WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.280 What do you think of when you hear the word family? 00:00:06.419 --> 00:00:10.640 My guess is for a lot of people that's quite a difficult word. 00:00:11.259 --> 00:00:18.640 A word that evokes a sense of sadness, grief or pain because of its association with some difficult experiences. 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:30.060 And for that reason, I think it's totally understandable why many people would prefer not to use the term family as an image to represent the church at all. 00:00:31.179 --> 00:00:33.620 And yet it's something that we can't really get away from. 00:00:33.780 --> 00:00:38.120 The New Testament Greek word is oikos, which means family or household. 00:00:38.740 --> 00:00:43.260 It's the living reality that we're adopted into when we become Christians. 00:00:43.259 --> 00:00:49.359 We're to regard ourselves as children of God, that is, as brothers and sisters in Christ. 00:00:50.479 --> 00:01:02.799 So if family is a genuinely biblical piece of shorthand for church, and I think it is, let's take a few moments to unpack what that means for us in practical terms. 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:12.519 Now, I guess most fundamentally regarding church as family reminds us that church is not something that we just go to, that we attend. 00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:16.060 But it's a living, breathing body of which we're a part. 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:21.439 Now, in the same way that you don't attend family, you don't attend church. 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:27.500 Rather, family and church refer to something that you belong to, that you're a part of. 00:01:28.840 --> 00:01:31.039 But what are the practical implications of that? 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:35.519 What does it mean in real terms to regard the church as our family? 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:44.500 It's here that we do well to remember what family, in the truest and most accurate sense of the word, really means. 00:01:45.219 --> 00:01:53.599 If we think it just denotes a cosy and exclusive nuclear unit where everything is just right and perfect, then we need to think again. 00:01:54.259 --> 00:01:57.259 That's not what family is, and it's not what church is. 00:01:57.260 --> 00:02:11.080 If, on the other hand, we take family to mean the messy and, at times, chaotic reality of different people living together and working out and working through the challenges that life throws at them, 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:18.439 then we're closer to the image of the church, and indeed family, that the Bible presents us with. 00:02:18.439 --> 00:02:23.379 You know, I've been in pastoral ministry for my entire working life. 00:02:23.560 --> 00:02:32.579 I would be very wealthy, indeed, if I'd been given one penny for every time that someone said to me that they just wished their family could be normal. 00:02:33.359 --> 00:02:40.599 Whenever anyone says that to me, I make no hesitation in telling them that there is no such thing as normal. 00:02:41.079 --> 00:02:47.460 Or, to be more precise, to be normal is to have problems and tensions and conflicts. 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:53.080 In fact, I would argue that the term dysfunctional family is actually quite misleading, 00:02:53.540 --> 00:02:58.819 because it implies that most families don't argue, fall out or experience some kind of tension. 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.000 The reality, of course, is quite the opposite. 00:03:02.600 --> 00:03:07.120 To be a family doesn't mean you just coast through life in a state of permanent bliss, 00:03:07.260 --> 00:03:10.760 where everyone simply basks in one another's mutual affection. 00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:16.760 Real families aren't like that, because real human beings aren't like that. 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:23.379 To be family means to engage in those real challenges and tensions of life, 00:03:23.500 --> 00:03:30.080 but to know that for all the mess and the chaos, there's a deeper bond that holds you together. 00:03:30.760 --> 00:03:34.680 That's what we mean when we refer to church as family. 00:03:35.260 --> 00:03:37.600 And the following story illustrates this. 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:45.240 Apparently, the words Amen and Alleluia are virtually the same in every language throughout the world. 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:52.620 Someone called Daniel Christensen brings this to life in the story about his relative called Anna George, 00:03:52.699 --> 00:03:55.340 who was a Romanian soldier in the Second World War. 00:03:55.340 --> 00:04:03.300 It was 1941 and troops had overrun the Romanian region of Bessarabia and entered Moldavia. 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:06.400 Anna and his comrades were badly frightened. 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:09.620 Bullets whizzed around them and mortar shells shook the earth. 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:12.460 By day, Anna sought relief from reading his Bible, 00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:18.040 but at night he could only crouch close to the earth and recall verses memorised in childhood. 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:24.220 One day, during a spray of enemy fire, Anna was separated from his company. 00:04:25.300 --> 00:04:28.480 In a panic, he bolted deeper and deeper into the woods, 00:04:28.819 --> 00:04:33.280 until, huddling at the base of a large tree, he fell asleep from exhaustion. 00:04:34.500 --> 00:04:39.480 The next day, trying to find his comrades, he moved cautiously towards the front, 00:04:39.660 --> 00:04:44.160 staying in the shadows of the trees, nibbling a crust of bread and drinking from the streams. 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:53.180 Hearing the battle closing in, he unslung his rifle, pulled the bolt and watched for the enemy, 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.120 his nerves near the breaking point. 00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:00.580 Twenty yards away, a Russian soldier suddenly appeared. 00:05:01.480 --> 00:05:02.260 He wrote this. 00:05:02.260 --> 00:05:07.960 All my mental rehearsals of bravery served me nothing. 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:13.460 I dropped my gun and fell to my knees and then buried my face in my sweating palms 00:05:13.459 --> 00:05:14.500 and I began to pray. 00:05:15.079 --> 00:05:20.359 And while praying, I waited for the cold touch of the Russian's rifle barrel against my head. 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:27.039 I felt a slight pressure of my shoulder close to my neck. 00:05:28.539 --> 00:05:30.240 I opened my eyes slowly. 00:05:31.259 --> 00:05:36.399 There was my enemy kneeling in front of me, his gun lying next to mine among the wildflowers. 00:05:36.779 --> 00:05:38.560 His eyes were closed in prayer. 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:42.620 We didn't understand a single word of the other's language, but we could pray. 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:47.399 We ended our prayer with two words that need no translation. 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:49.480 Alleluia. 00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:51.000 Amen. 00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:59.279 Then after a tearful embrace, we walked quickly to opposite sides of the clearing and disappeared beneath the trees. 00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:06.419 Now, to be a Christian means being part of a worldwide family, the church. 00:06:06.559 --> 00:06:11.759 It's a very diverse family and it transcends all nations, denominations and traditions. 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:16.459 And like any family, it has its tensions and it has its problems. 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:21.699 But for all that, there's a bond that goes deeper than anything else that divides us. 00:06:22.079 --> 00:06:27.839 In our passage from Acts chapter 2 today, we have a snapshot of the life of the early church. 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:34.139 Their life was one of radical discipleship, utterly focused on Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. 00:06:34.759 --> 00:06:41.079 They met together, ate together and pulled their resources together sacrificially in order to meet the needs of others. 00:06:42.019 --> 00:06:46.819 Totally outward looking, they were united with an intense sense of family and community. 00:06:47.779 --> 00:06:53.599 They had their problems, of course, and we don't need to read far into the New Testament letters to see that. 00:06:53.600 --> 00:07:01.680 But their love for one another with utter commitment to Christ was what essentially defined them as church. 00:07:03.060 --> 00:07:07.780 Now, there's a challenge for every generation of Christians.