Carla J. Bailey, Senior Pastor

Acts 2:42-47

Outside the window of my home office, behind my computer, I have a view of pine trees, sunsets, and the corner of our garage.  For the past few weeks, I’ve watched the pine trees through the misty fog created by the melting snow, the sunsets later and later each evening, and the snowpack on the roof of the garage recede, inch by painfully slow inch.  One day this past week, I don’t even know which day it was, the snow was finally gone from the flat roof.  Of course there’s still plenty of it mounded and mixed with black gravel and dirt on the edge of our driveway to last well into May.  Spring has been coming to the Upper Valley a little tiny bit each day for quite a while now.  When you live in the north, whether it’s in New Hampshire or Minnesota, the arrival of spring is a slow, daily grind.  It’s a natural reminder that some things just take time, and patience, and incremental, barely perceptible movements forward.

There is so much natural wisdom in the phrase “one day at a time” that it transcends all efforts of interpretation.  It is a phrase that helps the patient survive chemotherapy, the prisoner survive tedium, the stroke victim learn to speak again.  One day at a time makes it possible to perform miracles without ever being overwhelmed.  One day at a time keeps the drunk sober for one more day, and, praise God, one more after that.  One day at a time makes it possible to survive grief.  One day at a time marks the days until a soldier can home from Iraq.  One day at a time measures the journey back to health, or toward an anxiously awaited death.  One day at a time divides fear into tolerable portions.  One day at a time keeps us appreciative of what is here at hand, rather than always looking toward what we think we want.

There are other good phrases, slogans like one day at a time.  Because I love some of them, I want to include a few more this morning.  Tuck these away in your brains some place where you can pull them out again when you need them.
When I asked for patience, God gave me a traffic jam. 
If you pray for potatoes, better plant a garden. 
Acceptance is knowing the past will never get better. 
A clear conscience makes a soft pillow. 
When you dance with a gorilla, it’s the gorilla that decides when to stop. 
If it weren’t for a small deficit in my humility, I’d be perfect.
(this one is a little sexist but true, just the same), A husband who doesn’t admit to making any mistakes has a wife who has made one. 
No is a complete sentence.
My worst day as a resistor far surpasses my best day as a captive.
The difference between self-esteem and ego is that self-esteem doesn’t need an audience.
This isn’t about you.

But back to one day at a time, or, just for today, or day by day, whichever version you prefer.  In the story of the Acts of the Apostles, there are several of these snapshots like the one I read a moment ago, brief descriptions of the Christian communities in Jerusalem who were developing a common way of discipleship.  Written somewhere around 80 or shortly thereafter, Acts emphasizes the Christian church’s Jewish roots with significant devotion to the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish practices.  But, the stories in Acts also describe the nascent Christian life with its emphasis on community, common purpose and responsibility and significant time together.  “All who believed were together and had all things in common”, Luke tells us.  That may have been an essential survival technique.  Those earliest days of the Christian movement were difficult.  Jesus was gone.  He had appeared again, but only to a select few.  Lots of stories were being written about him and about his life but none had been around so long as to have gained significant credibility.  There was this person Paul who was starting churches here and there but Paul was such a strong personality and something of a suspicious convert.  Who knew if he would have any positive success or if he even should?

The new Christian community needed to stay close together, to carry out common practices, to remember Jesus every time they broke bread together.  They needed to pray together, eat together, care for one another’s financial needs.  They spent as much time in the temple as they could.  They were in awe of the miracles the Apostles were performing, bringing the most unlikely persons into a full confession of faith.  “And day by day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”
The Christian Church, over these many years since those first days in Jerusalem, has had to remake itself to respond to the changing world in which it lives.  There is a place for the isolated Christian community I suppose, but the retreat from full engagement with all that is occurring doesn’t seem to work well with how I understand the purpose of Christian community.  Recently, and by that I mean within the past 40 years, some branches of Christian community have gone into full fundamentalist mode, seeking answers to contemporary, vexing issues with an uninterpreted and uncritical use of Biblical texts.  Other Christian communities have returned to the hierarchy that garnered financial and emotional success in the Middle Ages.  Still others try to apply the spirit of Biblical teachings and the commitments that arise out of an understanding of the will of God to today’s issues and trials.  Others limp along, losing members slowly through nostalgia for a time that was never quite as good as it seems in our memory.  The United Church of Christ is someplace between these last two Christian experiences.  There are emerging models of Christian community.  It remains to be seen whether the new models will gain traction and whether they have the integrity required to attract others.  But wherever we are or however we understand our purpose, it is clear that Christians today are not the same as that first Christian community in Jerusalem, nor should we try to be.  Life is completely different now in 2008 than it was in the year 80.  The themes of threatened existence operate on a massive scale now.  Communication, while still easily misinterpreted, is instant.  Greed is so excessive in our nation we think cutting back to filling our cars with fuel once a week is a sacrifice.  Women speak in church. bring home paychecks and even vote, for heaven’s sake! 

Still, aren’t there lessons to be learned by those who did it first?  Who tried to shape a way of life in accordance to the life that had changed them?  “All who believed were together.  They sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds to all.  They spent time together in the temple.  They ate with glad and generous hearts.  They praised God.  And day by day, the Lord added to their number.”

Sometimes, when I think about the work of Christian ministry, especially when I hear other clergy talk about how difficult it is, I think, am I missing something?  This isn’t rocket science.  Our job is to create and sustain the environment in which Christians can live out their discipleship together.  Those of us called to leadership in the Christian Church, clergy and laypeople alike, would do well to remember that this is why we bother to sustain the life of the church – this and nothing else.  Your job, and mine with you (not for you), is to work together, live together, pray and eat and distribute our goods together, for the sake of God’s will on earth, a will that bends toward justice and peace and dignity and hope.  And the only way I know how to do that is to do it one day at a time, day by day, by day, by day.  Amen.