Over the past year or so, I have been doing a lot of reading into what the early Christians taught and believed. What I have read has been quite astonishing and I sometimes feel that some of our churches today could learn from them.
The early Church saw themselves as a true family and they shared everything they had in common with each other. They did not have salaried ministers and there is no mention of paying subsididies to maintain church buildings. They shared their money with those in need, especially the poorer members of the brethren. In contrast, today's Christianity is big business. Did you like my sermon this morning? Buy the book! Do you read the Bible? Well, we sell all kinds of different versions - a Bible for students, a Bible for men or women, and even a special one that has been approved and endorsed by your favourite TV evangelist! (all debit and credit cards accepted).
The early Christians studied the word corporately. They were highly literate with the Bible. They also treated with great respect the traditions that had been passed on to them both orally and by letter. Today we have a do-it-yourself Christianity. We spend a lot of our time reading the Bible on our own, which is always a good thing, but we have lost the value of exploring our faith and learning together as a family. In the beginning, the brethren were truly united. There were no denominations. But now there are literally thousands of church denominations, each claiming that their way is the right one and that others are wrong.
The early Church had a very high view of the Eucharist and generally believed in the Real Presence. They would meet very regularly to share in Holy Communion. Today's Christians tend to celebrate this much less often. Once a week, once a month, once in a while, or perhaps not even at all.
In the early days of Christianity, the church was far from being militaristic. They were staunch pacifists, choosing to respond to evil with love. Many of them suffered for it. They did not spend a lot of time judging the actions of those outside its community or retaliating towards them. Sadly, over the centuries, those claiming to be Christ's followers have caused unimaginable suffering in the name of religion. Thankfully our churches today no longer burn dissenters and heretics at the stake, but neither have they shown genuine remorse or repentance. Many of them are still working tirelessly to keep those they dislike outside their church walls. People have to become just like us before we will welcome them as our brothers and sisters. They have to talk like us, dress like us, eat like us, and even vote for the same politicians we do, before we will accept that they are Christians. We spend more time having conversations about those who we wish to keep out, rather than those we wish to welcome in. The church could learn from the story of the tax collector who could not look up to heaven, but instead beat his breast saying "Lord have mercy on me a sinner".
The early church were certainly not soft on sin, and had great expectations of those who had committed themselves to the life of the church. But they were not a exclusive, holy huddle. They were a welcoming community, a serving community, a community of love and grace.
I think there are a lot of lessons we can learn from our early Christian brothers and sisters.
