As newly weds, we were privileged to live in a community a lot like that seen in this week’s Lectionary selection from Acts 4. Our town was the home of three christian church-related colleges, one of which was my recent alma mater. It’s no stretch to state we felt surrounded by believers who would help us in time of need. And there were challenges. My wife was still in college and I was working whatever jobs I could land to cover our housing, food, transportation, etc. And let’s not forget those monthly school loan payments. As it happened, I was able to keep employed for about six months at a time. Sometimes, though, there was a gap between jobs.
It was in one of those gaps that we experienced one of the premiere blessings provided to us by other christians.
We needed housing ... cheap housing. But, since we were surrounded by people who practiced the christian way, we should have been able to reach out for help when we needed it. That thought was foremost in my mind when I picked up the phone to call a leader of a local church to see if we could get some help with housing.
Not only did he find us a place to live ... it was free!
An elderly lady needed to take an extended trip to visit family members and needed someone to house-sit. There would be no rent —just pay whatever utilities we incurred and tend her garden— but there was one minor quirk: we had to leave the utilities in her name. She did not want to return from her travels and have to go through all the hassles of paying deposits, being subjected to credit checks, etc., in order to reestablish what she had already been doing for several decades at that address.
Considering our situation, it seemed little enough to accommodate.
Our time on Bridge Street was pretty idyllic. We lived in a home and gardened in the backyard. I eventually got a job and my wife continued her studies. But, of course, something finally occurred to change all that: my wife graduated from college and received the job offer of her dreams ... in another city.
Our benefactor asked only one thing from us: find another, trustworthy couple to be caretakers of the home ... and who would abide by the agreement to leave the utilities in the homeowner’s name. It’s seemed an easy assignment. We were living in a town of christians. There were several married couples at our college, alone, in similar (or worse) financial straits, and who would surely be interested in house-sitting under those circumstances. What’s a little gardening? And we found the perfect couple. He was the student and she was the one who was employed. Otherwise, they were the same; christians in need of a housing blessing.
We discussed the situation with them and they enthusiastically agreed to the requirements of the garden and the utilities . . . on which they promptly reneged once they were in the property. We were already in our new city when we learned of this. A quick phone call settled all speculation about possible misunderstandings.
They never intended to abide by the agreement. And they freely admitted it.
Like the christians in Acts 4, we had experienced the “mountaintop moment.” But like those early christians later learned in Acts Chapters 5 and 6, we learned churches are not always utopian communes. In short order, the early church was faced with one couple who lied about donating all of their land-sale proceeds to the needy, wanting everyone to believe they were more generous than they actually were. And it’s only a bit later when the church discovered prejudice alive and well within their fellowship: the Greek Jews reported that those in charge of distributing the communal food (local, Hebrew Jews) were intentionally skipping the Greek widows.
Here’s the bottom line: churches are often messy things, and they are comprised of fallible humans. It is worth pointing out that there is something the people in Acts 4, Acts 5, and Acts 6 had in common: they were all church members! While most of us would love for churches to always be like the one depicted in Acts 4, we have learned —sometimes in the hardest, most disappointing way— that the opposite is never too far away.
This is not Heaven; and, to paraphrase Max Lucado, we should stop expecting it to be. People are going to disappoint us. And it will hurt all the more when those people claim Christ as their savior, too. Acts 4 tells us those early christians “were of one heart and soul.” That can still happen. It does happen. But, as scripture also shows, humans are spiritually messy. When we have these kinds of “mountaintop” experiences, we should cherish them. And we should also recognize them for what they really are: a preview of the world to come, not expectations in which we should place our faith.
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Reference to When God Whispers Your Name © 1994 by Max Lucado
Photo: Google Maps
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Second Sunday of Easter (April 8, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
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DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast meets each Friday morning at the Waco “Egg and I” restaurant. Join us at 8:00 for an interesting time of laughter, scripture, prayer, and discussion. Food’s good, too!
Blessings,
Steve
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