Intro

I grew up in St. Paul AME Zion church located in Detroit MI. (side) I started going to

church at around 16 after I had a very vivid dream. And I told my mother the very next

morning, WE HAVE TO START GOING TO CHURCH AND WEVE BEEN GOING

EVERY SINCE. What’s really interesting is that most of the people around my age at

the time that also grew up in the church met on a zoom call this week. I have not seen

some of these people in almost 15 years so it was great catching up. So we did an ice

breaker where you got points based on your past church involvement. Needless to say,

I think I had one of the lowest scores. Because (don’t judge me) I really didn’t like doing

one that couldn’t sing or the one that didn’t when people could enter the sanctuary. I

was just one of the guys. And let’s just say the rest his history.

So think about this for a moment, type it into the chat. How did you end up at

St. Lukes? Who invited you? Where was the first place you found community?

No better place than to start than in acts 2. Our text today takes us to our first

Christian community. Here in these 5 verses we get a glimpse of a very unique

community. On the surface it seems quite normal, but it was anything but.... Listen

again to the words that describe their activity together. They fellowship with each, they

less about where they were going as opposed to what they were doing. Being the

church meant the sharing of lives. And this is what made being church distinctive. This

is what set it apart from all the other communities. This is what made being church

counter cultural and radical. The community itself becomes the witness. The life that’s

being described in on Acts 2 is a life defined by intimacy and mutual sharing. This is not

a community that comes, worships and leaves like ships in the night! This is a radical

community, because in their culture it was uncommon for people to share meals and

engage in intimate fellowship with people from different social and ethnic

classes. These were very public acts. So you don’t invite someone to sit at your table

that was from a different class.

house as his dinner guests and scriptures says that many tax collectors and sinners

came and ate with his disciples.

Which makes sense because his church now has his heart. In these 5 verses these

are people from all walks of life, people who are rich, people that are poor, Jews and

Gentiles praying, breaking bread, sharing meals, praying together, learning, growing

and ultimately sharing their lives. It defied the expectations of the larger society. Being

church was a radical community of inclusion centered on the practice of hospitality and

invitation and the sharing of their faith. This radical practice of invitation becomes a

Strangers

Now this isn’t referring to a physical home, but People who for whatever

reason are disconnected from life giving relationships. You can be around

people you’ve know for years and feel like a stranger. You can be around family

and feel like a stranger.

Here’s the challenge. We are intimidated by the act of witness and sharing our faith

because we have forgotten what it was like to be stranger. The longer we’ve been in

church, being a stranger becomes a distant memory. We forget what it was like to be

I think Remember when you were the foreigner. Remember when you were new

on the job. Remember when you were new the church. New to the Team? New to the

class? New to the company? Let’s be honest, we weren’t always as churched as we

sometimes appear. We forget that at one time we had a failed marriage or a broken

family and needed community. We forget there was a time when needed a second

chance. There was a time when we had to live with the consequences of our

decisions. Their was a time when we struggled. We were searching. We were

scared. We were strung out. And then somebody invited us. Because none of us got

here on our own. We are the product of someone or somebodies that graciously

Power of the invitation

Here’s the power of invitation. Most people think invitation is carrying your Bible

to work and reading scriptures and names we can’t pronounce. But the sharing of

information is void unless we are willingness to share our lives. Strangers don’t need

information without communal intimacy. They are not just learning. They are

praying. Their sharing. They are having meals together. People see our faith long

before they hear it. We naturally crave community and acceptable not onslaughts of

information. The church has to give the stranger what they can’t get from

google. That’s the power of the radical invitation for the person not already

family. We had our friends. We had our church family. Her moms family. And then

her Dads family with all of these people, some of them she’s not met, haven’t seen in a

long or don’t really or know that well. So he was insisted upon sending out all these

invitations even to people that we knew were not going to come. But he was insistent. I

didn’t understand why, but I get it. Wedding planning has spiritual implications.

One writers puts it like this, “unless the invitation is given, it is a setting in which the

stranger would not be free to enter. It is somehow a bound space, a set of relations

which convention says does not have to be open to strangers.” And Yet its the

invitation is less about the need offer a prescribed set of rules question and more about

Gods love becoming real.

Maybe it answers the question why the Lord was daily adding to their number.

“Bring your Self, not just your stuff”

Our first reaction to this is to marvel at Gods ability to expand this Christian

community. Let me clear this up. It’s not because they we’re passing out tracks asking

are you saved? If you died tonight do you know if you’d go to Hell? Have you been

washed by the blood of Jesus. That sounds absolutely frightening. But the increase

their own trauma. Gentile would come with there stuff. Stranger would come with their

baggage..You get the point. That why later they would argue over whether or not these

Gentiles had to get circumcised or not, because for every person added it radically

changed the dynamic of their lives together. The Lord adding daily to their numbers

means their communal life was constantly in flux. It was always changing. And the

successful invitation meant their own communal transformation.

NPR did an episode a long time ago and they talked about the edge effect. It

highlighted the natural tendency for people to find comfort in the familiar. It’s one of the

It’s not just a conversation on NPR, but it’s the same one being had in Acts. This is

a new community unfolding before their eyes that was very different than what any of

them had ever experienced. The invitation would radically change the dynamic of their

community. It means we must we willing to forgo a static communal identity and allow

the differences and the lives of others to transform even our own. It means allowing the

16 year old kid at the gym room to answer a call to ministry. ….but the community

allowing itself to be transformed.

But some people will get caught in the THINGS that they were doing and miss the

Gentiles, rich, and poor. And they are brining all of their things, selling their

possessions, and yet it a call to be something other than who you are. There is only a

call to become more like Jesus Christ. There is not a call to become more Jewish. It’s

becomes a place where people are not bringing their stuff but they are bringing their

selves to their faith community.

That’s a radical assertion. Because for many people, there aren’t too many

places where we can bring our “selves”. We can bring our ideas. We can bring our

gifts. We can bring our experiences. We can bring other people’s expectations. But

community and the sharing of lives is void and empty unless we are inviting people to

bring their true authentic selves. This becomes absolutely vital to this distinctive

The witness was that the Jew, the gentile, the rich, the poor, the apostle, the tax

collector, the sinner, could be a part of a community and bring their whole selves.

That’s why Jesus says to the church, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of

the world. You are a city sat on a Hill. Let your communal life together be a witness

and a reminder. Show people what is looks like to share their lives.

Closing

down my gifts at the altar. Or I’m laying down my power. I’m laying down my collection

of sermons. No he says I’m willing to offer my life to this. So as often as you do

this. As often as you share your lives together, do it in remember of this day. This day

when I was willing to share my life and live sacrificially for each one of you. And that

was the witness of this community. That is the witness of our community. It becomes

the radical move of inclusion through invitation. Jesus shares his life so that others may

be invited to share and experience the power of this community. One writer said it

somewhat like this. Its in our witness and invitation that becomes for the Christian

community the sign of Gods love for the world. While we might imagine sacrifice in

terms on one moment of martyrdom, faithful inclusion, faithful invitation, the sharing of