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Acts 2:1-47
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Power is not when you get your way. Power is when you change your way to reflect the way that we know as Christ. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week.
Speaker 1:Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome today. We're glad to see everyone back after Stampede. You survived. And whether you were down at the Stampede grounds all week enjoying it or avoiding the craziness of it like a real Caligarian, We hope you had a great week, and it's great to have you back.
Speaker 1:And so once again, we just wanna say thank you to all of the amazing team of people who made our Stampede breakfast last week such an amazing success again this year. It really is the biggest party in the neighborhood, and to have close to 2,000 of our closest neighbors join us is a lot of fun, and none of that happens without all of you putting in energy. So thanks for that. Today, however, we leave the stampede grounds and we head into a summer with the book of Acts. And Acts is this really interesting book in the New Testament because it serves in a lot of ways as a bridge between the gospels, which tells about Jesus, and the letters of Paul, which tend to dominate the balance of the New Testament writings.
Speaker 1:And so what happens is in Acts, shortly after it begins, Jesus is gone, and the disciples are then left on their own, and they're empowered and challenged to figure out how to build their faith and their community in a way that's going to continue the story of Jesus. And so it's a really fascinating book to read. We've got eight weeks this summer to work our way through it, and we're gonna have a number of different voices from our team coming in and leading us through this story, both here in Kensington and over in our parish in Inglewood. And I think this really is gonna be a lot of fun for us this summer. But something to keep in mind as we read through acts this summer.
Speaker 1:My son and I were playing a game around the house last week. Our doorbell broke, and so we had to get a new doorbell. And, of course, if we're gonna buy a new doorbell, we're gonna get one from the future that has a camera and connects to the Internet. And so he thinks this is great, and so a lot of our play lately revolves around our doorbell. Either him asking if he can go outside and ring the doorbell, or him asking me to go outside and ring the doorbell, or him pretending that the doorbell is ringing and then asking me to check my phone and see who's at the door.
Speaker 1:But as we kept playing this, my son keeps saying, ding door, ding door, someone's at the door. And that's fun, and it's cute, but that doesn't really follow social convention. And so I say to him, buddy, it's not ding door, it's ding dong. To which my son replies, well, that doesn't make any sense because I'm at the door, not the dong. And I realized that actually makes a lot of point.
Speaker 1:He kinda has a point there. But here's the thing with the book of Acts. I hear people preach through Acts at times, and they'll say this is our template for the church. Or if we should be doing church the way that they did as if somehow our goal is to go back to the way that it was in the first century. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1:You're not in the first century. You're in the twenty first century. And as important as the book of acts is, and as compelling as a lot of these stories are, one of the foundational aspects of this text is this commitment to the idea that faith is fundamentally forward facing. That not only can you not go back, you don't want to go back because Christ is always ahead of you. And so as we explore this book this summer, we're gonna see all kinds of parallels between this world and our world, and we're gonna find all kinds of examples of how Jesus' message was made tangible and real in the world that surrounded his followers, but what we're not looking for is how to go back.
Speaker 1:What we're looking for is courage and inspiration and direction to continue moving forward into new challenges and new circumstances and new moments where the story of Jesus needs to be made real all over again in the twenty first century. Because you're in Calgary, you're not in Jerusalem. So ding door, baby. Here we go. Okay.
Speaker 1:Let's pray, and then we'll dive into our first story here. God of tomorrow, who is always ahead of us, drawing us into the future with courage and conviction and clarity. Might you remind us that there is always much to learn from where the story has been. Those of us who have gone before, from those who have wisdom experience that we have yet to attain. And yet, might you also inspire us to believe that our stories remain unfinished and that our best days are truly ahead.
Speaker 1:Remind us that your kingdom is still in process and that grace and peace will one day change everything that surrounds us. As we come to believe in this story, may we then join in to create and to write and to participate with courage in the world we believe to be coming. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Alright.
Speaker 1:The acts of the apostles and let's take a look and today we're gonna start in acts one verse one where we read, in my former book Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up into heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was indeed alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Then one occasion while he was weeding with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father has promised which you have heard me speak about.
Speaker 1:For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now, a couple things here. The writer of this book is the writer of the gospel according to Luke. And if you read through Luke or through Acts, you won't find the author's name anywhere. However, the writer refers to himself in the third person pretty frequently, And the details that he gives seem to connect him with a figure in the early Jesus movement named Luke.
Speaker 1:Now Paul refers to Luke in Philemon and second Timothy. He even describes Luke as a physician of some sort in Colossians. And so in a lot of ways, the Gospel of Luke is the Gospel that we have the best sense of the actual author. The bottom line though is that the author is a contemporary of Paul writing in the decades after Jesus' death and capturing a story for an audience that was probably there for a lot of it. What gets really interesting though is this friend, Theophilus, that Luke is writing to.
Speaker 1:Because remember, Luke's name is not really Luke. It's Lukas. Just like Paul is Paolos and Jesus is Iesus. And so all of these names have been anglicized for us just so that they roll a little easier off of our English tongues. But why not Theophilus?
Speaker 1:Well, partly because we don't have a great English counterpart for Theophilus. Maybe we could have gone with Theo or Phil or maybe Phil Theo. Maybe they thought that sounded too dirty. I don't know. No.
Speaker 1:You're not gonna give me that one. Alright. That's fine. We'll keep going. Regardless, the real reason that most English translations leave this name untranslated is actually because a lot of us think it's a pseudonym.
Speaker 1:After all, Theophilus never shows up anywhere else in the New Testament. And so some scholars have actually suggested that it's being used here to protect the identity of the intended recipient. Now some of the early Christians even attached this letter to a particular man, a man named Titus Flavius Clemens, who was a Christian and a cousin to the emperor Domitian, who was not a fan of Christianity. In fact, Domitian is very likely the emperor who is being referred to in the book of Revelation. But what's even more likely is that this name is simply being used figuratively.
Speaker 1:Because Theophilus means friend of God, or maybe even beloved of God. Theos meaning God, Filio meaning brotherly love as in Filiodelphia. I think I pronounced that right. Anyway, what that could mean is that when Luke says he is writing to Theophilus, what it means is that he is writing in a very real sense to you and I. That this text was intended for those who would follow, and that it was designed for those who would come to faith, that it was crafted perhaps to make a theological statement even as you begin to read that you are already beloved of God.
Speaker 1:That before anything, this is how God thinks of you as friend. See, very often, when we open our bibles, we are reading someone else's mail, and we're reading letters that were intended for someone else. We're listening in to one side of a conversation that we usually don't have the full context for. But if Theophilus really is a pseudonym for you and I, then what this means is that in a very real sense, we are being invited this summer to see ourselves in the story. And so if it helps, then maybe just simply read your name in these opening words and know that this is a story that was meant for you.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes, it is these very small changes in our posture that impact the way that things are able to reach in and through to us. And if that's not enough, well, then maybe you can just go around calling yourself beloved of God and see if that helps as well. And so, fellow friends of God, let's take a look at this opening story in this book. As Luke says that Jesus' last command to his disciples was to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit. And then he continues and he says that then they gathered around him and they asked, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
Speaker 1:And this is another one of those moments where the disciples just simply do not seem to get it. Because here at this point, they are still really fixated on the idea that Jesus is going to return Israel, their nation to national sovereignty and prominence. And this is a theme all through Jesus' life. The disciples misreading his mission as nationalistic rather than holistic. Now, Israel, of course, plays a very central role in the biblical narrative.
Speaker 1:And downplaying Jesus' Jewishness is a big mistake if we really want to properly understand him. But Jesus is also very clear that his imagination of kingdom is not bounded by the ethnic or cultural or national politics that drove a lot of his contemporaries. And so this is something that we're gonna see this summer over and over again as we work our way through acts, that the early Christian community really had to wrestle with a lot of these barriers. Are we gonna be Jewish? Are we gonna be Roman?
Speaker 1:Are we gonna be Canadian? Or are we going to be Christian? And the truth is you can be a lot of different things at once. That's okay. But you really should know which one comes first.
Speaker 1:And this is why Jesus' response here is so fascinating. He says, it is not for you to know the times or dates the father has set by his own authority. Essentially, you seem to be distracted by the timing right now, so let's just set that aside for a moment. And, in fact, if you go back through Jesus' life and ministry, what you're gonna find is him saying over and over again that the kingdom has already come. It's just not what his friends were expecting.
Speaker 1:Then he says this, don't worry about that right now because you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And after he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes and the cloud hid him from their sight. And they were looking intently up into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky?
Speaker 1:Now, every single time I read this, no matter how many times I've read this before, I still always laugh at this moment. Mean, I the disciples just watch a man float off into the sky, and a couple angels show up, and they're like, hey, What are you looking at? And they're like, what are you not looking at right now? Regardless, there are a couple really important things here that I think we need to talk about as we dip our feet into Acts today. First is this power that Jesus speaks of.
Speaker 1:Second is this witnessing and where it's supposed to happen. And then finally, it's this posture of looking forward instead of back. Because in a lot of ways, these ideas are gonna shape the story that follows for us this summer. So let's start with the power. Because the disciples ask, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?
Speaker 1:And Jesus says don't worry about that because you will receive power. And on its surface this sort of sounds like Jesus saying, just trust me guys, we're all gonna get what we want here. But, of course, it's not what they were expecting. And if you've been following the story all along, then you should already know that Jesus' imagination of power is very different from that of his friends. And in fact, this question and this answer seem to have been set up in a way to drive that contrast home for us.
Speaker 1:His disciples are looking for a power, which for them means control and self determination and the ability to overcome their enemies. They want boundaries and borders and they wanna know who's on the inside and who's on the outside and exactly who is in control of this kingdom. Jesus, of course, has something very different in mind. And if we follow the story, just a couple verses, we're gonna get a better sense of what Jesus is thinking about. Disciples, they wait in Jerusalem the way that Jesus asked.
Speaker 1:And on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus' death and resurrection, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. And they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them, and each of them were filled with the holy spirit. Now this is sort of a strange image to make sense of. I have no idea what a tongue of fire is or what it looks like. Although, we do see God imaged in fire throughout the Hebrew scriptures.
Speaker 1:But what follows is that Peter gets up and he goes outside and he starts to tell the story of Jesus. And because this is the feast of Pentecost, Jews from all over have come to Jerusalem. And so we read that Parthians and Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt in the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Christians and Arabs, all of them heard him declaring the wonders of God in their own tongues. Now, it's sort of a miraculous moment. Somehow Peter is speaking, and yet everyone is hearing him in their own language.
Speaker 1:And notice here, this is important, the miracle is not really with Peter. Like, he's just talking. It's with the people hearing. So this is like some kind of holy spirit UN where someone's up upfront giving a speech and everyone has their own little holy ghost ear pod where they're getting their own private translation of what's going on. And not even Google can do that for us yet.
Speaker 1:But to make sense of this, you really have to ask, where do we have a story of language getting in the way of our communication? And to find that, you have to go all the way back to Genesis to the story of Babel. And, basically, what happens there is that these people are trying to create their own kingdom and their own tower, and they they wanna make this ziggurat that will reach to the heavens as a symbol of the fact that they no longer need a god. And so god looks down and frustrates them by giving them their own separate languages, and now they can't get along and they can't work together, so they disband and they leave the project and they go their separate ways. But the first thing that we see here is that this power Jesus speaks of and this kingdom that the disciples were hoping was going to elevate one nation and one ethnic group above all the others actually starts by pulling together and uniting, inviting all of these disparate groups in toward each other.
Speaker 1:This power that Jesus has in mind, it undoes the curse of Babel by uniting people even in their differences. It's it's almost precisely the opposite of the kingdom that the disciples thought they were asking for. And this is really important because power in Jesus' imagination is not strength and might and walls and wars. It is the ability to welcome and invite, to extend grace and peace to unexpected people in unexpected moments. Power is not when you get your way.
Speaker 1:Power is when you change your way to reflect the way that we know as Christ. And so first off, as we read Acts, we need to remember that even though Jesus isn't on the scene for most of this book, he is still very much upending expectations all throughout this book. Now if that's the what, we have to talk about the where. Because this one is really fascinating too, and a lot of it hinges on punctuation. It's riveting.
Speaker 1:Am I right? See, I'm a fan of commas, and anyone who has read any of my manuscripts knows that I like to randomly put in commas all over the place. I like to basically use them as breathing marks for myself. But here's the debate when it comes to something called the Oxford comma. You see, I could write without an Oxford comma and say, love my parents, comma, Lady Gaga on Humpty Dumpty period.
Speaker 1:At least suggesting that maybe my parents are in fact Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty. Or I could write with more precision and say that I love my parents comma Lady Gaga comma and Humpty Dumpty period letting you know that there are a wide range of things that I appreciate in the world. Well, part of the nuance in this opening chapter of Acts actually comes down to where you want to put your commas. So here's verse eight. You will receive power when the holy spirit comes on you, semicolon, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, comma, and in all Judea and Samaria, comma, and to the ends of the earth, end quote.
Speaker 1:Now, in Greek, there is actually no punctuation in the original texts. And so a lot of the time, it very simply comes down to the work of translators and their best guesses. Here, there's actually a really good and very important reason that there is no Oxford comma between Judea and Samaria. And the linguistic reason for that is that there are three prepositional phrases in this passage. You can actually see them in the English.
Speaker 1:You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. So in Greek there is no preposition between Judea and Samaria just a conjunction meaning that Samaria is actually meant to be part of a package with Judea. So this is actually punctuated perfectly. Jesus is giving three examples here. Where you are, everything that's near you, and everyone else you can possibly imagine.
Speaker 1:Now why that's important is because Judea and Samaria do not mix well. Do you remember the story of Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman at the well and the scandal of generosity he extends toward her? Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus takes the most despised minority he can think of and elevates that character to the person who becomes the hero in the narrative? This is a big deal. In fact, in Jesus' day, Samaria occupied sort of a central part of the region with Judea in the South and Galilee in the North.
Speaker 1:And there was a tradition that when Jews had to travel between the regions, they would either walk around Samaria, which would add days to their trip, or they would wash their feet when they crossed back into Judean territory. Now remember the context here. The disciples ask, are you now going to return the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus says, no. Not exactly.
Speaker 1:And not only that, but I will empower you to tell my story of unexpected inclusion and embrace, not only here where you know and love and feel comfortable and safe and familiar, but with everyone who's around you, those you think you love and those you think you hate equally in the same breath. Because when you receive something from me, he says and call that power if you want to. I mean, if that's the language that works for you, great. Go for it. But understand that it's not what you think it is.
Speaker 1:Because once you receive this power, you will come to understand that those you have been for and those you have been against, those were completely imaginary categories to begin with. You manufactured those lines, not me. And Jesus is intentionally lumping together categories that don't fit together in his friend's mind. And if you and I, if we wanna take act seriously, then there are a thousand different commas that we have to remove from our lives as well so that we recognize that our lines are often imaginary too. As someone wise once said, love your neighbor, period.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes punctuation matters. Now, if that's Jerusalem and that's Judea and Samaria, we still have the ends of the earth to talk about here. And this is really our last point today, but it kinda sets us up to read acts well over the summer with expectation. And I joked about this earlier, but I really love this moment when Jesus tells his friends to wait for this transforming power. He drops this bomb about Judea and Samaria, and then he just kind of floats away.
Speaker 1:And the disciples are left staring intently into the sky when these two men in white, which we generally assume are angels because it was very hard to get your whites white back then. They appear out of nowhere and the text actually says that they suddenly stood beside them. And I'm sure you have people in your life who just suddenly stand beside you. It's a very startling thing. Don't do that to people.
Speaker 1:But what they say is, what are you looking at? And what are you staring into the sky for? Don't you have somewhere to be and something you should be doing right now? And I find this seem very amusing, but it's actually for me the absurdity that drives it home. Because think about this, Jesus has died, and his friends find themselves at their lowest moment.
Speaker 1:And then Jesus returns. And they're terrified about that, but he welcomes them and he eats with them. He spends time with them and he reassures them. And then then he says, okay. It's been great, but there's more to do.
Speaker 1:So I've gotta go and you've got a job and let's get to it. And this is really one of the most important concepts that we need to keep in the back of our mind as we work our way through this book this summer. That faith is always forward facing. You see, sometimes, I think we fall into this trap of believing that resurrection is essentially the same as resuscitation. And that really what Jesus does on Easter Sunday is to turn back the clock and undo what was done, but that's not really the point.
Speaker 1:Because resurrection isn't about what was, it's about what could be. And so when Jesus is resurrected, the disciples first thought is, okay. This is great. We can go back to where we were. We can go back to being with Jesus, and we can go back to Jerusalem, and we can get back to this kingdom of Israel that we've always wanted.
Speaker 1:And Jesus says, guys, it doesn't work that way. Because if you're going to be resurrected, and if you're going to be actually alive in the world, then you're going to need to keep moving forward. See, what is so compelling about acts for me is that it's about faith facing new challenges and new opportunities. It's about the church learning how to grow and evolve and be alive in the world. It's about the Christian story resurrected and full of life moving forward into uncharted waters fearlessly.
Speaker 1:And the truth is even as I say that out loud, what I realize is that probably fearlessly is not even the right word here. Probably faithfully is. Because sometimes the future scares us. That's okay. God is with us.
Speaker 1:God gets it as long as we realize that we just can't stop exploring. And I understand that sometimes all we want is to go back to the way things were. And if there's anyone who has a right to want to go back, it's the disciples. I mean, they spent time walking around with the incarnate word of God in their world, but the truth is you can't go back. And sometimes we wanna go back to an old job that we loved, back to an old relationship, back to where she still loved us or where he was still with us.
Speaker 1:You know, back into that moment where we felt god's presence in a way that we haven't in a very, very long time. And hear me. There is space to grieve the past. And there's a time to remember and celebrate what was. There's a time to learn and digest what has happened through us and to us.
Speaker 1:But when we want to really experience the story of resurrection in our lives, there inevitably comes a time when we have to ask ourselves why we are staring into the sky looking for what was. Instead of trusting that there is still something beautiful ahead of us. Because the truth is Christ is not back there somewhere. Christ is ahead of you calling you forward into something new, inviting us as the church to continue this process we see in Acts of exploring and becoming, evolving into something new and faithful all at the same time. And so as we begin this summer in the book of Acts, and I hope that you find moments to rest and relax and to enjoy this breath that you've been given in this season.
Speaker 1:But I pray that these stories might inspire you with what lies ahead for you, full of power that you don't yet understand, people you don't yet know how to love, places that you can't yet even imagine where God will take you. Because this is about the faith that pulls us forward. Let's pray. God, as we begin this summer, We take this time to look back and to see the story of your early church, way that they formed and evolved and became something beautiful. The way they took your message and embodied it in their time and space.
Speaker 1:Might we learn and take lessons away? Might we find the parallels between that time and our time? But at the same time, might we also be inspired with courage and optimism to see the opportunities, the challenges that are in front of us, ways that we as a church need to continue to share your story faithfully in our time and space, The way we as individuals are drawn forward into tomorrow knowing that you are ahead of us. God, might we come to see your power the way that you do. Not as walls and wars, but as invitation and embrace.
Speaker 1:Might we see those around us, those we know we're supposed to love, and those we have been sometimes told we're supposed to hate. Is all part of the same humanity you call us to. And eventually, God, might we see this as the joy of continuing to follow after you one step at a time into the future where your kingdom is made real where we are. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.