If you were here in worship last Sunday, you know that we heard Luke’s story called “The Road to Emmaus,” a story about a few if Jesus’ disciples who were heartbroken over his death. And how the Risen Christ showed up and walked with them and talked with them and reminded them of everything in the Scriptures about all this, but they did not recognize who he was at first. They thought he was just a stranger until he sat at table with them and his real identity became clear to them as he broke the bread Their eyes were opened and their hearts were full and they began to face into the future as disciples of a crucified Savior now present to them as their Risen Lord.
This morning we pick up the story a bit further along. It’s as if, given all this that had transpired, those disciples have started asking themselves the question: “Now what are we supposed to do?” You know, there were no churches to join, yet, no New Testament even, to tell them the stories. There were no beautiful Orders of Worship to guide them in praise and prayer. There was no “Book of Discipline” which we United Methodists have to tell us how to organize and structure the church. They were starting from the beginning. “Now what are we supposed to do?”
So what did the first Christians, the early, early church, what did they do to carry the story forward? They picked up right were that Emmaus Road story left off. They devoted themselves, it says, dedicated themselves, to four things: teaching, fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers.
You know, we’ve started having conversation with those of you who are considering or exploring church membership every other month. I love our time together. You always ask interesting things. The most fundamental of which is, of course, what does membership mean, really? What’s the difference between being here most every Sunday, claiming this as my church home—what’s the difference between that and becoming a member?
Luke himself gives us the key to the answer in this story of the early church. They devoted themselves…that’s at the heart of the decision to bring a child for baptism and at the heart of a decision to become a member. Are you ready to “devote yourself” to the church, to the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers?
I rejoice this morning with Lisa Thornber-Garcia and baby, Gavin. I rejoice with Kristina and Sangkee, with Dave and Jesse and Lara, who feel moved by the Holy Spirit to say “Yes—I am ready to state publicly that I will devote myself to these things as part of this congregation.” And I support those of you who are “in the process,” who are wrestling with your own questions about what this means for you and I hold you in my prayers as you discern where God is calling and leading you.
The integrity and faithfulness with which you each make this commitment this morning inspires us all to recommit ourselves to the journey of faith with you, to recommit ourselves to the essential things that make the church the church—the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers.
It’s helpful for all of us to remember that these four things are the essential things about what church is and what church is for and the ways in which we grow in relationship with one another and with God. Luke tells us that the community that was taking shape around these four “practices,” we might call them, was awesome. Evidently people really meant it. Their hearts were glad and generous and their fellowship was so profound that they freely shared of all that they had with one another so that none would be in need. It filled them with awe! And apparently when people looked and saw how these Christians loved one another and loved God, they wanted to be part of it, too. And many joined the church.
Now that our churches are big, some prosperous like ours, now that we’re part of large denominations, it’s easy for us and for those on the outside to lose sight of the essentials and get sidetracked by the wrong things. We get bogged down in our buildings and our budgets. We become consumed by our committees and our “clubiness.” We are deterred by our divisions and our differences. And nothing, I fear, has the potential of revealing all of this more than the upcoming General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the legislative body of the global United Methodist Church that convenes every four years.
I’ll be going in about ten days, as one of the five clergy and five lay delegates elected by our annual conference. This is my sixth time to carry this privilege and responsibility. But I can almost guarantee what the press is going to pick up on and report--the ways in which we are still divided in our views on controversial social issues like homosexuality and war. And if any of that makes the LA Times, and I fear it will, I want you to remember what the four essentials of the church are—the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Because those four things will be at the heart of our ten intense days together in Forth Worth, as a thousand of us gather from four continents and thirty-eight countries, and dialogue in nine languages, and work hard at what we Methodists call “holy conferencing” to address the hardest things with respect and integrity and love.
I just want to share two things about what will be happening at General Conference that probably won’t make the news at all. Two things that get right to the heart of those four essentials which define the church today just as they did when the Book of the Acts of the Apostles was written.
The first is about the teaching and the fellowship part, and what it means now, in this day and age, to share what we have to alleviate the needs of those who have little. We will be discussing, and hopefully adopting, a Pension Initiative for the pastors in United Methodist Churches outside the U.S. This new initiative will benefit people like a woman in Mozambique, Mrs. Mabunda, whose husband, Rev. Elias Mabunda, served in ministry for forty years until his death in 1989. Since then, his widow lives on the $20 per month she receives as pension. At age 83, Mrs. Mabunda is still a leader in her church. She had been renting out her garage for a bit of extra income until she decided the church needed it more. Now, every evening, people from the local United Methodist Church gather for teaching, for fellowship, and for prayer. The small room can’t accommodate all those who want to come.
The bishop of the Mozambique church said that the news of the new pension initiative “makes me collapse with joy.” There’s the awe, you see, the same reaction of “awe” that happened in the early church in response to people living out their faith in concrete and tangible ways. “This will completely change the lives of the people who gave all of their lives to the ministry of the United Methodist Church,” he said.
Now, for the breaking of the bread and the prayers part. The General Conference will be meeting in the big Convention Center in Fort Worth. It’s always a challenge to fashion a space like that into a worship space, but something very special is going to happen there which will transform that big hall into holy ground. The communion table, altar rail, baptismal font and lectern have all been hand-crafted for the General Conference out of wood from the tall trees at the Gulfside Assembly in Waveland, Mississippi. Gulfside was a beloved retreat and conference center on the Gulf Coast, a meeting place for African American Methodists long before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. For decades it was the only place in the Deep South where groups of African Americans could gather for conferences, training and retreats. Gulfside was literally wiped off the map by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
And from the fallen trees at Gulfside, craftsmen have worked to create the very things that will form the center of our worship together. The top of the communion table, around which we will gather for the breaking of the bread, 6 feet in diameter, is made of red cedar and a part of the tree’s trunk serves as the base. The font and altar rail and so forth are made of red oak—all from Gulfside Assembly. “The remains of Katrina can be pieces of hope,” one planning committee member said. At the heart of General Conference, you see, will be the breaking of the bread and the prayer
It is my deepest prayer for our General Conference, a prayer in which I hope you will join me, that the Holy Spirit will be present in powerful ways to guide us and teach us and form us into a fellowship that supersedes acrimony and petty differences, a loving, prayerful fellowship in which we can agree to disagree about some things and focus on the real mission and work of the church.
The pastors and widows of Mozambique and Liberia and Zimbabwe and Estonia—all who will benefit from the new global Pension Initiative--need us to be the church. Those still suffering in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast need us to be the church. People who do not know the resurrecting grace of Jesus Christ need us to be the church. The children and youth of the world need us to be the church. This war-torn, aching world needs us to be the church.
From local congregation to world-wide church, may our life together manifest the glory of God. May we devote ourselves to the teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers, so that we might be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. May our hearts be glad and generous. And because of the signs and wonders accomplished by the Holy Spirit in our midst, may we be filled with awe at the ever-resurrecting power of our God.
© Patricia Farris, 2008. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
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"Awe Came Upon Everyone"