERCY to ALL MERCY
Whatever happens around us, whatever complexities and challenges come our way, whether we’re feeling stuck in a web or we’re enjoying the connection of a stubbornly loyal Christian community, God says this about us:
We are CHOSEN.
We are his SPECIAL POSSESSION.
We are HIS POEOPLE, and we HAVE received mercy.
We are called OUT of darkness into HIS WONDERFUL, MARVELOUS, ASTONISHING LIGHT.
That light’s always on and our God’s always home!
Lord we thank you for your wonderful light that guides us and reveals to us who you are and who you say we are. Help us in the complex challenges of community life. Help us to get and to stay connected in a spirit of togetherness, not only being church together but inspired towards the renewal of the world. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
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Tom Kitson 