The Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47 [NLTse]
42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.
43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity— 47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.
Sermon – Reunion
Koinonia is a Greek word that is important to understanding this famous passage from Acts. When we hear that, “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship,” that’s koinonia. That “all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had,” that’s koinonia. And the entire passage, describing these first disciples lives together is a most wonderful picture and definition of koinonia.
Koinonia is a word that has to do with sharing, like when we are joint-owners of something with others, and yet koinonia has no place for those looking to selfishly get but, even when we have brought less to the relationship or partnership or community than others, koinonia is that attitude of will and determination that is always seeking to generously give: “I don’t have as much as others, but what do I have that I can give?”
Koinonia speaks of relationships, like when Simon Peter, James, and John were said to be “partners” – koinonia – because of their fishing business (Luke 5:10): Each actively contributing to the success and vitality of the whole, as well as sharing the burdens and the costs, as well.
Marriage is a koinonia-for-life where a husband and wife have all things – even their bodies – in common. And yet the marriage bond itself can also be spoken of as koinonia since it is the common interests of all that make up the couple’s common life hold husbands and wives together. It is when man and women lose their common interests and when they stop needing each other that koinonia weakens and marriages die.
Koinonia produces shared joys and pains, and opportunites for further and deeper sharing and giving, which continue to be acts of koinonia that strengthen the koinonia.
Russ Cohen once told me that redwoods – you know, the giant trees of northern California – have very shallow root systems, and how miraculous it is that they are able to withstand the powerful storms that come against them in that part of the world. But they stand firm and they stand gloriously tall because, although their roots do not go deep they go out and intertwine themselves amongst the roots of the other redwoods around them. The roots of redwoods bind them together. To make one fall, all must fall with it. Yet what happens is that when one is rocked and shaken the others hold it fast. And that is koinonia.
In the koinonia Christ has established with us, what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine, and all that is Christ’s is ours. My strength in your times of weakness, and your strength in my times, and Christ around us holding us steady. Our shared purposes and interests and values in Him bind us together in a weave of relationships and mutual responsibility and accountability for the benefit of us all. Knowing that the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of each will eventually doom the whole, our sins and brokenness are also shared, koinonia. And so healing and restoration are everyone’s shared responsibility and earnestly sought for all. For what benefits you benefits me, and what benefits me benefits you, and the riches that are ours in Christ benefitting us all. All for one, and one for all!
Eighteen years ago this church called me to be its pastor. I was fresh out of seminary and this church had just gone through some very difficult times.
I came to the church as someone very demonstrative of my faith. At that time First Presbyterian as a whole was not so demonstrative. I was a hand-raiser and a prayer-out-louder, and I encouraged people to raise their hands and pray out loud with me, if they so desired. I invited elders to pray instead of me during those times around church life when typically the pastor would pray. I would sometimes rock in my pew as I prayed and I would sometimes close my eyes and move with the music when we were singing various hymns. (Which I continue to do to this day which is why I’m not always the best person to be holding the clicker since sometimes I can be closing my eyes and worshiping and not realize that I’ve let us get a couple of slides behind. So anybody out there who wants to lead the “clicker ministry” please let me know.)
Soon, others around the congregation began raising their hands during different hymns and began rocking back and forth in their pews and moving to the music with me. And still others who did likewise visited the church and stayed when they saw it was welcome here.
Soon, different ones around the church began raising the idea of having to two different Worship Services: One Service for those who were more formal and reflective and a different Service for those who were more freeform and expressive.
Milford, Pike County, and our congregation were all really growing at that time, and although we didn’t need two Services (the Sanctuary was full but not packed), even so, we were at a place where we believed the Lord was calling us to move in that direction. So we began the two Services the Sunday after Easter, 2004, and we’ve been worshiping with a Traditional and a Contemporary Service ever since.
Even so, across all those years there has always been an underlying lament: “Wouldn’t it be great if we could worship together?” And I regularly hear stories from different ones of you about meeting someone in the congregation who’s been a part of the church for years but whom you’ve never met before because that person attends the other Service.
And so when people have said to me, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could worship together?” I remind them that it was God Who led us to the two Services and not my or anyone else’s idea, and then I typically ask them, “And if we did have just one Service again, what do you think it should it be like?” And if they were Traditional worshipers they would most often say, “It should be like the Traditional Service, of course,” and if they were Contemporary worshipers they would most often say, “It should be like the Contemporary Service.” [Just out of curiosity, who here wishes we could worship all-together as a church? If we were to ever do so, who here thinks that the one Service ought to be like this Service we’re in right now? Of course.]
Well, on behalf of the elders, I’m happy and excited to be telling you that on September 14th WE WILL BE CELEBRATING REUNION AND BEGIN HAVING ONE WORSHIP SERVICE AGAIN! [Clap…] WILL NO LONGER BE HAVING SEPARATE TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY WORSHIP SERVICES. WE WILL HAVE ONE SERVICE!
The elders have been meeting at regular and special times across the past bunch of months to pray specifically and especially about this. Unless today is your first day worshiping with us (and if it is, “Welcome! We are so glad you are here!) then you have likely noticed the congregation growing noticeably smaller. We haven’t yet been able to identify the reasons behind that. As a matter of fact, talking to different ones we continue hearing stories about the many wonderful things that the Lord is doing in peoples’ lives here at First Pres: People coming to Christ; people having their faith renewed; people growing in leaps and bounds in their assurance of the Lord’s love for them and in their love for and faith in Him! And yet we are still missing so many. And such changes and continuing with two Services has begun to affect our ministry: Some leaders and servants around the church (you may be some of them) are involved in too many ministries. (It’s not good for Christians to be doing too much. Busyness can distract us from the Holy Spirit and result in less excellence than Jesus deserves.)
So we feel the Holy Spirit’s conviction to go to one Service, in part, as an act of good stewardship: We want our best teachers to teach Sunday School, not just those who don’t attend the Traditional Service; we want to have one group of Levites to serve in the Sanctuary and one group of Greeters to welcome us into the Lord’s house and one group of Nursery workers to love our kids and one group to host Fellowship Hour and so on…
Of course, with this week’s news stories in mind, another reason we believe the Lord’s calling us back to one Service is koinonia. Robin Williams’ suicide is such a sad and public display of how the people around us – even those who seem to have it all – joy, success, family, friends, money, a promising future – how badly, how desperately they need something more than themselves and just what this life and this world have to offer. What we have; Who we have: Koinonia. And it seems clear that reunion, and our building and strengthening our koinonia-together will give us opportunities to more blatantly demonstrate such interrelationships and security to Milford and the world.
At the same time, the Christians suffering so horribly and publicly in Iraq are horrific examples of another reason. The days are long-gone when it was popular to be a Christian and church was the place to be. We need each others’ support. We need to be tangled up in each other’s roots. Storms are here. Storms are coming. We need koinonia. There are powers rising up in the world that are not Christian powers, which are not tolerant powers, powers in our own country and in other countries. Powers willing to ruin people and even put people to death who do not agree with their agenda, or who bear the name of Jesus Christ. And simply because they bear the name of Jesus Christ and all His koinonia stands for. I do not believe it is an accident that at the very same time that we are seeing these things going on around our community and nation and world that God, at this time, is calling us back to one Service: To nurture the unity and koinonia He has established for us by the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ.
(We’ll be talking more about what our Worship will look like in the weeks to come, but rest assured that your elders equally represent both our Traditional and Contemporary Services. They love God and love you. Reunion, and our return to one Service will be a blessing!)
God has given us a great work to do here at First Presbyterian Church. The impact that we all have through this church for the glory of Jesus Christ is beyond our estimation. It is worth all our efforts and all of our lives to preserve the great things we stand for and to move forward together: Koinonia; one…
[Go to the table…] The world tells us that we deserve to get whatever we want, to have things “our” way. But God tells us that it’s in giving up, in sacrificing, and by serving others, that He grants us our heart’s desires!
And we do so by coming together around this table. Because this is the center of our Worship, is it not? Not our songs or the ways we pray or how we’ve decorated the Sanctuary, but the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross: Offering His body, shedding His blood, that we might no longer be alienated from God because of our sins but be reconciled to God through His death and be one!
There is a unity that we manufacture and a unity that the Holy Spirit gives. Human-established unity demands that everyone be the same, that everyone like the same things, that everyone so things the same way. But the unity that God’s Spirit gives is supernatural. In the midst of all our diversity we experience a genuine oneness in Christ. It is not a unity that can be manufactured or enforced. We receive it. We treasure it.
As we come to celebrate the Lord’s Supper we recognize that our unity has been established by Christ and is eternal, and yet it is something that we as believers need to work to maintain so that the world can see it in us and be amazed and jealous to join us in Him. It is a unity that was established on the cross and that is maintained by the Holy Spirit across the ages across the church, and yet it is a unity that all believers must strive to make plain before a watching world.
?
Come to the table. Come receive Christ’s body and blood. Come, let us give ourselves up. Let us humble ourselves and discipline ourselves. Here let us be reminded that we are one body. Here indeed we are made one body. Here we are welcomed as sinners who want so desperately to cling to our own wills, and yet here we are called to give our wills up to God and to find harmony and unity and koinonia with Him and one other. Let us pray…