Sunday, May 11, 2014: Acts 2:42-47
Luke’s report of the church’s economic sharing interrupts our reading of what might otherwise be an easy passage.
For you. Of all the things I’ve learned in seminary and in ministry, the power of these two words is among the most important. Luther emphasizes this in his Small Catechism, where he insists that there is nothing people can do to make themselves worthy of communion:
Fasting and bodily preparation are certainly fine outward training. But that person is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” But anyone who does not believe these words or doubts them is unworthy and unprepared, for the words “for you” require all hearts to believe.
Those words “for you” carry the weight of this impossible, unbelievable mystery: that the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, gives a whit about every single person who approaches the table. It’s the mystery of the infinite, unknowable, whole, and holy one who yearns for us—and reaches out to us through bread and wine to make us whole, too. Those two words make a claim on each person who receives; they call each of us to trust that God has acted in Christ for us.
