Were the 50’s the Church’s Camelot? Not the 1950s, the 5-0 Common Era 50’s! Acts 2:42-47 paints a vivid picture of the church in those days! Many signs and wonders . . . all who believed had all things in common . . . they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home, and ate food with glad and generous hearts! 

What do we do with the witness of scripture as it comes to us in the book of Acts? Do we continue to hold onto these words as our idealized dream for the church? Do we reject the witness altogether because we’ve read the rest of the story and we know that it won’t take long before some in the community will duck the “hold everything in common” value system? Do we analyze these words in hopes that we can magically discover some secret that will allow us to recreate it for ourselves in the here and now? Do we gloss over these words because we’re not literalists and so we can’t be expected to live like a bunch of 1^st century radicals who are completely invested in a communal lifestyle?

What if we lived as if these words were indeed a picture of our life together in the church today?  Because when we gather for worship we DO live out these words. In worship, we hear the stories that reveal the way and the ways of Jesus. Each Sunday when we gather, we act out his offer of abundant life by gathering around the communion table where there is always enough bread and wine to go around, where there is always enough grace and forgiveness to shower on each of us who approaches the table, where there is always space for each soul that arrives with open hands and trusting hearts.

Churches, like ours, rely on the notion that people will share what they have to support our common ministry, and even, the common good. Churches, like ours, have created Sunday Dinner ministries, and food banks, and produce distribution opportunities with the goal that no one in our community will go hungry. Something like 95 percent of all ELCA churches are engaged in some type of feeding ministry. We are people, and we are part of a church, that believes deeply in sharing what we have for the sake of others.

Each time we gather as Church we’re living out Act’s vision of abundance. In gathering together and in sharing what we have, we’re recognizing that everything we have comes from God. And we’re trusting that when we share what we have, God’s Spirit can accomplish more than we can imagine!

We are the living, breathing body of Christ alive in the world today. God’s Spirit of life has been poured out on us in our baptism. We have everything we need to be God’s people in this time and place. We don’t need to long for the good ol’ days and we don’t need to yearn for some promise of the good life in the future . . . Christ, the gate, opens and offers us a life of abundance here and now.

May we receive all that Christ offers!