Goodness

"...they demonstrated God's goodness to everyone."

This is what Luke says about the members of Jesus's movement post-Resurrection and post-Pentecost. (For those who aren't aware of the details, Acts 1 & 2 are where you want to start.) 

I have read this line for years. Some versions water this line down a bit: "[People] liked what they saw." Others use words like "favor" and "goodwill" to describe how the folks outside Jesus' movement experienced those disciples. Regardless, it seems like the Jesus movement was getting along quite well with the rest of the world. It was the beginning - maybe a kind of honeymoon period for the Church of Jesus and their relationship with everyone else. It would not last though. The very next chapter tells us that the disciples of Jesus are punished for healing someone. The 'goodwill' was before the martyrdom of Stephen and the coming historic persecution of Christians. It was before people learned how to manipulate the good Gospel for their own ends. It was before the cross was used as a justification for empires and crusades. This favor existed before followers of Jesus figured out how to fight among themselves, play politics with their faith and choose the riches of the world over defending the least of these. In Acts 2, this movement only had their faith in Jesus, their stories about Him, and well, each other. When I think about what's said about Jesus' movement today, it's honestly heartening to think of a day when "...they demonstrated God's goodness to everyone." was among the many things said about them/us.

I wasn't there, but I miss those days - you know what I mean?

Now if you are a Christian, follower of Jesus or some other similar identifier, please don't get on the defensive yet. And if you aren't identified with a church or Christian faith practice, don't get on the soapbox just yet. It needs to be acknowledged that Acts 2 was the beginning of the movement. The Jesus-movement was young, decentralized, under-resourced and underground. And many of the good things done in the name of Jesus over the centuries were inspired by what we read in Acts 2. The shared meals and the selling of property so needs were met; the simplicity of community and open invitation to new friends - that was where Christianity began. And every time we (the Church) have walked away from that simple response to Jesus' Gospel, we have lost our way. It happened, it still happens, and will happen because that kind of community is fragile and costly. Mark my words though; we Christians are gonna keep trying to get it right. I truly believe that for most of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, that's what we really want to do - maintain a posture in this world that causes those outside the movement to say, " Wow, they demonstrate God's goodness to everyone!"

And here is where I need to PAUSE.

What does goodness feel like? Is good objective? Who gets to decide if something is good or not? Can intentions be good but impact not so good? Can something be good if the intent isn't? And I'll ask the question again - who decides what is good?

When Luke uses the words 'goodness', 'goodwill' and 'favor' in Acts 2, whose perspective is he speaking from? My assumption is those who were experiencing it. If this is the case, the question we Christians need to be asking ourselves is does the good we bring and do feel good to those outside our movement? We can't answer that question - they answer that question.

To the Christian reading this post - when was the last time you asked a non-Christian about their experience of you as a person of faith? The unfortunate truth is that many of our family members, co-workers, and neighbors can't bring themselves to tell us the truth. And even if they did, would we listen? Would we take their experience of us seriously, or just call it a misunderstanding or worse, persecution. There are so many reasons why the world doesn't experience the goodness of God when they encounter the Church - some merited, and some not so much. But it should bother us as the heirs to the legacy of the Acts 2 community that the phrase "...they demonstrated God's goodness to everyone" isn't said about us today. It should keep us up at night. 

UNPAUSE

I can't ignore the dissonance of Acts 2:47 and the current experience many of my non-religious friends have when they encounter Christians. It's not okay. The world deserves better from us. But I promise you friends, many of us are trying. We really are. We are trying to live out the really good Gospel in ways that make sense for those who don't believe it or see it. We're gonna make mistakes because we are human. We're gonna say some wrong things because we often don't know what we're supposed to say. But the way of Jesus calls us to give it another shot tomorrow - and that's what many of us are going to do. We're sorry we haven't represented Jesus as well as we should've and we hope you will give us another chance. 

I believe there will be a day, maybe soon, where people will talk about the followers of Jesus in their family, neighborhood and workplaces and say "Damn, they demonstrate God's goodness to everyone." And that's gonna be a really good day!