A Sermon by Canon Maggie Guite
Easter 4A May 7th 2017 Linton 8 am.
The means of grace
During the weeks after Easter, those who compiled our lectionary ask us to give priority to reading from the Acts of the Apostles as our first lesson readings from Acts continue for the next few weeks, right up to Pentecost.
Of course, there’s a real logic in celebrating this season of the Resurrection by thinking about ‘what came next’ – what the immediate effect was of Jesus’ having risen from the dead. The Book of Acts is a foundational document for us – a kind of ‘fifth Gospel’, if you will (some people call it ‘the Gospel of the Holy Spirit’)– and it reminds us that that our life, our church, along with churches everywhere a throughout the centuries, are also part of God’s ‘fifth Gospel’, the good news of his reign coming on earth.
Let’s get back to basics, as today’s passage very definitely does. We’re told about the community of the Holy Spirit growing from the time of the first Pentecost onwards, – (‘many were baptised and were added to the community’ (Acts 2.41), and then we’re told what that new community did. ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.’ (2.42)
Our life and worship is the continuation of that – the apostles’teacing (which for us, is the teaching of the Scriptures, fellowship – that is, ‘togetherness in faith and in the Spirit’, the breaking of bread – that is the Holy Communion , and prayers.
These are the basic channels through which the Holy Spirit reaches us as Christians – Scripture, fellowship, Communion (with the other Sacraments), and prayer. Without them we don’t grow or flourish as disciples. Later ages have called them ‘the means of grace’. In thelovely old words of the General Thanksgiving which some of us remember from years ago, we thank God for his ‘inestimable gift of the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory…’ each of us needs to read the Bible, to pray, to share in Communion and in the life of a Christian community to stay strong in the faith. It’s like having a chair with four legs to support us – of course, at any one time, one of those legs might be a bit wobbly – we may be having a struggle to pray, or have got out of the habit, we may find the particular church community we’re in challenging, or difficult in some way; getting to Communion may be a problem or we may find a ‘flatness’ in our reception of it, that we have to ask the Holy Spirit to deepen and fill out with new awareness; all too often, reading and studying the Bible gets pushed aside for other things in our lives….
You can continue to rest on a chair withone a wobbly leg – but not with great security for very long - some blow hitting your life may bring you tumbling down… What you need to do if at any time one of these major of faith is getting wobbly, is to rely on the support of the other three while you do all you can to get the wobbly leg repaired, which may be partly a matter of your own resolution and determination (for example, to make time for prayer or Bible reading , or to seek help in it, or to work at improving or deepening relationships in the community in which you’re set). But even more importantly repair, refreshment, and renewal of the means of grace in your life in will come from the Holy Spirit himself – if you ask and truly desire it.
So far, it sounds as though I’m talking about the ‘means of grace’ as channels of help to Christian individuals; but, of course, the Christian Community itself needs to look for these graces together. Communion isn’t an individualistic thing – nor need Prayer be, or understanding the Bible and feeding deeply on it, - and Fellowship is something a Church community can do a lot to make real by taking it seriously. It’s much more than simply being a nice club of the like-minded together; it’s more being side by side in church – it’s a deep caring for one another, and a willingness to talk to each other about the things of God and the deep matters and concerns of our lives. We shouldn’t be embarrassed to offer to pray for each other in a simple and unaffected way , nor too proud to ask each other’s help in any matter – whether spiritual, physical, emotional, or even financial, if necessary. Whilst Christians shouldn’t spend all their time in a holy huddle, they should spend at least enough time with each other, to build up real relationships in all these ways – and jointly to build up their relationship with the Lord.
What the Book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament portrays in the days and weeks after Pentecost is a real community; not a closed one, because new people were joining all the time, but a community where they ate together, prayed together, shared what they had with each other, and worshipped – both in the Jewish Temple, as they still could at that stage, and in sharing communion and the apostles’ teaching in the homes of those who could accommodate the numbers.
The attitude which Luke sums up in the words ‘glad and generous hearts (v.46) betokens an openness which took their relationships to a level well beyond politeness or vague benevolence. They were working at being the Church, and the Holy Spirit was working on them.
And what was the result? ‘Awe came upon everyone’ (v. 43) – that is,they all had aa real sense of God’s presence, and wonders and signs’ were done among them (v.43) (What might that look like for us?) They had the goodwill of other people, and the Church continued to grow (day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved) v. 47).
‘The means of grace’ – Scripture, prayer, Communion , and tru Fellowship, sound – and indeed are –very basic; elements of the Christian life but we need not to learn about them once, and then pass on – we need to keep them in mind! Are we availing ourselves, as individuals and as a church community, as much as we might, of these ‘means of grace? What might happen among us, and in us, and beyond us if we made more of them in our lives – if we opened the door wider for the Holy Spirit – if we truly saw the possibility through this grace of being God’s’ fifth gospel’ in our place and time - God’s kingdom embodied locally on earth?