"Changing and Responding Together"
Acts 2:37-47
Yonce Shelton, Westmoreland UCC
Oct. 26, 2025
Change. Everything seems to be changing around us. During the past two weeks we’ve explored how change has thrust us into the wilderness. How we are somewhat like the Israelites wandering for 40 years – and somewhat like Jesus and his 40 days in the wilderness. We have sought hope in understanding what change is doing to us. Today, we’ll focus on how church is changing – or might.
But first, remember that the Israelites wandered for 40 years because they rebelled against God by wanting to return to Egypt instead of facing new challenges in the Promise Land. That's key to understand: they wanted to return to the familiar; they couldn’t accept the new. Similarly, Jesus was driven into the wilderness and fought temptations that would take him back. Instead of returning to the same way of life, he used that time to experience, reflect, and determine how to react to change. Like with the Israelites, God was fostering growth.
We’ve embraced the wilderness because, by fully being there, when we leave we won’t go back to business as usual; we will be transformed like the Israelites and Jesus.
Political change. Cultural change. Church change. How will we respond? Can we find ways for God to work through us in a time of confusion?
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Today’s reading comes after Pentecost – after the Holy Spirit is given to the people and the church is born. This leads to many baptisms and followers “devot[ing] themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” And then we hear a well known description of the early church: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
I have worked with a few intentional communities and have learned what such special commitment to life together can be like. This passage grounds some intentional church communities. But it can also be oversimplified and needs to be understood. Not to do so can be like giving into the temptation to glorify the past and certain forms of church; to romanticize things that were more complicated. As I learned about intentional communities and different economic models, I began to wonder what they meant for me and creative ways of being church. As someone with means, I found myself asking about stewardship and if I could be a good Christian not by giving all my resources away, but by using them better. Yes, that could be rationalization! But it also aligns with some thinking about how Christians should understand biblical context.
Scott Shauf, a professor of religious studies, says there is no indication that early Christians all lived in this radical way. He notes that we don’t even find it in Acts outside of the original Jerusalem community. He says it's important to note that “where God is especially at work and where God’s presence is especially experienced, such giving and sharing is the natural Christian response.”[1] They were responding in a unique and intense context. Professor Shauf claims “[t]hat our own lives look quite different is likely an indication that we have not experienced such divine work among us. I do not mean this as an indictment but merely as a recognition. ... [S]uch powerful experiences of God’s activity are not common. But where they occur, our response should be one of celebration rather than suspicion, and we ought to seek such things, not avoid them.”
Response. How do we respond in times of change and new understanding?
Last week, we considered what Brene Brown says: "between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is the power of choice. And in that choice is our growth and our freedom. And I understand right now that stimulus and response are just smashed together, but it's the job right now ... of great leaders ... in our families, in our own lives, to create a space between stimulus and response.”[2] Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is the power of choice. We need to create a space between stimulus and response. And we need to understand that relationship better.
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Have you experienced divine work? Have you been radically changed by an experience with God? Have you been born again, like Katy preached about a few months ago? Felt the presence of God? Made a decision on a hunch that changed your life? But experiencing God doesn’t have to fit neatly in one of those molds. Oftentimes experiences are more gradual. Awareness builds. We may need more time to understand a change or stimulus.
In 2011, I had just completed a Masters in Pastoral Counseling and was discerning next steps. I was having a great interview with the VP of a hospice chaplaincy program when he said: “You’d be a great fit here. I need to know soon if you want this job.” I froze. Went silent. I went somewhere else. He waited and gently asked if I was OK. I returned to the room, embarrassed, and thanked him.
What the heck happened? I didn’t know until the next day. I realized that for the first time in a decade-long deepening spiritual journey, with choices that were hard for others to understand, here was something that was tangible. You know, a job that folks had heard of. That space-out was experiential recognition that it wasn’t for me. I was called to stay on the more mysterious path. A few months later – after some twists and changes – I was working with the Westmoreland Volunteer Corps intentional community and convincing Bob Maddox to give me a job at The Carpenter’s House counseling young adults, ministers, and nonprofit leaders.
What I think was a divine experience drove a response that changed my trajectory and ministry.
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“Our lives, communal and individual, ought to reflect our own experiences of God’s grace and action in and among us. ... How can our own lives better reflect what God has done for us and the living presence of Christ in our midst?[3] The claim I heard years ago stays with me: All you have to offer anyone is your experience of Christ.”
But it's not just personal. This stuff is also communal. So, what experiences of Westmoreland need attention? What does that mean as the church changes? How do we orient? Be good stewards? Be open to God? Perhaps we think about health in new ways.
Melissa Hermann sent me an article a few months back saying that when most people think of a healthy church they think about a beautiful building with a tall steeple, a charismatic pastor, pews full of young families and elders, and budget surpluses. “However, this model only briefly existed in the 20th century when over 90% of Americans identified as Christians. In 1950 ... 76% [of Americans] were members of a church, compared with only ... 45% in 2023.” The article says that “[t]oday, [in other areas of life], we are learning that we can live full lives with chronic conditions, varying abilities, and at any size. The Disability and Health Journal proposes moving from old understandings of health to new ones: “the dynamic balance of physical, mental, social, and existential well-being in adapting to conditions of life and the environment.”[4]
Society is questioning outdated definitions of individual health. What if we applied that to church? What if a healthy church was one that re-thought what it means to “be well” – which includes being less than perfect and not pursuing what has always been expected? What would it be like for Westmoreland to respond in even healthier ways to changes and new needs? What would we define as essential? How would we listen; sit with potential; define success?
Here's the thing: we may not need to change a lot of efforts. Think about all you already do. Let me lift up a few things: meeting the needs of immigrants and refugees under more stress now; creating space and support for federal workers; volunteering in countless ways to help at-risk populations; donating a record $100,000 to social justice and service initiatives this year.
Maybe we don’t have to reevaluate much in terms of what we are doing to help those in need, just as the early church. But, but, what about how we are being? What about how we prepare to respond to moments like members of the early church? Even if you aren’t sure about this change and Holy Spirit stuff, perhaps you agree that a church’s health is at risk when it thinks it has everything figured out; when it's not honest about challenges and change.
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In 2008, JoJo and I were members of a lay-led ecumenical Christian church in Mount Pleasant, DC: The Community of Christ. No paid staff. Everything was volunteer. Many of us took turns preaching, and our rotation included several retired clergy, leaders in faith-based social justice movements, and "regular people” like Barbara Hayden, who worshipped here with Dunstan for a few years. Barbara needed about a decade to build up the courage to join the preaching rotation and then she became a favorite because of her honest questioning of God and sharp wit.
That year, we needed to decide how to change some of the use of our worship space and building, which was a former Mexican restaurant that we owned and also offered as a community center for use by a range of groups. We had everything from local government meetings, to volunteer groups, to a pirate radio station, to punk rock concerts. We almost rented space to an anarchist organization at one point. But that's a longer story. Of course we were all super smart. But a few of us said: what if we sit with this and see how God might show up? Every morning at 8:30 for a few months, Bob, Sally, and I gathered in our worship space to read the Psalm of the day and sit in silence for half an hour. And then: so many things involving vision, partners, and opportunities fell into place. Maybe that experience helped us open and respond well.
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Let me close by returning to today’s reading: “Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.” God moved through the disciples as they responded because they were experiencing and understanding change and need. Miracles were done through them - not by them. They were developing a healthy relationship with God, which resists the temptation to think we can figure it all out. They “were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need,” not because that's how it should be in every church – but because they were so in it, and so open to the experience of God. Like Jesus, they were driven to respond in unique ways.
We must pay attention and be ready to respond to God. Living fully into that in our time and place may help God work miracles. Like the Israelites in their wilderness; like Jesus in his; and like the early church responding in a mind blowing new time, we can’t return to the familiar. We must embrace a new way together. That is cause for hope and celebration.
Amen.
