A Sermon preached at Bloomsbury
Central Baptist Church
5th June 2016 11.00am
‘Believing and Sharing’
Acts 2.42-47; 4.32 – 5.11
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2015-06-05-am-simon-woodman#t=15:21
Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2015-06-05-am-simon-woodman#t=15:21
So, shall we
take up the offering now?
Our sermon
series at the moment, from the book of Acts,
invites us to address two themes,
which are, I suggest, two sides of
the same coin.
We’re
looking at mission, and we’re looking at money.
Last week
Ruth introduced us to the theme of mission,
and this week I’m picking up where
she left off
and addressing the theme of money.
In many
ways, this sermon is also a follow-on
from one which I gave here at
Bloomsbury in April last year.
I’m sure you
can all remember it,
but just in case you can’t, I’ve put
a link to it on the order of service
and you can always refresh your
memories by reading the script
or listening to it
again.
I also want
to acknowledge a debt to Stuart Murray Williams,
who wonderful book ‘Beyond Tithing’
has influenced my
thinking on giving for many years,
and I’m shamelessly stealing some of
his ideas for this sermon.
I’m sure that none of us can have missed the fact that
there is a vote on the
European Union coming up…
And one of the key arguments, that both sides keep coming back to
is the way the way in
which our country manages our money.
Will we be better off in, or out?
To which I would want
to say, to both sides,
‘is that the most
important question?’
But, clearly, for many, it is.
Votes have been won or lost on issues of the economy for generations
and Bill Clinton’s
successful campaign
for the
American Presidency in 1992
was boosted by their
coining of the memorable slogan
‘it’s the
economy, stupid!’
And we only have to look to Greece over the last few years
to see the very real
and immediate effects
of what can happen if a
government fails to keep the economy on track.
But given all this, I think that it is very unlikely
that the outcome of the
European Union vote, whichever way it goes,
will
present us with an economic model
anywhere near as
radical as that which we find
operating
amongst the early Christians
in the days
following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Listen again to what they did:
Acts 2.44-45
All who
believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their possessions
and goods
and distribute the proceeds to all,
as any had need.
There have, of course, been attempts by various governments in a variety
of countries
to politically impose
an economic model
which has similarities
to this early church practice
And the problem which Communism has hit, time and time again
is that the sharing and
redistribution required
isn’t, it turns out,
something which can simply be imposed.
Well, you’ll be glad to know that I’m not about to spend my time this
morning
espousing the case for
Christian Communism.
However, I did think I might treat you to a song sung by Billy Bragg,
which Tim Jones played
to us in Exchange on Wednesday evening
as part of
our series looking at theology and contemporary music.
The song, called ‘The World Turned Upside Down’
tells the story of the
seventeenth century Diggers,
who were a group of
Protestant radicals,
sometimes
seen as forerunners of modern anarchism.
They based their beliefs about economic equality on this passage from
the book of Acts
that we have as our
reading this morning.
Their most famous moment came in April 1649
when, in a kind of
forerunner to the Occupy movement,
a group of
them went to St George’s hill in Surrey
to plant
vegetables in the common land.
Food prices were at an all time high,
and their intention was
to pull down the enclosures
and put the land to
producing food for distribution to all.
The local landowners protested,
and called in the army
to evict the Diggers.
Anyway, here’s the song:
‘The World Turned
Upside Down’
Lyrics and tune by
Leon Rosselson
Sung by Billy Bragg
In 1649
To St. George's Hill,
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Came to show the people's will
They defied the landlords
They defied the laws
They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs
We come in peace they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common
And to make the waste ground grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it will be
A common treasury for all
The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Now everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command
They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feeds the rich
While poor folk starve
We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Or pay rent to the lords
Still we are free men
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now
From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers' claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on
You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down
Well, we may not be Diggers,
but nontheless our
passage this week from the book of Acts,
does raise some very challenging
questions for us
about the way in which
we handle our money
both as
individual disciples of Christ
and also
collectively as the church of Christ.
And the question I want is to spend some time with this morning
is what it might mean
for us, as followers of Jesus in our day and age,
to take seriously our
discipleship,
and our
commitment to one another in fellowship
not just in terms of
prayerful support, or spiritual nurture
but also in
terms of how this plays out practically and financially.
Some of you
may know that I have more than a passing interest
in the events of the
seventeenth century
and in particular, the origins of
the Baptist church,
and the story of the
Diggers takes us right into the world
of political
and economic radicalism
that gave birth to the
Baptist movement
that we here
at Bloomsbury are a part of.
In those
days, the church of England had the right
to levy a 10% tax on every person
living in England
Everyone in
that time was officially a member of the church of England,
whether
they wanted to be or not.
So everyone paid their tithe, or
10%, to the church,
whether they wanted to
or not
It was an
inescapable tax,
which went to support the existence
of the state church.
Well, during
the seventeenth century
some people said that they no longer
wanted to worship in their parish church,
and instead they wanted to become
members
of, for example, Baptist
churches
or Quaker churches.
And so the
question started to be raised by these dissenters
as to whether they should pay their
tithe
to the church or England,
or whether they were free instead to
make their financial gifts to God
through the church that they
actually attended.
Naturally,
the Church of England
realised that if this was allowed,
it’s
income could drop dramatically,
so they resisted any such moves,
and it was many years
before the compulsory
tithe was abolished.
So now come
with me for a moment,
to the seventeenth century,
and hear
with me a story about a poor old Quaker
who worked as a bootmaker.
The local
parson came to him and said
“You have not paid your tithe!”
The Quaker
replied
“No, and I am not going to pay you.
I do not attend your meeting-house,
neither
have I any use for your services
Therefore I will not pay.”
The parson
said
“But it is the law of the land.
You could attend if you wanted;
my
door is always open
and
my services are at your disposal
Therefore you must pay your tithe”
The next
morning the parson was surprised to receive
a demand for payment for a pair of
boots from the Quaker
He hurried
to the shop and said
“There is some mistake here.
I haven’t ordered any boots.”
The Quaker
replied
“No, I know you haven’t had any
boots.
But my doors are always open
my
services are at your disposal
and you could have had a pair of
boots
if
you had wanted them!
Therefore you must pay me for them.”
And this
story raises for us the whole question
of the basis on which we give money
to the church…
Do we do so
as a tax? As a compulsory tithe?
Or do we give voluntarily?
We’ll come
back to this question in a few minutes…
But
meanwhile, a bit of Greek for you:
Don’t worry, it’s only one word
and many of you will have heard it
before
The Greek
word I want us to think about for a minute
is the word Koinonia. [1]
Does anybody
know what it means?
It’s usually
used to describe a quality of fellowship
or a depth of personal relating
within the community of
God’s people
But it can
have many meanings,
and can mean fellowship, community
communion, intimacy
joint participation, or
association.
In the New
Testament, the word Koinonia
is used in a couple of ways:
Firstly it refers to
God’s relationship with us his people
and secondly it refers
to the relationships we have with one another
These two
relationships – us and God, and us with each other
come together vividly in the
communion meal
the koinonia meal as it used to be called,
Where food and drink are shared
equally
between the poorest and
the richest.
In 1
Corinthians 10:16, Paul says:
‘The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a
sharing in the blood of Christ?
‘The bread that we break,
is it not a
sharing in the body of Christ?’
and the word
translated sharing here is, of
course,
the word koinonia.
And in this Paul
is pointing us to the fact
that the koinonia of the Christian community
which we celebrate whenever we take
communion,
as we shall be shortly,
is a koinonia between us and God
symbolised by the blood
and also a koinonia between one another
symbolised by the bread
The
important thing to grasp here
is that koinonia, or fellowship, goes two ways
it goes vertically,
between us and God
and it goes horizontally,
between one another
Koinonia is a concept which is very
useful
in countering the modern mindset of
individualism
Because it
reminds us that our relationships with one another are vital,
and that an outlook on life
which
is focussed on “me” alone
is very far removed from the way God
would have us be.
But Koinonia also has another meaning,
and in the ancient world it also
functioned as an economic term.
For example,
it was often used to refer to business partnerships that existed
in the Roman and Greek world
that the early Christians inhabited.
This
economic meaning of koinonia
referred
to donations made by donors,
and also to the taking up of a
financial collection.
And there is
a similarity here with the meaning we are more familiar with.
Koinonia,
whether in its economic meaning, or its fellowship meaning,
always points us to our
responsibilities to one another.
We have a responsibility to one
another
in terms of our
fellowship relationships
and we also have a responsibility to
one another
in terms of our
financial activities
Paul
himself, in the New Testament, uses the word Koinonia
to refer to financial contributions
(Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 8:4).
And in the
early churches, the koinonia
was the common fund
out of which the deacons
administered the care for the poor
The koinonia was also the box, into which the gifts
were placed in church: a kind of
first century “offering plate”
So the word koinonia concerned
not just “fellowship” and “mutual
commitment”
but also a
sharing of resources,
a responsibility for the needs of
others in the church,
and the distribution of wealth.
And this
understanding of Koinonia
invites us to see the church
almost as a kind of business
association,
where each member is a
partner.
The church,
by this understanding, is a voluntary association,
to which no-one should ever be
forced to belong
like they were in England
However,
once people have agreed to join,
the implication of koinonia is that
their membership of the
church carries certain responsibilities,
both in terms of fellowship
commitment
and also in terms of financial
accountability.
This term koinonia crops up several times
in the passage we’re looking at this
morning.
Take a look
at Acts 2 verse 42:
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship (koinonia),
to the breaking
of bread and to prayer.
And then,
just in case we don’t get the point
Luke spells it out again in verses
44 & 45
Acts 2:44-45
All the believers were together and had everything in common
(koinonia).
Selling their
possessions and goods, they gave to everyone who had need.
This phrase
“everything in common”
has sometimes been interpreted as
meaning that
personal ownership of property
was abolished in the Jerusalem
Many
Christian groups over the years have, on the basis of this passage,
advocated the practice of a
“community of goods”,
or the formation of “common purse”
communities.
But that
isn’t actually what Luke was talking about,
so don’t start to get worried
that I’m going to be asking you all
to hand over the deeds
to your houses!
What Luke is
describing here,
is a voluntary process of
redistribution
from those who had much, to those
who had little.
We get some
further examples of this practice in action
if we read a little bit further on
in the book of Acts:
So for
example in chapter 4 verses 32-37
we meet Barnabas who sold a field
and brought the money to
the church for distribution.
And the
important thing to notice
is that we aren’t told that he sold all
his possessions.
He was
generous, but not to the point of impoverishing himself.
And we find
something similar in the rather terrifying story
of Ananias and Sapphira in the next
chapter:
Interestingly,
this unfortunate couple are NOT condemned for their failure
to give over all their personal
property.
Rather,
Peter explicitly recognised that this was theirs
to do with as they wished.
What got
them into trouble was their dishonesty,
and their attempt to deceive the
fellowship.
The
expression of koinonia in the early
Christian community
clearly left individuals free to
retain or give away their property.
But it also
called for a new understanding
of economic responsibility of
believers for one another.
This takes a
bit of thinking about…
But what was actually going on here
was that the
Spirit-filled believers
in
the days following Pentecost
were so aware of their fellowship
with God
and
their fellowship with one another
that they were accountable to one
another before God
in
their money and their possessions
Individuals
still possessed things;
they still owned houses, and fields,
and so on.
But the
difference was
that what they did with what they
owned
was decided not by the individual
but by the community.
As Luke says
in Acts 4.32
“no-one claimed that any of their
possessions was their own”
The great
sin of Ananias and Sapphira
wasn’t that they kept property for
themselves,
but that they dishonoured the koinonia relationship
between them and the
other Christians
and between them and God.
As Peter
says, in 5.4
“You did not lie to us, but to God!”
And in this,
we come to the heart of the matter…
because it brings it right back down
to the issue of discipleship.
You see,
Christianity isn’t about a list of rules
that have to be obeyed to be a
proper Christian.
There is no
set percentage
which will tell us that when we have
given that amount
then God will be pleased with
our giving
and that what is left is
ours to do with as we please.
It doesn’t
work like that,
in the community of Spirit-filled
post-Pentecost believers.
Rather, what
it comes down to,
is where our hearts are before God…
But
ironically, one of the tests of where our hearts are with God,
is the test of how we behave
with regards to our money and our
possessions.
When God
placed his Holy Spirit within us
and formed a koinonia relationship with us
through his son Jesus
Christ,
he also
placed us within the community of his people,
that is, the body of Christ, the
church,
and he
called us into a koinonia
relationship with one another
And the
biblical testimony
is that we cannot have one without
the other.
The implications
of the story of Ananias and Sapphira
are that it simply doesn’t work
to try and cheat the
body of Christ,
because all we end up doing is
cheating God
and
that, as they say, is a recipe for disaster!
We are
either in this
or we aren’t.
We are either
disciples of the living God
or we aren’t.
And if we
are, if we have a koinonia
relationship with God,
then we have to get to grips with
what it means
to have a koinonia relationship with one another.
And if we
diminish this relationship with each other,
then we are, by implication
diminishing our relationship with
God.
This
reflection on the meaning of koinonia
as fellowship
not just in terms of spiritual
support,
but also in terms of financial
accountability,
brings home
to us the difficulty we all face
in terms of trusting one another,
and in terms of trusting God.
We like to
say we trust in God.
But when it comes down to it,
are we actually prepared to do
it?
Are we
actually prepared to trust God with our finances?
Or are we going to seek to retain
some measure of control over them?
I think that
this has some serious implications for us
when we consider our giving to the
church,
because I
sometimes think
that we don’t realise the
seriousness
of what we are doing
when we give our money
to God.
Some plain
facts need to be said here
because we need to try and get our
heads around this one.
·
The church
is not an institution which needs our support.
·
The church
is not a club to which we subscribe.
·
The church
is not a building which needs maintenance.
·
The church
is not an employer with salaries to pay.
·
The church
is not an organisation for channelling our charitable giving.
The church
is the body of Christ’s people,
with whom we are called under God
to have a koinonia fellowship relationship.
The church
is the group of Christ’s people,
called together by God,
to be
accountable to one another in all things,
including our money and
possessions.
And this is
not an optional extra to our faith;
we cannot kid ourselves that all is
right with God
if we retain control over our
finances
and in so doing diminish
the koinonia relationship
into which we have been
called.
Which is all
very challenging stuff, is it not?
But what
does it mean in practice?
Well, I
don’t claim to have all the answers to this one
but I would like to put forward a
few suggestions
as to how we can start to live some
of this out
in our lives as
Spirit-filled post-Pentecost believers.
Firstly, we
can consider the issue of our giving.
How much is it right to give to God?
How much is God asking us to give to
him?
Believe it or not, my concern here isn’t for the future of our church
financially
it’s rather for the
future of our church spiritually!
If what we have been looking at in Acts is right,
and how we handle our
money before God
is an indication of
our relationship with God,
then it may be that some of us are skating on uncomfortably thin ice.
This isn’t an issue of money
this is an issue of
discipleship!
So in the name of Jesus Christ,
who has called us into
a koinonia relationship with him
I would like to
challenge us all
to think
again and to think seriously
about how
much of our money we are going to give to God.
Aha! I can hear some of you saying
I do give to God
I just don’t give to
the church…
Well, if that is you, then I would want to ask you a question…
What makes you think that you are qualified
to tell God what to do
with his money?
Because when we direct our primary giving to specific organisations of
our choosing,
what we are actually
doing
is retaining our
control
over the
money we are seeking to give to God.
The post-Pentecost Spirit-filled believers in Acts
were accountable to
one another
in what they would do
with their money.
And as post-Pentecost Spirit-filled believers ourselves
surely we are called
to do the same?
As I said earlier
giving to the church
is not giving to support an institution.
Rather, it is submitting to our brothers and sisters in Christ
in the use of our money
and our possessions.
And it is continuing to give and submit
even when the
community takes decisions we disagree with.
As a church, we decide together under Christ
what we will spend
God’s money on.
We decide together under Christ
where the resources of
the people of God will be used.
And these decisions are taken in koinonia, in community
they are fellowship
decisions.
They are the decisions we take at our church meetings,
and they encompass
everything from our commitment
to keeping
this building open as a Baptist mission to central London,
to paying the staff
and ministers who serve the cause of Christ through this place.
And if we withdraw that decision from the community,
and direct our giving
to God ourselves,
we withdraw from the koinonia relationship
into which we have
been called.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t support other charities
and other
organisations beyond those
which are supported
through the church community.
But I do think such giving should be additional
to the regular and
systematic giving to God
directed through the
people of God
to which
we have been called.
So in the name of Jesus Christ,
who has called us into
a koinonia relationship with one another,
I want to challenge us
all
to think
again, and to think seriously
about how
accountable
we
are prepared to be to one another
in
our giving to God.
So, as
church members will know,
our treasurer has challenged us all
to look again at our giving.
Unless
giving increases, we simply will not be able
to carry on doing the things here at
Bloomsbury
that we have discerned together we
are called to do.
Unless
giving increases,
we will have to make cuts to our
mission and ministry.
So, to
return to tithing for a moment.
Whilst I would never, ever, say that
it is compulsory;
try a little experiment with me.
Think of
your monthly income, and divide it by ten.
Then see if your giving is above or
below that amount.
For those
here who live on the breadline, living in or on the edge of poverty,
clearly you should be giving less
than a tenth.
In fact,
perhaps the rest of us should be giving to help you!
Which, of course, is what we do,
through our hardship fund,
administered by the ministers to
help those in need.
But for the
rest of us, my suspicion is that 10% should be starting point
for our giving to the church.
Indeed,
there will be some among us for whom the appropriate amount to give
will be far in excess of 10% of
income.
And hear
this: without the generous, faithful, and sacrificial giving
of us all to the work here at Bloomsbury,
we simply
cannot keep doing it.
Did you know
that, as a church,
we give away 10% of all our income?
We support a variety of causes,
including the Baptist
Union’s Home Mission Fund,
and the Baptist
Missionary Society,
and the various Baptist
Colleges in the UK and in Amsterdam.
And this is before we start giving
our charity of the year,
or the various other
gifts we make as a fellowship.
So there’s a
good precedent for using this as a rule of thumb.
I guess what
I have been trying to say
about our attitudes towards our
giving,
can be
summed up
by asking whether we are prepared to
trust God,
and whether we are prepared to trust
one another.
And this is
a difficult thing to do,
make no mistake about it;
but it is also the test of our
fellowship, our koinonia.
When the
Spirit came on the church at Pentecost
and created this new community of
believers,
the call of
God was on them
to do and be something profoundly different
from the way of the world.
The call was
on them to see the world turned upside down.
From the
world’s perspective
trusting God and trusting one
another with our money
is the stupidest thing to do;
because from
the world’s perspective,
we must look first to me and mine.
But God
calls us to do things differently,
and to model in our lives
our allegiance to a saviour who came
to overturn the world,
and to bring a new and radical way
of living
to those who followed
him.
And the
power to do this,
the power to live differently,
comes from the Spirit of Pentecost.
It is the
Holy Spirit, at work in us,
who transforms us, as he transformed
those first believers.
It is the
Holy Spirit who calls us
to a life of radical discipleship.
It is the
Holy Spirit who calls us
into a koinonia relationship with God
and into a koinonia relationship with one another
And it is
the Holy Spirit who empowers us
to live lives transformed from the
world’s priorities,
and rather to live in line with the radical
priorities of the kingdom of God.
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